Cache of IRS emails in probe of tea party lost, agency says

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year.

The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner’s emails before 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.

Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-ex- empt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups.

“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,” said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

“There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the inspector general.”

The Ways and Means Committee is one of three congressional committees investigating the IRS over its handling of tea party applications from 2010 to 2012. The Justice Department and the IRS inspector general are also investigating.

Congressional investigators have shown that IRS officials in Washington were closely involved in the handling of tea party applications, many of which languished for more than a year without action.

But so far, they have not publicly produced evidence that anyone outside the agency directed the targeting or even knew about it.