Lawmakers are "furious" over the claim by the Internal Revenue Service that emails subpoenaed by a congressional committee had been lost, Rep. Jason Chafetz said on Fox News.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of which Chafetz is a member, had asked for the emails of former IRS official Lois Lerner over a year ago for their investigation into claims the IRS targeted conservative groups seeking nonprofit status.
The IRS on Friday revealed that Lerner's emails had been lost due to a computer malfunction. On Tuesday, lawmakers announced the IRS had lost the emails of an additional
six IRS employees.
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"We're all furious about this," the Utah Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" on Wednesday. "[Oversight Committee] Chairman [Rep. Darrell Issa] has issued a subpoena for the actual hard drives themselves. We'd like to have the actual hardware ourself so we can look at it."
Chafetz said he asked IRS Commissioner John Koskinen directly when he testified to the Oversight Committee in March about Lerner's emails. He said Koskinen gave no indication there was a computer problem connected to them.
"I personally asked [him] if they had the emails, and what are they doing with those emails. He said they have all of them. He said they were stored on servers. Was he disingenuous then? Was he lying to us then? Was he just totally not informed?" Chafetz asked.
Chafetz called the administration of President Barack Obama "bold" to delay providing Congress with requested information, essentially telling lawmakers, "No. We are not going to do what you asked us to do."
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