Deputy Attorney General James Cole told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that his department learned of the 2011 hard drive crash that erased two years of the former IRS official's emails from the media around the same time the IRS told lawmakers in June.
Cole took the hot seat to answer GOP questions about the department's ongoing probe of the IRS tea party controversy, which will also encompass the circumstances of the missing emails.
Republicans have blasted the department for leading what they call a sham investigation infiltrated by politics; Democrats defended the department as an independent entity above Washington bickering.
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