New emails show Lerner was concerned Congress might search her emails

And the plot thickens. As you will hear in the video below the IRS dumped a large volume of emails on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on July 3. The committee has not released the newly obtained email but Congressman Darrell Issa excerpted a few in his post.

‘I was cautioning folks about email and how we have several occasions where Congress has asked for emails … we need to be cautious about what we say in emails’

Issa does not provide a date for that excerpt but the context suggests it was about the time Learner answered her famous planted question before an ABA tax conference. Quoting further from the Issa post;

From the April 9, 2013, email exchange among Lerner, an IRS technology employee (Maria Hooke), and the agency’s Director for Exempt Organizations Exam Unit Manager Nanette Downing who led audits:
I had a question today about OCS [Microsoft Office Communications Server]. I was cautioning folks about email and how we have several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails – so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails.  Someone asked if OCS conversations were also searchable – I don’t know, but told them I would get back to them.  Do you know? OCS (Office Communications Server) is a Microsoft instant messaging system and evidently it does not save IM's on the server. An IRS technology employees responded that “OCS messages are not set to automatically save” but cautioned that “parties involved in an OCS conversation can copy and save the contents of the conversation to an email or file.”  Lerner responded,“Perfect.”

Congressman Jim Jordan confronted IRS Commissioner John Koskinen with the emails at today's hearing.