Group Files for Federal Hearing on 'Lost' IRS Emails

The watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a motion in a federal district court Friday for a hearing on the issue of "lost" emails from Lois Lerner and other IRS employees concerning the targeting of conservative and religious groups.

Judicial Watch requested information on the matter more than a year ago under the Freedom of Information Act and had filed a lawsuit that led to the revelations of the IRS targeting scandal.

The group has been seeking the emails, which the IRS claims were lost in hard drive crashes since May 2013.

In a new Motion for Status Conference submitted to the D.C. District Court, Judicial Watch states the "IRS has still not notified the Court or Plaintiff of the destruction of emails" and that "plaintiff only learned of the destroyed records on June 13, 2014, when the news media reported on the existence of IRS's letter to Congress about the status of the emails."

Judicial Watch is asking for a conference "as soon as possible to discuss the IRS's failure to fulfill its duties to this court under the law, as well as other ramifications of this lawsuit."

"The IRS is clearly in full cover-up mode," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.  "It is well past time for the Obama administration to answer to a federal court about its cover-up and destruction of records."

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, represents a number of groups targeted by the IRS.

He suggested it may be more than coincidence that Lerner's hard drive crashed just 10 days after a member of the House Government Oversight Committee signaled concern that the agency was targeting people based on their political views.

"You can't make this stuff up," Sekulow said.