Topic: IRS claims it has LOST two years' worth of emails from former official Lerner - page 9. (Read 22699 times)

Criminals don't really care about the law.

This is why Congress is trying so hard to find a link to the White House. If it can be proven that Obama had anything to do with the targeting of conservative groups then he would likely be impeached and a special prosecutor would likely be appointed to prosecute anyone who has broken the law.

This is also why it is important to prosecute those at the IRS who broke the law, even low level employees who "were just following orders" as even these people have the right to ask questions when their direction is to do something illegal.

Lois Lerner’s Former FEC Colleague Has Emails Go Missing Too



The Federal Election Commission recycled the computer hard drive of April Sands — a former co-worker of Lois Lerner’s — hindering an investigation into Sands’ partisan political activities, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Sands resigned from the Federal Election Commission in April after she admitted to violating the Hatch Act, which bars executive branch employees from engaging in partisan political activities on federal time and at federal facilities.

The twist is that Sands also worked under Lois Lerner when the ex-IRS agent — who is currently embroiled in a scandal over the targeting of conservative political groups — worked at the FEC’s enforcement division.


http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/14/lois-lerners-former-fec-colleague-has-emails-go-missing-too/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2692218/Another-recycled-hard-drive-Former-Lois-Lerner-deputy-prosecuted-fundraising-Democrats-job-FEC-destroyed-evidence.html

Judge orders IRS to explain lost tea party emails



WASHINGTON — A federal judge ordered the IRS Thursday to explain under oath how it lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy.



U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan gave the tax agency a month to submit the explanation in writing. Sullivan said he is also appointing a federal magistrate to see if lost emails can be obtained from other sources.

Sullivan issued the order as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group. He said the IRS declaration must be signed, under oath, by the appropriate IRS official.

“I’m going to hold tight to that Aug. 10 declaration,” Sullivan said.

The IRS says it lost the emails in 2011 when Lois Lerner’s computer crashed. At the time, Lerner headed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. She has since retired.

Lerner, who refused to answer questions at two House committee hearings, has become a central figure in several congressional investigations over the handling of tea party applications.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has testified on the lost emails before Congress at least three times. Each time he was under oath.
Koskinen said he first learned there was a problem with Lerner’s computer in February, but didn’t learn that emails were lost until April. The IRS notified Congress June 13.

Judicial Watch lawyer Ramona Cotca complained that the IRS never informed her group or the court about the lost emails, even though Sullivan had ordered the IRS to produce documents related to the information request on a rolling monthly basis.

Geoffrey Klimas, a Justice Department lawyer representing the IRS, said the agency had no legal obligation to tell Judicial Watch about emails that may have been destroyed two years before the group filed its request for information.
Judicial Watch filed a series of requests with the IRS shortly after the tea party controversy erupted in May 2013. Among its requests, the watchdog group wanted communications Lerner had with others concerning the handling of applications for tax-exempt status since Jan. 1, 2010.

Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the IRS in October, saying the agency didn’t produce any documents. Since then, the IRS started to produce some documents in February, Cotca said.

On Thursday, Cotca asked Sullivan to conduct a limited discovery to determine what happened to the emails, perhaps compelling testimony from IRS officials. But Sullivan said that would be premature.

Klimas noted that the tax agency’s inspector general is conducting an investigation into the lost emails. Klimas said the inspector general has asked the IRS not to question witnesses that may have information about the lost emails to avoid interfering with its investigation.

Sullivan said the sworn IRS statement should include information about the inspector general’s concerns.
Sullivan said he would assign federal magistrate John Facciola to look into ways of obtaining the IRS records from other sources, though it is unclear how much information could be recovered.

In 2011, the IRS had a policy of backing up emails on computer tapes, but the tapes were recycled every six months, Koskinen told Congress. He said Lerner’s hard drive was recycled and presumably destroyed, after technicians in the agency’s criminal investigations unit tried unsuccessfully to restore it.

The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 period because she had copied in other IRS employees, Koskinen said. As part of the congressional investigations, the IRS said it is producing a total of 67,000 emails to and from Lerner, covering the period from 2009 to 2013.

http://nypost.com/2014/07/10/judge-orders-irs-to-explain-lost-tea-party-emails/

This would imply there was some sort of "two way fascism".

There isn't.

Agreed.  Any Americans should be upset when any government office is used to target groups due to political, religious, or social affiliation. All you need to do is buy the White House and control the AG.  Then just let the funding control everything else.

