Topic: IRS claims it has LOST two years' worth of emails from former official Lerner - page 2. (Read 22699 times)

I have always thought that impeachment would be the best option for the country, because it would lead administrative officials to think twice before obeying illegal orders from higher levels.

That's assuming the evidence of wrong doing is as clear cut as it seems to be and can be traced to specific culpable individuals.

Agency destroyed e-mails after telling Congress they couldn’t be found.



ouse Republicans investigating the IRS’s targeting of tea-party groups are seriously considering an effort to impeach IRS commissioner John Koskinen or other agency employees for “culpable misdemeanors” pertaining to the destruction of e-mails written by Lois Lerner, the former official at the heart of the scandal. “We’ve briefed the leadership’s counsel, and I think that they’re open to it, but it’s the type of thing where this town is like, ‘oh, that’s not how we do things, it’s not really been used lately,’” a Republican member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee says. “But, quite frankly, we really haven’t had executive branch officials behave this way like we do now.”

Lawmakers have been privately mulling the unconventional tactic for months, in part due to frustration that cutting the agency’s budget and holding Lerner in contempt of Congress failed to speed up the glacial pace at which the agency has produced documents requested by the committee. The ultimate decision depends on their ability to demonstrate that the IRS has obstructed the investigation — a public case that might begin Thursday, when the Treasury Department’s inspector general announces that IRS officials destroyed the files “most likely to have contained Lerner’s emails” after telling Congress they could not be found, according to a transcript of the IG’s forthcoming testimony to the Oversight Committee obtained by NR. Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the committee, says the next steps depend on what emerges from the hearing. “We are going to have the hearing, digest the content, read the report, and then chart a way forward,” he says.
 
According to inspector general J. Russell George, IRS officials literally put Lerner’s hard drive through a shredder, destroying it without exhausting every means of attempting to recover her data. “IRS IT management determined the extra effort to recover data from Ms. Lerner’s hard drive was not worth the expense,” George says in his prepared testimony.

That decision was made even though a technician in the criminal investigations division of the agency had “noted some scoring on the top platter of the drive” while trying to assist the IT division in recovering the data. “He believed there were additional steps that could have been taken to attempt to recover data,” George says. That was in July of 2011, before Koskinen led the agency.

The hard drive was destroyed in April of 2012, according to the inspector general’s best estimate. George goes on to note that IRS employees also erased the backup tapes of the server that housed Lerner’s e-mails in 2010 and 2011, though he says he “did not uncover evidence” of any conspiracy to obstruct the investigation. “[Investigators] took possession of the 424 backup tapes and determined that 422 of the 424 tapes were degaussed (i.e., magnetically erased) by IRS employees in Martinsburg on or around March 4, 2014, one month after the IRS realized they were missing e-mails from Lois Lerner, and approximately eight months after the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform requested ‘all documents and communications sent by, received by, or copied to Lois Lerner,’” George says in his prepared testimony.

Three weeks after the backup tapes were destroyed, Koskinen — Obama’s appointee to lead the IRS in the wake of Lerner’s public apology for the targeting of conservatives — practically dared House Republicans to take action against him when Representative Mark Meadows (R., N.C.) asked him how long Congress should wait for documents before holding IRS officials in contempt. “I think the timeline is whenever you think you could actually sustain that in a court,” Koskinen said during a hearing in March of 2014. “I think we have a strong case that we have been cooperative, continue to be cooperative, and anybody looking at the systems we have and the time it takes would find that we’ve provided you more cooperation than, in fact, might be expected. And I think that, in fact, arguing and threatening contempt in that situation without understanding the circumstances is probably not going to be held up.”

In light of Koskinen’s public defiance and the agency’s continued stonewalling of the investigation, some lawmakers favor impeachment, because it doesn’t require cooperation from President Obama’s Justice Department. “Any civil officer is liable to be impeached,” the lawmaker says. “If the IG reports that evidence has been destroyed deliberately, that would be clearly a misdemeanor.” “It’s really a test of whether Congress is going to defend its institutional prerogatives,” the Oversight Committee member says. “If you have a situation where it’s fine for people to come misrepresent the facts, not produce documents, and just do that with impunity, then why are we even conducting oversight?”


http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420277/irs-scandal-house-republicans-impeaching-commissioner-koskinen

Saying it loud will just pass on as just another conspiracy theory while they conspire and hide the god damn truth. The email services have improvised so much itself, with gmail launching its 'undo email function which allows a person to undo a sent email (under 30 seconds though lol) but its a big step. Things are changing, and these guys pretend like shit just happens.

