House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa ( R., Calif.) slammed the IRS' "amazing sequences" of cover-ups during an appearance on Fox News, following a new report which suggests that Lois Lerner's emails were never truly "missing" following a computer crash.
Watchdog group Judicial Watch learned Friday from a Department of Justice attorney that the federal government backs up all their computer records in case of catastrophe. The Department of Justice now says it would be "too hard" for them to obtain the emails from that database.
Issa described the reports as part of "What's emerging to be just an amazing sequences of cover-up, delay, denial, even what now appears to be a false statement from the new IRS commissioner in which he said he moved heaven and earth to get us Lois Lerner's lost emails.
"And now we find out through Judicial Watch, that in fact they exist, but they simply haven't been asked for, they're too burdensome. They do exist."
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified a few months ago that the emails had been lost. Issa said he intends to call Koskin in for a closed-door deposition, where he will "ask him extensively what he knew and when he knew it. We can go through day by day how much time he spent getting briefed for his hearings, because he either lied under oath, or he chose not to know a critical fact. When he said heaven and earth was moved, and in fact somebody, many somebodies, knew that Lois Lerner's emails apparently do exist, and they simply haven't bothered to go get them."
Issa said his committee will "look forward to finding how the commissioner could say they don't exist, when in fact they do."