http://definitions.uslegal.com/a/adverse-inference/

An adverse inference generally is a legal inference, adverse to the concerned party, made from a party’s silence or the absence of requested evidence. For example, as a sanction for spoliation of evidence, a court may instruct the jury it could draw an inference that the evidence contained in the destroyed documents would have been unfavorable.

You are going to hear a lot more about this because of the IRS scandal.  Some legal analysts have already addressed this issue.  But so far, no one is addressing the obvious conclusion.  The decision to destroy those IRS e-mails was made at a very high level. This cover-up involved multiple steps and multiple entities.  Stupidity is an inadequate explanation.  Odds are high that legal counsel was involved in the decision.   That means the potential for an adverse inference instruction was probably addressed.  Yet it is pretty obvious that obviously material e-mails were still deliberately destroyed.  Or, more accurately, there was an all-out attempt to destroy those e-mails.  It is still possible, if not probable, that someone will find a way to recover them.

That leads to one conclusion.  Someone, very high up on the food chain, made a decision that ANYTHING was better than releasing those e-mails.  That means whatever is on those e-mails is more than bad.  It is more than very bad.  It is devastating.

TDM