Queen April approximately

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan today wrote the Federal Election Commission regarding another mysterious hard drive crash, this one involving FEC attorney April Sands. Sands tweeted under the fitting handle ReignOfApril. The voluble Ms. Sands has admitted to disparaging Republicans and campaigning for President Obama in violation of the Hatch Act. J. Christian Adams wrote about the Sands case here for PJ Media.

The Issa/Jordan letter to the FEC — posted here in PDF, with several of Queen April’s tweets included — states (footnotes omitted):

As a part of a settlement agreement with the [Office of Special Counsel], Ms. [April] Sands admitted to violating the Hatch Act by soliciting political contributions via Twitter, conducting political activity through her Twitter account, and participating in a political discussion ‘via webcam from an FEC conference room . . . while on duty. The FEC [Office of Inspector General] sought to pursue criminal charges stemming from Ms. Sands’s solicitation of political contributions while on duty inside the FEC building. However, the FEC recycled Ms. Sands’s hard drive before the OIG was able to seize it, and therefore the OIG was unable to show that Ms. Sands’s solicitations and political activity were done from an FEC computer. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia thereafter declined criminal prosecution.

The Oversight Committee press release notes that Sands worked for former IRS official Lois Lerner when Lerner served as the FEC’s Associate General Counsel for Enforcement: “It is unclear whether Sands ever communicated with Ms. Lerner after Lerner moved to the IRS; however, the Committee is aware that Ms. Lerner maintained communication with some former FEC colleagues. Ms. Lerner even apparently shared information protected by section 6103 of the tax code with the FEC.”

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