Yeah, but it's a lot easier to "lose" printed documents at need.
Hmm.
Two possibilities here. One is that Lerner's hard drive honestly did crash ten days after the Pubbies sent a letter indicating that they had learned of the discriminatory practices and she really really really wanted to recover her emails, just not badly enough to get them from the device purchased and maintained to save those emails. The other is that Lerner's hard drive needed to crash ten days after the Pubbies sent a letter indicating that they had learned of the discriminatory practices, so going to the back-up tape would have been at cross-purposes.
I don't see that happening. The IRS is blatantly lying and destroying evidence with at least the passive support of the Obama administration, as witnessed by the total lack of interest in prosecuting the felon who leaked the information in question. They know they are beyond the law. Why then would they turn over anything that might be a smoking gun simply because some pissant judge so ruled? The BATFE under Carter simply ignored dozens of judicial rulings and orders, and the IRS under Obama is just as unlawful.