them fairly no matter who they are. republicans, democrats, whatever organization they belong to. at the heart of the scandal are two years of missing e-mails from this woman, lois learner, who used to run the tax exempt division at the irs. those e-mails were lost in a computer crash. he revealed yesterday irs computers have experienced 2,000 hard drive crashes just this year. he also said 24,000 of learner s missing e-mails have been recovered. so far, none indicate any communication with the white house or the treasury department. when i asked him if the irs would accept a computer failure as a valid excuse from taxpayers if they re being audited, he sounded conciliatory. if you lose a document, it doesn t mean you lose the argument. we ll look at other evidence like the 24,000 e-mails. if we can find any evidence to support your case and, in fact, if the circumstances support your case, we ll support you and
polling place. reporter: sticking up for the internal revenue service is never easy but now democrats are caught between a rock and a hard place and votes distrust the agency. democrats in congress along with the administration have labeled the gop claims of an anticonservative bias at the irs as nothing more than a conspiracy theory. 14 congressional hearings. 30 interviews with irs employees. 50 written congressional requests and 750,000 pages of document and all of that has done nothing to substantiate false republican claims of a broader conspiracy. i cannot cast a vote. it would place me on the same page of history books as senator joseph mccarthy. reporter: the allegation that lois lerner lost more than two years of e-mails resulting from a computer crash has public opinion emboldening the gop. a deeper look at the poll shows the vast majority of both political parties are skeptical of the irs. archivist of the united states further added to the skepticism
are going to be very specific investigations as to how this happened. republicans are already going into the irs investigation very, very aggressively and believe they are being stonewalled and the administration is covering up. this comes in the context of lois lerner s personal emails between 2009 and 2011 having disappeared in a computer crash. republicans are furious and alleging this is a deliberate attempt to block their investigation. now the investigation will include whether or not senator grassley was targeted. he s the ranking republican on the senate finance committee. that means if the republicans were to take over the majority next year he would be the chairman of it. the finance committee writes taxes. it has jurisdiction over the irs. grassley has been a ranking member and a chairman of the senate judiciary committee. look for this to cause a lot of stir at the department of justice prompted by this. a story that doesn t go away. carl cameron, thank you so much. yea
attorney general eric holder continues to refuse to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuse of power by the irs against the american people. he should be impeached. reporter: lawyers representing the irs say the e-mails show lerner was way outside her authority. it was within the irs, but clearly way outside the scope of what lois lerner had the authority to do. it shows the political nature of what she s doing. reporter: an irs staffer pushed back against her proposed audit at the time. audits cannot be initiated solely by personal requests or suggestions by any one individual inside the irs. but with the interm revenue service still claiming much of lerner s other e-mails were lost in a computer crash, the investigators say it s a larger pattern of abuse. we don t want her in jail, we want the truth. 80% of americans believe they can t trust their irs. that means they can t trust their government and they can t trust their president. reporter: democrats say
the fastest speed dial. the fastest office plant. so why wouldn t i choose the fastest wifi? i would. switch to comcast business internet and get the fastest wifi included. comcast business. built for business. . developing tonight, less than two weeks after the irs played a computer crash for wiping out evidence in a congressional investigation, it is deja vu all over again. today the e.p.a., yet another federal agency, says it, too, had a big crash, and cannot provide the e-mails critical to an investigation by the house oversight committee. why not, it s working for the