Adding to the growing public consensus ex-IRS official Lois Lerner was abusing her agency's authority to unfairly and illegally target conservative leaning and Tea Party not-for-profit groups, is a new email uncovered by Congressional investigators Wednesday which indicates Lerner was quick to suggest an audit of Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in December 2012, the Associated Press reported.

Lois Lerner, whose lost emails have revived the investigation into the matter of abuse by IRS officials, mistakenly received an invitation from an unnamed group that was intended for Grassley. The event organizer allegedly offered to pay for Grassley's wife to attend the event, leading Lerner to suggest referring the matter for an audit in a short email exchange with colleagues. "Looked like they were inappropriately offering to pay for his wife. Perhaps we should refer to Exam?" she wrote.

In response to the email, IRS official Matthew Giuliano waved her off, claiming Grassley hadn't even accepted the invitation and receiving attendance income is "not prohibited on its face." In a follow-up email, he said the proper procedure would be to see if the group files a 1099 form to report the "income" Grassley earned, and see if Grassley reported that income in his annual tax filing, according to The Blaze.

Grassley never attended the event or received any invitation from Lerner, Grassley's office said in a statement. "This kind of thing fuels the deep concerns many people have about political targeting by the IRS and by officials at the highest levels," Grassley said. "It's very troubling that a simple clerical mix-up could get a taxpayer immediately referred for an IRS exam without any due diligence from agency officials."

Lerner's targeting a sitting U.S. senator in the recently found email, has Republican leaders and - according to recent polls -- the public crying foul, calling it proof of bias and a possible cover-up.

David Camp, House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), said it is "shocking" that Lerner would use the email mix-up as a way to attack Grassley. "At every turn, Lerner was using the IRS as a tool for political purposes in defiance of taxpayer rights," he said. "We may never know the full extent of the abuse since the IRS conveniently lost two years of Lerner emails, not to mention those of other key figures in this scandal."

The IRS said in a statement that it could not comment on the specifics of the case "due to taxpayer confidentiality provisions."

"As a general matter, the IRS has checks and balances in place to ensure the fairness and integrity of the audit process," the IRS statement said. "Audits cannot be initiated solely by personal requests or suggestions by any one individual inside the IRS."

Learner, who headed the IRS division, has been accused of processing Tea Party and conservative groups' for tax exempt status in an unfair manner before the 2010 and 2012 elections, including the IRS who improperly delayed dozens of applications for years, according to an internal audit by the agency's inspector general. Documents show that some liberal groups were singled out, too, Politico reported.

Since the scandal broke in 2013, documents from various agencies and individuals have been requested by GOP-led House committees, with IRS claiming to have spent $10 million in compliance of such requests. But Lerner, who was placed on administrative leave shortly after the scandal broke, and has since retired, remained the focal suspicion of the controversy, repeatedly denying any illegal behavior.

Early in 2014, the IRS finally agreed to hand over all of Lerner's emails and set about collecting them, only to realize that many of them prior to April 2011 were missing. In a claim that strains all credulity, the agency stated to have discovered that Lerner's computer had crashed in mid-2011, wiping out most of her emails; The fact that they made no mention of this after promising to turn over the documents for two months cast had committee investigators crying foul, especially after it was revealed this week that, as a matter of Federal law, the agency was required to and has maintained a contract with an outside company, Sonasoft, for the sole purpose of backing up the email files. As a result of what many on Capitol Hill believe to be a convenient stall and cover up tactic, outspoken conservative Senator Ted Cruz (Republican, Texas) called for the Justice Department Thursday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the matter further.

"At the time of Lerner's computer crash in June 2011 the IRS had a policy of backing up emails on computer tapes, but the tapes were recycled every six months, Koskinen said. He said Lerner's hard drive was recycled and presumably destroyed," according to the AP. "The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 period because she had copied in other IRS employees. Overall, the IRS said it was producing a total of 67,000 emails to and from Lerner, covering the period from 2009 to 2013."

She has refused to testify to Congress, citing her right against self-incrimination and has twice pled the Fifth to avoid answering questions under oath from Congressional committees. But the House ruled that she waived that right during her appearance before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and has voted to hold her in contempt of Congress, The Washington Times reported.

Ways and Means is one of three congressional committees investigating the way the IRS processed applications for tax-exempt status. The Justice Department is also investigating.