The IRS Totally Had a Contract with an Email Archiving Company, But Still Somehow Lost Lois Lerner's Emails

In the face of an investigation into whether the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative organizations, the IRS conveniently "lost" two years' worth of Lois Lerner's emails.

IT experts have already labeled the IRS' "dog ate my homework" excuse as ludicrous, and now evidence has come to light that the IRS had a contract with an email archiving company, Sonasoft, between 2005 and 2010.

The contract was cancelled a few weeks after Lerner's computer allegedly crashed and just before other IRS officials' computers are said to have crashed, the Daily Caller reported.

Sonasoft tweeted about the arrangement back in 2009.

The precise details of Sonasoft's arrangement with the IRS are unclear, but it seems likely that the company could have saved all those lost emails — if the IRS really wanted those emails to be saved.

A white paper on the company's website notes the importance of email archiving and touts its system as "archiv[ing] all email content and so reduc[ing] the risk of non-compliance with legal, regulatory and other obligations to preserve critical business content."

The IRS is being accused of breaking the law by not properly safeguarding Lerner's emails.

Sonasoft's motto is "email archiving done right."

This story has been updated.

(H/T: Reason)

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