The White House said Wednesday it has found no emails between any person in the executive office of the president and a top Internal Revenue Service official who has been connected to the improper scrutiny of political groups.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the White House searched for all communications between the former IRS official, Lois Lerner, and executive office personnel. “We found zero emails,” he said.
He said the search discovered three emails in which a third party emailed both Lerner and executive office staff. He said one was spam and two others were from a person seeking tax assistance. Carney said those emails have been provided to congressional investigators.
The investigation is looking into why the IRS targeted political groups, particularly conservative ones, that sought tax-exempt status. Republicans in Congress have been trying to find out whether anyone outside the IRS directed the targeting.
The IRS said last week it had lost an untold number of emails when Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Lerner used to head the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status.
Six additional Internal Revenue Service workers lost emails sought by congressional investigators when their computers crashed, investigators announced Tuesday, escalating suspicions that the employees may have been trying to cover up political targeting of tea party organizations.
“Plotlines in Hollywood are more believable than what we are getting from this White House and the IRS,” said the investigators, Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., the chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.
The two House committees and the Senate Finance Committee are 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 handling 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.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is scheduled to testify before the Ways and Means Committee on Friday. The oversight subcommittee has subpoenaed Koskinen to testify at a rare evening hearing on Monday.
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