The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is learning more and more as its members conduct interviews in their investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups, Rep. Jim Jordan says.
"Each time we interview somebody, we learn something new," the Ohio Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" Thursday. "First, it was Lois Lerner's hard drive that crashed. Then, it was six people. Then it was seven. Now, maybe as many as 20 — 20 out of the 82 people identified — 20 of them may have had a computer crash. Now, what's the odds of that?"
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IRS officials informed the committee in June the emails of former agency official Lois Lerner were lost in a computer crash. The IRS later revealed the computers of as many as seven other IRS employees were also lost.
Earlier this month, judges in two separate courts ordered the IRS to have an agency official
testify under oath explaining how two years of Lerner's emails disappeared. On Monday, IRS attorney Thomas Kane said Lerner's emails might be recoverable after all.
By law, federal agencies are required to keep copies of all email correspondence,
the Daily Caller reports.
Jordan took issue with IRS Commissioner John Koskinen for not informing Congress in earlier testimony about Lerner's lost emails, and accused the IRS of impeding the House investigation.
"They've slow-walked everything. They drag their feet. They take forever. They give us documents at 4:00 on Friday afternoon. They give them to us right before a holiday. It's just been their strategy throughout," he said.
Jordan said Congress had "more people to interview," and that the Oversight Committee would "keep digging to get to the truth." He called the actions of the IRS a "fundamental violation" of the right of Americans' free speech.
"This government systematically targeted people for exercising your most fundamental right — your right to speak out in a political nature, a political fashion, against your government. That was targeted for a three-year time frame," he said.
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