Dear Chairman Gowdy:

I am writing to express my strong support for the Oversight and Government Reform Committee to continue the investigation into former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Director Lois Lerner’s missing records and harassment of Christian and conservative organizations. This subject is still very important to many Americans.

Recently, President Trump cleared Lois Lerner of any criminal liability related to earlier cases of the IRS unfairly targeting of charitable organizations.

The Committee has previously received updates from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) as well as the Deputy Inspector General for Investigations on their ongoing efforts to recover former IRS Exempt Organizations Unit Director Lois Lerner’s missing emails.

I believe we should remain concerned that the IRS misled the American people and our committee about its efforts to recover the former Director’s emails. The IRS has claimed under oath that most of her emails from a key time period were destroyed by a crashed hard drive. They also said that back-up tapes were erased and were therefore unrecoverable. Through their ongoing efforts, the Inspector General’s office has discovered that the back-up tapes do exist, the data on them was never erased, and the emails are in fact recoverable.

I feel this is an important topic to revisit for many of our constituents. I ask for your full consideration in the continuation of this important investigation.

Sincerely,

Non-narcotic, industrial hemp was legal in the U.S. until 1937, and is used to create a variety of products, including construction materials, biofuel, rope, plastic composites and more.

Currently, the U.S. is the only major industrialized country that cannot legally grow hemp. The U.S. is also the largest importer of industrial hemp material, which means that American farmers are losing out on potential profit to farmers in other countries like Canada who can legally grow hemp.