Anyone sufficiently skilled with computers knows that it’s extremely hard to make your data truly disappear without a trace, even when your hard drive crashes. Lois Lerner’s probably thinking about that right now. Earlier today news surfaced that the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the official IRS watchdog, found about 6,400 of Lois Lerner’s supposedly lost e-mails during its investigation. Even though these e-mails are still being reviewed, it looks like we might be able to find some helpful information from these e-mails, too. Per CNN:

Because the inspector general is still turning over the emails to the committee, congressional staffers CNN spoke to were not familiar with their contents.

However, one staffer familiar with the investigation said the emails were from 2004 through 2013, with the bulk coming from 2012. About 650 are from 2010 and 2011, when the alleged IRS targeting began.

If these e-mails do contain some explosive information about the nature of the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups, then what will the consequences be? If everything we’ve heard* about the agency’s actions are true, then we need to see people sent to prison. As HotAir’s Jazz Shaw notes, 6,400 e-mails is a large number to comb through, so don’t expect any immediate revelations. Still, a development like this should allow the Congressional investigation to make some real progress on the matter.

*=From media who aren’t invested in covering up and composing apologia for what happened.