It's all a matter of playing politics and providing specific answers to specific questions.

Her computer crashed. As a result, she lost her saved email.

Did the archive service crash as well, or was all this simply ignored until the archive did its annual purge of unwanted data, which eventually devoured her backup email history for the period under question? Did everyone’s computer crash, thus destroying emails received from Lerner’s PC? As all were aware of the investigation that would eventually lead to a request for this email, all remained mum, until a few months ago, when the archive purge was completed.

That, my friend, is called the known destruction of federal evidence through inaction. One phone call would have stopped the process, and they all know it.