IRS workers mistakenly erased tea party emails


WASHINGTON (AP) — Investigators are blaming mistakes by IRS employees — not a criminal conspiracy — for the loss of thousands of emails related to the tax agency's tea party scandal.

IRS workers erased 422 computer backup tapes that "most likely" contained as many as 24,000 emails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner, who has emerged as a central figure in congressional investigations, according to IRS's inspector general.

The workers erased the tapes a month after IRS officials discovered that an untold number of Lerner's emails were lost. The IG says the workers were unaware of a year-old directive not to destroy email backup tapes.

J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, is scheduled to testify Thursday before the House Oversight Committee about his investigation into the emails. The Associated Press obtained a copy of his prepared testimony.

George says his investigation "did not uncover evidence that the erasure was done in furtherance of an effort to destroy evidence or conceal information from Congress and/or law enforcement."

Still, the revelation that computer tapes were erased after officials knew about the lost emails is likely to fuel conspiracy theories among conservatives who say the IRS has obstructed investigations into the scandal.

An IRS spokeswoman said Wednesday evening the agency had no immediate comment.

George set off a firestorm in May 2013 with an audit that said IRS agents improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Several hundred groups had their applications delayed for a year or more. Some were asked inappropriate questions about donors and group activities, the inspector general's report said.

Lerner used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. In June 2014, the IRS told Congress it had lost an unknown number of Lerner's emails when her computer hard drive crashed in 2011.

The IRS had discovered that the emails were lost in February 2014. A month later, workers erased the 422 computer backup tapes, George says in his testimony.

The IRS says it has produced 78,000 Lerner emails, many of which have been made public by congressional investigators. IRS officials said no more could be recovered.

George, however, said the IRS never examined backup tapes that ultimately produced more than 1,000 additional emails.
George started investigating the lost emails last year after the IRS announced they were destroyed. His testimony before the Oversight Committee summarizes the results of the investigation.

After George's initial report, much of the IRS's top leadership was forced to retire or resign, including Lerner. The Justice Department and several congressional committees launched investigations.

Lerner emerged as a central figure in the controversy after she refused to answer questions at two House Oversight hearings, invoking her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself at both hearings. At the first hearing, Lerner made a statement saying she had done nothing wrong.

Last year, the House voted mostly along party lines to hold her in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions at the hearings. The U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia declined to prosecute her.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150625/us--irs-lost_emails-47ff44b9ff.html

Thousands of new Lerner emails found






An inspector general investigating the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups has found thousands of emails from Lois Lerner, the agency official at the center of that controversy, according to committees involved in the probe.

Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) said it found roughly 6,400 emails either to or from Lerner from between 2004 and 2013 that it didn’t think the IRS had turned over to lawmakers, the congressional committees said. The committees have yet to examine the emails, aides on Capitol Hill said.

The IRS said last year that Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011, leaving it unable to reproduce an untold number of her emails over the prior two years.

Of the emails the inspector general found, around 650 were from 2010 and 2011, while most were from 2012. The inspector general found about 35,000 emails in all as it sought to recover emails from recycled back-up tapes.


http://thehill.com/policy/finance/240388-watchdog-finds-new-lerner-emails

The law of their land more precisely. I know I would not get away with that law... Not connected with enough evil people methinks

 

And the law of our land prevails exactly how it what intended, as always.

DOJ Won’t File Contempt Charges Against Lois Lerner…






-----------------------------------------
Innocent...

Outgoing US Attorney For The District Of Columbia Has Failed To Act On Lerner Contempt Charge, Doesn’t Want To Appear As A Sexist…



Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia appointed by President Obama and set to step down next month, has not acted on a contempt of Congress charge for former IRS official Lois Lerner.

Machen, who announced at the beginning of the week he’d step down April 1 to return to private practice, has not referred Lerner’s case to a grand jury. Her contempt citation for not testifying at two hearings has been in Machen’s hands since May 2014.

During Machen’s five-year tenure as a top prosecutor, the largest U.S. Attorney’s Office was dominated by cases related to financial fraud, national security and public corruption.

His office prosecuted dozens of federal and local D.C. officials, including securing felony guilty pleas from three former D.C. council members.

But unless he acts within the next two weeks, Machen will leave without taking action in the case of Lerner, who directed the IRS division that handled applications for tax-exempt status.[…]

The Obama administration has also not publicly released hundreds of documents related to the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.

