The Internal Revenue Service said a former official's 2011 computer crash significantly hampered its efforts to dig up correspondence requested as part of a congressional review of the agency's treatment of conservative groups.
The IRS said it is providing more emails to lawmakers and is doing its best to reconstruct correspondence from the former executive, Lois Lerner, who retired as the controversy unfolded last year. Its effort, which has included searching email of other senders and recipients, resulted in an additional 24,000 emails that are being provided to lawmakers, the agency said in a summary of its actions.
House Republicans investigating the IRS controversy reacted unhappily to the news of Ms. Lerner's computer crash.
"The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS's response to congressional inquiries," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R., Mich.) said. "There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by the Justice Department as well as the inspector general."
Mr. Camp said the IRS couldn't provide Lerner emails to and from people outside the agency, "conveniently" feeding the impression she "acted alone." He called for an administration-wide search for her emails. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said, "If there wasn't nefarious conduct that went much higher than Lois Lerner in the IRS targeting scandal, why are they playing these games?"Read the rest of the story HERE and view a related video below:
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