House GOP: Data from Lerner Hard Drive May Be Recoverable

Congressional Republicans say the faulty hard drive that the Internal Revenue Service has blamed for the loss of ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails was less damaged than believed and that backup tapes with the data may still be available, The Washington Post writes.

Lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee said Tuesday that they had learned the drive from Ms. Lerner’s work computer, which crashed in 2011, was only “scratched” and that internal IRS documents had described its contents as recoverable. Also on Tuesday, GOP members of the House oversight committee released testimony from an IRS counsel who said the agency is no longer sure it recycled all backup tapes containing the correspondence, as IRS officials had said.

Republicans have raised questions about the IRS’ handling of missing emails they say could have a bearing on their investigation of the tax agency’s alleged targeting of Tea Party groups for heightened scrutiny. Ms. Lerner is the former head of the IRS nonprofits unit. John Koskinen, the IRS commissioner, testified on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the agency has effectively ended its own probe of the missing emails to avoid interfering with an inspector general’s inquiry, the Post also reports.