Utah Republican Senator Mike Lee said Thursday that disgraced IRS official Lois Lerner’s missing emails “feel a lot like a cover-up,” suggesting the emails were not lost but “deliberately destroyed.”
The tea party favorite spoke with the conservative One America News Network Thursday about the latest development in the IRS tea party targeting scandal.
Republicans in Congress have long demanded the emails of former IRS Exempt Divisions head Lois Lerner. But last Friday, the IRS admitted that Lerner’s hard drive had been damaged and the emails rendered irretrievable, and on Wednesday they added that the computer had been destroyed outright.
Like many political and media observers, Lee found the whole thing unbelievable. “We’re told that [the hard drive] is gone, and that the emails are gone,” he said, “and yet there are countless IT experts who are coming out of the woodwork explaining emails don’t just get lost. They don’t just disappear.”
“Perhaps they can be destroyed, but they don’t just disappear,” the senator continued. “And they’re telling us that these just magically disappeared. This is a sort of ‘my dog ate my homework defense.’ And it doesn’t work in third grade, and it shouldn’t work now.”
And when asked whether perhaps the missing emails fell victim to a deliberate cover-up?
“Well yeah, it feels a lot like a cover-up,” Lee admitted. “And so I’m sure investigations will continue, particularly on the House side where Republicans are in control of the committees. And I hope to find more out about this.”
“Because the thing is, if these emails disappeared that probably means they were deliberately destroyed,” the senator explained. “And if they were deliberately destroyed we need to get to the bottom of that. Who ordered the destruction and how did it happen?”
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