Attorney General Eric Holder remarked on Machen’s tenure on Monday, praising his “outstanding results” and “inspiring service.”

“Ron Machen has distinguished himself as a skilled leader, a devoted public servant, and a forceful champion of justice on behalf of the American people,” said Holder, who himself is set to step down pending the Senate’s confirmation of Loretta Lynch, who President Obama nominated to replace him.

“Throughout his remarkable tenure, Ron has applied his boundless talent and consummate judgment to protect the safety and security of all Americans in cases involving violent crime, national security threats, and public corruption,” Holder said.



http://thehill.com/policy/finance/236060-outgoing-us-attorney-hasnt-acted-on-lerner-contempt-charge?utm_campaign=briefingroom&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitterfeed

Politico Sat On Scoop Lois Lerner Had Prior History Of Targeting Conservatives…



Politico scored a journalistic coup with its exclusive 2014 profile on Lois Lerner, the former IRS official at the center of the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

But a former Illinois lawmaker who said Politico contacted him repeatedly that year with questions regarding claims he was targeted by Lerner in the mid-1990s has been left wondering why the news group chose to ignore his documented dealings with the former federal official.

“I was shocked,” Al Salvi told the Washington Examiner’s media desk, describing what he characterizes as several “lengthy” interviews with Politico reporter Rachael Bade.

Lerner went after his 1996 Senate campaign with a lawsuit totaling $1.1 million — an enforcement action that was eventually thrown out of court — when she was working at the Federal Election Commission, according to Salvi.

“I spent something like an hour and a half talking to Politico about this,” said Salvi, whose dealings with the FEC are well documented by the federal agency. “And I’m nowhere in the story. They had no intention of using anything I said.”


http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politico-sat-on-allegations-lois-lerner-had-prior-history-of-targeting-conservatives/article/2561408

This whole scandal is turning out to be more of a parody of some sort.
Its emberrasing that its happening at such high levels, because theyre even lying worse than some kids from the street.

cheers

I agree. Unfortunately no one will be punished for this. To me it's just more evidence that the US Govt no longer has even a smidgen of a claim to legitimacy.

Last Great American Whale

Legally Blind IRS Employee Searched Lois Lerner’s Hard Drive…



The first IT specialist to inspect the computer hard drive of former IRS exemptions director Lois Lerner was legally blind, according to an affidavit filed last year by Stephen Manning, deputy chief information officer for strategy and modernization at the IRS.

Manning’s July 18, 2014, affidavit pertained to a lawsuit filed by True the Vote against the IRS alleging that Lerner led an effort to target it and similar conservative groups by refusing to grant them tax-exempt status.

J. Christian Adams, a former Department of Justice attorney writing for PJ Media, flagged the affidavit which provided the educational background of the IT specialist.

“According to the Specialist, prior to joining the Internal Revenue Service, from 2004 to 2005, formal Microsoft training was completed through Lions World Services for the Blind, a certified Microsoft training and testing center,” Manning stated.


http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/02/lois-lerners-hard-drive-was-searched-by-legally-blind-irs-employee/

Jailtime would be too good for them.

Chaffetz was stunned when he asked Camus if anyone from the IRS had ever asked for the backup tapes and he replied, “No.”

“We send a subpoena, we send letters, we have hearings, we hear all kinds of excuses from the IRS,” Chaffetz said. “Every excuse you can have under the sun — you find them in two weeks, and then when you go talk to the IT people who are there in charge of them, they told you that they were never even asked for them. Is that correct?”

“That is correct,” Camus replied.

IRS watchdog reveals Lois Lerner missing emails now subject of criminal probe


The IRS’s inspector general confirmed Thursday it is conducting a criminal investigation into how Lois G. Lerner’s emails disappeared, saying it took only two weeks for investigators to find hundreds of tapes the agency’s chief had told Congress were irretrievably destroyed.

Investigators have already scoured 744 backup tapes and gleaned 32,774 unique emails, but just two weeks ago they found an additional 424 tapes that could contain even more Lerner emails, Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus told the House Oversight Committee in a rare late-night hearing meant to look into the status of the investigation.

“There is potential criminal activity,” Mr. Camus said.

He said they have also discovered the hard drives from the IRS’s email servers, but said because the drives are out of synch it’s not clear whether they will be able to recover anything from them.

“To date we have found 32,744 unique emails that were backed up from Lois Lerner’s email box. We are in the process of comparing these emails to what the IRS has already produced to Congress to determine if we did in fact recover any new emails,” Mr. Camus said.