Thanks for continuing to follow this story and post about it.  If the IRS can target these groups under a Democratic leader, they can target the opposite groups under a Republican one.  Imagine the Koch brothers calling the shots on who gets targeted.  I hope more people wake up to what a potential disaster this is.

“I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails—so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails,” Ms. Lerner wrote. “Someone asked if [instant messaging] conversations were also searchable—I don’t know, but told them I would get back to them. Do you know?”

“[Instant] messages are not set to automatically save as the standard; however the functionality exists within the software,” the technician wrote back. “My general recommendation is to treat the conversation as if it could/is being saved somewhere, as it is possible for either party of the conversation to retain the information and have it turn up as part of an electronic search.”

“Perfect,” Ms. Lerner replied.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/emails-point-to-irs-officials-using-instant-messages-1404936144


Lerner sent this communication just over a month prior to her announcement that the IRS had inappropriately targeted conservative groups.

Email Shows Lois Lerner Warned IRS Employees To Hide Information From Congress As Tea Party Scandal Broke…



A newly released email from former IRS employee Lois G. Lerner, sent just as the tea party targeting scandal was erupting, warned colleagues to “be cautious” about what information they put in emails because it could be turned over to Congress.

“I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress ask asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails — so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails,” Ms. Lerner wrote in an April 9, 2013, message.

The message came less than two weeks after the IRS’s internal auditor shared a draft report with the agency accusing it of targeting tea party and conservative groups. A month after the email, Ms. Lerner would plant a question at a conference to reveal the scandal, just before the inspector general’s report was made public.

The email was turned over to the House oversight committee last week, more than a year after lawmakers sought it as part of their investigation into the IRS targeting.

Republicans said the email shows Ms. Lerner was aware Congress was probing the agency and that she was preparing to intentionally hide agency discussions from lawmakers.

Ms. Lerner’s emails have become a major scandal in and of themselves after the IRS revealed that her computer hard drive crashed in 2011, causing the agency to lose thousands of her messages.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/9/gop-lerner-warned-irs-employees-hide-information/

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"Not Even a Smidgen of Corruption..."

I would say it was less corruption and more the fact that Obama "bought" votes with giving people things like free healthcare and extended unemployment benefits, and 2% interest rates on mortgage modifications.

Romney had some good ideas. Corruption killed any shot he had at being elected though. Your average American is far more disenfranchised than they realize.

I know that Australia is taxed at other times other then at income so this statement is not 100% true for their tax burden that is payable in time, but your point is still valid.

The US tax code is very complicated and caters to several special interest groups. Romney was going to try to fix this if he was elected president by creating somewhat of a flatter tax rate, and having a much higher standard deduction rate and eliminating most deductions and exemptions

Aha! I see what you meant now. I totally agree with you.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991-1992, they went to a tax system that is one page, flat tax and takes about 5 minutes to fill out.

The Austrailian tax form also, takes just a few minutes to fill out.

The equivalent US one?  Maybe ten hours, and much of that is poring through incomprehensible paragraphs of complex instructions.  Result is you never know if you did it right. 

I was hoping that the 2009 collapse would result in reformation of this problem, but instead they've doubled down.  Not just in complexity of the morass of rules, but also in corruption.  It could be that corruption is best sheltered in complexity.

Just abolish it altogether. The treasury can process tax payments and refunds. Each tax return should be the size of a post card.

This is probably an inadequate explanation.  Corruption in the IRS will detrimentally affect everyone, whatever their political inclination.

The media has a very strong liberal bias and as a result they will not report as much on these types of scandals and will not ask tough questions.

Ooops  I guess a lot of IT workers are going to be very busy making sure all tracks are covered and that all computers and ledgers are wiped clean. But "I lost the evidence" isn't an excuse in a court of law, it tends to fall on the side of the plaintiff if the defense loses the evidence so we the tax payers are probably going to get screwed by the IRS when they have to pay out yet again for their criminal behavior.

A pundit on tv suggested that the House needs to use their power of the purse to defund the IRS for all expenses other than collecting income taxes and supplying refund checks. I think that sounds like a wonderful idea and a lead into implementing the fair tax to ensure that the IRS never again is allowed to use its omnipotent power to abuse Americans.

BTW True the Vote which was accused of being partisan against democrats and for conservatives has filed a suit against the Mississippi republican Cochran for voter fraud. I guess that blows that IRS claim right out of the water.

The thing is, that kind of "cleaning" leaves a trail too - so if they DID try to pull that, they'd likely get caught. And KC, you're "BTW" makes no sense. How does an organization accused of being politically biased against Democrats filing a suit claiming fraud by Democrats disprove their partisanship?