WASHINGTON (AP) – Investigators are blaming mistakes by IRS employees for the loss of thousands of emails related to the tax agency’s tea party scandal.
The agency’s inspector general says IRS workers erased computer backup tapes that “most likely” contained as many as 24,000 emails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner. Lerner used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status.
The agency’s inspector general, J. Russell George, is scheduled to testify Thursday before the House Oversight Committee about his investigation into the emails. The Associated Press has obtained his written testimony.
George says workers erased the tapes a month after IRS officials discovered that an untold number of Lerner’s emails had been lost. Still, George says he found no evidence the workers were trying to destroy evidence.