The House’s top investigator expressed his growing frustration with the IRS’s level of cooperation in the probe of its tea party targeting scandal, labeling Friday’s revelation of more lost emails as part of a “pattern” that “must stop.”
Darrell Issa, chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman, called for Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to address the perceived targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status in the wake of the IRS admission Friday that records for five additional employees under congressional investigation have disappeared, after claiming the same about emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner earlier this year.
“The so-called ’most transparent administration in history’ has given Congress inconsistent information since the beginning of the targeting scandal,” said Mr. Issa, California Republican. “First, the administration denied that targeting was occurring, and then ’rogue agents’ in a field office were blamed for the misconduct. Today, months into the congressional investigation, we’re still getting conflicting information. This time, it’s on the number of individuals who experienced email losses. First it was only Lois Lerner, now we learn there are 5 others, several months after the administration supposedly came clean about email losses. … This pattern must stop.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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