Democrats questioned the independence of Inspector General J. Russell George, who is overseeing the investigation, saying he’s injected politics into his work.

Rep. Gerald Connolly, Virginia Democrat, said Mr. George is refusing to turn documents over to him, prompting a heated reply.

“You’re not entitled to certain documents,” Mr. George said.

“Oh really? We’ll see about that, won’t we,” Mr. Connolly replied, saying that he questioned whether Mr. George could be trusted if he’s refusing to provide documents, yet is in charge of an investigation into whether the IRS stonewalled document requests.

The hearing was the latest chapter in the complex investigation into the IRS’s targeting of tea party groups for special scrutiny.

Several congressional committees are still probing the matter, and both the inspector general and the Justice Department are conducting criminal investigations.

In a 2013 report, the inspector general said the IRS had improperly targeted conservative and tea party groups’ applications for nonprofit status, asking repeated intrusive questions and delaying their applications well beyond a reasonable time. Some of those groups are still waiting, with their applications now pending for years.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, Utah Republican and Oversight Committee chairman, said the ongoing investigations undercut President Obama’s assertion last year that there was no evidence of corruption in the IRS’s targeting.

“I have no idea how the president came to such a definitive conclusion without all the facts,” he said.

The IRS belatedly told Congress it may have lost some of Ms. Lerner’s emails after her computer crashed, and asserted that the backup tapes didn’t exist.

But under questioning from Mr. Chaffetz, Mr. Camus said it took him only two weeks to track down the backup tapes, and when he asked the IRS depository for them, the workers there said they’d never been contacted by the agency itself.

Republicans said that was stunning because IRS Commissioner John Koskinen repeatedly assured Congress the emails were irretrievably lost.

“I think they have misled or lied to the committee,” said Rep. John L. Mica, Florida Republican.

Mr. Camus said they were clued in to the 424 new tapes they just found a couple of weeks ago after realizing the IRS hadn’t given over a key document. They demanded that document, and realized it showed hundreds of other tapes existed.

Democrats said the investigation has dragged on too long and been too expensive, pointing to the IRS’s estimate that it has spent $20 million on staff and equipment to try to comply with the committee’s request.

Ms. Lerner, who oversaw the unit of the IRS that scrutinized nonprofit groups’ applications, is a central figure in the investigations.

After belatedly discovering that some of her emails weren’t being recovered, the IRS did try to reconstitute them by asking other employees to dig through their emails to see if they were the recipients of any messages that involved her. That did produce some of the missing emails.

Democrats said the GOP seemed to be insinuating Ms. Lerner had purposely crashed her hard drive to hide emails — though she herself pushed to try to get messages recovered.

Democrats also questioned why the hearing was happening now, given that Mr. Camus and Mr. George both stressed that their findings are preliminary and could change as they learn more.

“It seems that the best course of action would be to have the inspector general come back when his report is complete,” said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the panel.



http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/26/irs-watchdog-reveals-lois-lerner-missing-emails-no/?page=2


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Smidgen of corruption all over...

Surprise: Obama Administration Still Stonewalling on IRS Scandal



The Inspector General's office charged with looking into the IRS targeting scandal has denied Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by The Hill pertaining to more than 500 correspondences between their office (known as TIGTA) and various Obama officials and IRS scandal players.  Correspondent Bob Cusack reports on the latest stonewall:


The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups. Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations. The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups. TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article.


So in addition to the IRS "losing" and "accidentally" destroying certain communications attached to this scandal, the IG's office is also blocking access to documents that do exist.


http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2015/02/10/surprise-obama-administration-still-stonewalling-on-irs-scandal-n1955503?utm_source=BreakingOnTownhallWidget_4&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=BreakingOnTownhall

OH LOOK! Here Are More Of Lois Lerner’s ‘Lost’ Emails


Just when you though things could not get any worse for former Exempt Organizations Unit of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Director Lois Lerner, they do.

Today, Judicial Watch, who has been exposing Lerner’s “lost emails” since the controversy first broke back in January of 2013, released new emails from Lerner, in which she tells IRS Deputy Director Joseph Grant not to visit the IRS’s Cincinnati Office because the agency was in the middle of congress questioning whether or not conservative groups were being targeted.

