This revelation just opens the door to a whole new sort of investigative track concerning exactly what she was up to, what she was doing," says Chris Farrell, director of investigations for Judicial Watch.
In response to an open records lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, the IRS revealed to a federal court that during her time as head of the division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, Lerner conducted government business using a second personal email account registered under a phony name.
An IRS attorney told the court that the agency realized, as it was gathering together documents to turn over to the watchdog organization, that Lerner had used another email account other than her official one already known.
Farrell admits he's not confident the Obama Justice Department will ever prosecute Lerner or anyone else at the IRS.
"They've made it clear that they will not support or will not put up with any kind of legal action being taken against what's clearly abuse of the IRS system: weaponizing the Internal Revenue Service to be used against the political opponents of the president," he adds.
According to Farrell, litigation by Judicial Watch forced the IRS first to admit that Lerner's emails were supposedly missing – and then that the emails were in fact on the agency's back-up systems.