Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive has been recycled, making it likely the lost emails of the lightening rod in the tea party targeting controversy will never be found, according to multiple sources.
“We’ve been informed that the hard drive has been thrown away,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, in a brief hallway interview.
Two additional sources told POLITICO the same late on Wednesday, citing IRS officials.
It may just be standard government procedure, but the revelation is significant because some lawmakers and observers thought there was a way that tech experts could revive Lerner’s emails after they were washed away in a computer crash in the summer of 2011. Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), for example, subpoenaed her damaged hard drive earlier this week, when he asked for “all hard drives, external drives, thumb drives, and computers” and “all electronic communication devices the IRS issued to Lois G. Lerner.”
“The computer crashed!”
“The computer is gone!”
“Lois Lerner? Never heard of her.”
Four year-olds can make up better stories than this. I don’t care how long it takes but I hope at least one or two Republicans stay focused on this until somebody fries for it.
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