• April 4, 2012 – 4:41 PM – Lois Lerner to Joseph Grant:

We just gor an very extensive information request from Imraan [Imraan Khakoo, TE/GE official] –sure looks like op review material. I’m especially concerned that information about pipeline is being asked about … Add to that the fact tha cincinnati is smack dab in the middle of the c4 Congressional inqueries and is about to get a request from TIGTA on all of that, this is NOT a good time to be asking them for anything or to be talking to them about issue in their work. Everyone is stressed to the max and at their wits end, so can we put this off please? [Typos in originals]

• April 4, 2012 – 5:17 PM – Joseph Grant to Lois Lerner:

It is a visit, not an OP review … I am also interested in the questions Imraan sent to them. Some answers should be readily at hand. Others certainly won’t be … The questions just serve as a framework for a broader conversation about how things are going and what is on our respective minds.

• April 4, 2012 – 5:26 PM – Lois Lerner to Joseph Grant:

I get that–but timing would be bad if we have to go to Cincy now. So, I will assume we can go
over this here as I get the information I’ve already asked for? Thanks.

• April 4, 2012 –5:42 PM – Joseph Grant to Lois Lerner:

I think we are in agreement, but just to be sure. I am planning to go to Cincy at the end of the month. I am travelling with Nan Marks and Imraan.

• April 4, 2012 – 6:15 PM – Lois Lerner to Joseph Grant:

Fine with me–just trying to keep the stress level manageable in Cincinnati–they are pretty freaked. Please don’t ask them about closures, pipelines, wait time for full development cases, or the c4 application letters. I know Imraan is really interested in that stuff in general—I promise to give him info—that just wouldn’t be the best place to ask. Thanks

• April 04, 2012 — 9:41 PM – Joseph Grant to Lois Lerner:

Noted.

The IRS is being investigated for allegations that they targeted conservative and Tea Party groups leading up to the 2012 elections, in order to stifle Republicans getting elected.

Also, Lerner and President Obama claimed that the suggested IRS targeting of conservatives came from “low-level” IRS offices who were managing applications for organizations.

However, new emails obtained by Judicial Watch show that Lerner’s department within the IRS handled conservative organization’s applications.

• February 29, 2012 – 2:53 PM – Holly Paz to Lois Lerner:

Lois, EO Determinations noticed an uptick in applications from advocacy organizations early in 2010. The first case was referred to EO Technical in…2010. That case was an application for…status. It closed…2010 when the… At that time, EO Technical requested another…from an…be transferred to EO Technical. Such a case was transferred in…2010. That case also closed…2012 after the… EO Technical also requested an application from a…be transferred from Determinations. A case was transferred in…2010. It is still being developed by EO Technical. To give you a sense of the growth in the number of these cases, in October 2010, we had identified approximately 40 advocacy cases.

As of about 10:00 a.m. on 2/28/2012, we had 229 of these cases. Of the 229 cases, 141 have been assigned. Development letters have been sent to the majority of the 141 assigned cases. The oldest control dates of those cases that are still unassigned are 2/8/2011, 3/18/2011, 4/28/2011, and 5/28/2011. These will be assigned next. Otherwise, we’re at approximately 6/6/2011 control date for these cases. EO Technical provided guidance regarding the development of applications by advocacy organizations to EO Determinations in November 2011.

Paz’s allegation about an “uptick in applications from advocacy organizations early in 2010” is contradicted by the May 14, 2013, TIGTA report on the matter, which details that such applications actually declined in 2010 from the prior year.

On the same exact day, Lerner seems to have known that the requests for information from conservative and Tea Party groups was burdensome.

• February 29, 2012 – 6:30 PM – Lois Lerner to Holly Paz:

Have we given Cincy new guidance on how they might reduce the burden in the information requests and make it clearer that recipients can ask for extensions? I don’t want any more letters going out on advocacy cases until the letters have been adjusted. Also, I have been telling folks that not all the letters are the same because it depends on the facts. What I’ve seen so far though is identical letters–can you clarify for me please. Thanks

• February 29, 2012 – 8:18 PM – Holly Paz to Lois Lerner:

Andy and Justin are working on revising the letter. That should be done soon. In the meantime, Cindy [Cindy Thomas, Director of OE Cincinnati Office] and I discussed having specialists print the relevant parts of since that seemed to be the most burdensome request. We can hold off on sending anymore development letters until we have the revised version.

Still, more “missing emails” from Lerner have yet to be found. It is still not clear what the IRS did with the emails, though Judicial Watch seems to be obtaining them more and more over time.

http://thehayride.com/2015/01/oh-look-here-are-more-of-lois-lerners-lost-emails/