The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) lost emails from five more employees due to computer crashes, likely bringing the total number of computer crash victims tied to the IRS targeting scandal to more than 20.
The IRS added five more employees to its computer crash list Friday, the Associated Press reported. The new computer crash victims are linked to congressional investigations into the IRS scandal and include two more Cincinnati-based tax exempt agents who worked under Lois Lerner.
The announcement came just hours after new emails revealed that computer-crash victims Lerner and Nikole Flax were part of a “secret research project” that led the IRS to improperly demand donor information from nonprofit groups.
The IRS initially said that it lost emails from seven IRS employees including Lerner, but then amended its estimate to state that nearly 20 employees suffered email-deleting computer crashes. Lerner’s computer hard drive was destroyed by the agency and her Blackberry was erased. (RELATED: Meet The First Seven IRS Employees Whose Computers Crashed).
U.S. House investigators will resume their inquiry into the lost emails when Congress returns from recess next week.