The U.S. Justice Department has agreed to investigate the apparent loss of IRS emails linked to a probe into whether conservative non-profit groups were improperly targeted by the agency, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The IRS has produced thousands of emails, but Republicans believe more emails will surface.
Breaking: Justice Dept. investigating lost IRS emails. IRS has produced thousands of emails, Republicans believe there are more. Story soon.
— Capital Journal (@WSJPolitics) July 16, 2014
Former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner is at the center of the email controversy. The IRS recently disclosed that Lerner’s mails from 2009 through mid-2011 were lost in a computer crash. Two federal judges last week ordered the IRS to explain how the emails were lost.
House Republicans last month expressed outrage over an email they say shows Lerner suggesting the possibility of auditing Senator Charles Grassley, R–Iowa, over a group's offer to pay for accommodations for his wife to attend a speaking engagement with the senator.
Released emails show Lerner appears to have mistakenly received the invitation to the event which was meant to go to Grassley. Lerner, in an email conversation with another IRS official, wrote, “Looked like [the group was] inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?”
Republicans responded with frustration.
"We have seen a lot of unbelievable things in this investigation, but the fact that Lois Lerner attempted to initiate an apparently baseless IRS examination against a sitting Republican United States senator is shocking," Representative Dave Camp (R–Michigan), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement.