Rep. Louie Gohmert insisted Friday that he knows how to find the lost email of former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner: Put up a $1 million reward.
“We know they can be found. We just need the people to help find them,” Mr. Gohmert said on Fox News.
Mr. Gohmert and fellow Texas Republican Rep. Bill H. Flores introduced a bill that would pay $1 million for producing the missing emails or $500,000 for information about who destroyed the emails.
“And don’t forget the other — not just the carrot but the stick,” Mr. Gohmert said of the legislation. “We reduce everybody’s salary in the IRS 20 percent until the emails are produced.”
The lost emails from Ms. Lerner, who is the central figure in the tea party targeting scandal, has spurred cover-up accusations and conspiracy theory among lawmakers. The IRS has insisted a hard-drive crash permanently erased two years of Ms. Lerner’s email, covering the time during the 2012 campaign cycle in which the tax agency targeted tea party and conservative groups for extra scrutiny for tax-exempt status.
Mr. Gohmert also faulted the Justice Department for not aggressively pursuing the lost emails.
“You can have a Justice Department that is actually involved in justice, and they use pressure, and they will get it done,” he said. “But we don’t have a Justice Department. We have a ’just us’ — or injustice — department.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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