A new Fox News poll shows 76 percent of Americans believe the "lost" IRS emails were deliberately destroyed.
The consensus is: it’s no accident. More than three-quarters of voters -- 76 percent -- think the emails missing from the account of Lois Lerner, the ex-IRS official at the center of the scandal over targeting of conservative groups, were deliberately destroyed.
That suspicion is shared across party lines, albeit to varying degrees. An overwhelming 90 percent of Republicans think the emails were intentionally destroyed, as do 74 percent of independents and 63 percent of Democrats.
Overall, just 12 percent of voters believe the emails were destroyed accidentally. Another 12 percent are unsure.
The White House has classified the IRS targeting of conservative groups as a "phony scandal," but voters across all party lines overwhelmingly disagree and want Congress to investigate what happened until someone is held accountable.
Some 74 percent of voters now say lawmakers should investigate the IRS “until someone is held accountable,” up from 67 percent who felt that way in April. That includes 66 percent of Democrats.
Further, the majority of Americans do not believe President Obama learned about the IRS targeting scandal through the news as he claimed last year.
The new poll finds less than a third of voters believe that he actually found out about such scandals from the media (31 percent). Almost twice as many don’t believe that could truly be the case (60 percent).
Considering the overwhelming consensus on this issue among Republicans, Democrats and Independents (who can hardly ever agree on anything), it is surprising to see how Democrats have been conducting themselves on Capitol Hill over the past few days. Last Friday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified in front of the House Ways and Means Committee, where Democrats repeatedly issued apologies to him for the "disrespect" he was receiving through questioning about thousands of "lost" emails belonging to six IRS officials, including Lois Lerner. On Monday night when Koskinen appeared before the House Oversight Committee, the same thing happened. Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier accused Republicans of "badgering the witness" and D.C. Delegate Elanor Norton thanked Koskinen for his "extraordinary service to the people of the United States of America."
The hearings were held after the IRS announced nearly two weeks ago that emails from January 2009-April 2011 from IRS officials to outside sources like the White House, Department of Justice, Treasury, FEC and more were "lost" in a "computer crash." Yesterday National Archivist David Ferriero said the IRS did not "follow the law" for proper records keeping.