Go figure

Wait a minute -- could it be that the IRS has been, well, a little less than forthcoming about the existence of Lois Lerner's emails? John Hayward examines the evidence:

Make sure you’re comfortably seated before reading the shocking news that the Obama Administration has been lying about the destruction of IRS scandal kingpin Lois Lerner’s emails.  According to a Justice Department attorney, the emails have been captured by a government backup system, but the government just doesn’t feel like digging them up, because it would be “too onerous.” 

But we'd heard from John Koskinen that the emails were gone. Perhaps he'd like to revise and extend his remarks a bit before the House.

Of course, the whole point of the exercise is to extend out the scandal as long as possible so that any revelation can have the moniker "old news." Not everyone is buying, though, including the tenacious Sharyl Attkisson:

Should a special counsel take over the Justice Department probe of lost IRS emails and the targeting of conservative tax-exempt groups?

Attorney General Eric Holder says there’s no need: his Justice Department is conducting a thorough and fair investigation.

But can the Justice Department be impartial in IRS probe of “lost” documents while, at the same time, defending the IRS in civil litigation over the lapse?

That's an outstanding question. Meanwhile, there's more -- back to Hayward:

We’ve also learned from filings in federal court that the IRS destroyed Lois Lerner’s Blackberry after the congressional inquiry had begun, and after the “hard drive crash” story was floated.  Naturally, no effort was made to recover subpoena-sensitive emails from her phone before it went to Blackberry Heaven.

After the inquiry had begun. That's beautiful. Remember when the President of the United States said this?

President Obama in a pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News said that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” behind the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups.

“There were some boneheaded decisions,” he said. “Not even mass corruption. Not even a smidgen of corruption.”

The president was right. Not a smidgen. The correct phrase would be ongoing, systematic corruption.