- The Washington Times - Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Rep. Paul Gosar said Tuesday that tweaks to record-preservation laws in the wake of the IRS political targeting scandal will amount to nothing if agencies do not follow the rules, anyway.

“That’s pretty much immaterial if you don’t uphold the rule law, right?” the Arizona Republican said.

Mr. Gosar made that point during a House oversight hearing on missing emails from Lois Lerner, the central figure into the GOP probe of how the IRS treated conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

A hard drive crash in 2011 caused two years of her emails to be lost, though IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has said they are trying to recover as many of those emails as possible by using other methods.

Lawmakers on Tuesday toggled between political squabbling and a look at existing guidelines for preserving key emails and documents.

Democrats said the IRS does not have enough resources to maintain and procure records, while Republican made the case that agency officials did not report the missing emails to the National Archives and keep required back-up materials.

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.

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