The questions only increased on Tuesday about missing emails at the Internal Revenue Service, as Republicans charged that not only are emails missing for ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, but also for a half dozen other IRS workers who seemed to play a part in extra scrutiny for more conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.
"It looks like the American people were lied to and the IRS tried to cover-up the fact it conveniently lost key documents in this investigation," said Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) in a joint statement, as they again scoffed at the idea that computer crashes had permanently deleted possibly important IRS emails.
"Plot lines in Hollywood are more believable than what we are getting from this White House and the IRS," the two Republicans said.
"Where oh where have the emails gone? Where oh where can they be?" mocked Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) on the House floor.
The latest revelations pushed the House Ways and Means Committee to push up a hearing scheduled for next week to this Friday - as the IRS Commissioner will be pressed by Republicans to explain why it took so long to tell lawmakers about the missing emails.
"Lois Lerner's emails just vanished? Yeah, right," said a graphic tweeted out by Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN).
"How convenient for them," added Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
"Truly unbelievable," chimed in Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA).
Just to make sure the emails are truly lost, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena for the hard drive used by Lois Lerner, along with any and all backup tapes used by the IRS for email storage.
That may be part of the problem, that the IRS evidently has not had a system that truly backs up all emails.
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