Saturday, June 14, 2014

Washington Post: IRS lost emails by official in tea party probe

"The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year."
The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner’s emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.

Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups. (read more)
 

47 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Shit, I earned my living in the computer game for decades.

This is an outright shameless lie. E-mails exist on network servers that are always backed up onto multiple servers. The Fed undoubtedly uses Outlook, a tech I understand well.

The Obama admin is taunting Congress and daring the investigating committee to do something about it.

And, this is also an admission that Obama ordered the attack on his political opponents.

What ya gonna do about it suckers?

We've got trouble... right here in River City.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

(1) "[P]robe."

(2) "[T]rove."

(3) "[S]parking outrage."

(4) "[P]robing."

(5) "[C]rashed."

Michael Haz said...

We're supposed to believe this? Baloney.

Has the IRS in its history ever once lost someone's 1040? Never.

This is just the Obama administration (probably Valerie Jarrett) telling the IRS to erase the emails that could prove the decision was made to specifically harass and target conservative groups in an effort to damage their get-out-the-vote efforts before the 2012 presidential
election.

Shouting Thomas said...

@Michael

"Erasing" is a pretty difficult concept here.

Data recovery guys are pretty damned good at their job. When you "erase" a document on a server, you are only erasing the pointer to that document, not the actual document. Think of a pointer as the title of the document with a reference to where the actual document can be found on the disc.

So all the pertinent documents still exist on numerous servers both at the point of origin and on the receiving end.

If you've deliberately sabotaged network servers to wipe them clean, that history is pretty easily recovered, too.

It's all still there.

As I said, this is a bald challenge to the Republicans.

You got the balls to do something about it? If not, fuck you!

KCFleming said...

It's the Dalrymple rule:
"...t the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better."

The goal here is mock and belittle them, knowing they will do nothing.

Shouting Thomas said...

I'm shocked. And I'm an Old Dawgz who isn't shocked by much.

The arrogance and audacity of this move is something I've never seen before in American politics.

KCFleming said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KCFleming said...

Cat on a Hot Tin Roofie is the story of a Liberal Administration in crisis, especially Lois and her pet dog, IRS, and their interaction with Congress over the course of one evening gathering at the family estate in Washington. The party is to celebrate the re-election of patriarch Big Daddy Obammy, and his return from the Middle East with what he has been told is Peace In Our Time. All family members are aware of Big Daddy's true diagnosis: his administration dying of cancerous lies. His family has lied to Big Daddy and Big Mooch to spare the oblivious couple from pain but, throughout the course of the play, it becomes clear that the Left has long constructed a web of deceit for itself.

Quote:
Lois: "um, er, uh, I lost my emails. Yeah, that's it. Lost 'em. In the uh ether, no, the mall, no, I lost them in that big tornado!!!"
GOP: "What's that smell in this room? Didn't you notice it? Didn't you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room?"

Karen of Texas said...

@ST ... Nixon and tapes come to mind, but yeah because surely they aren't stupid enough to believe that so many with any amount of computer savvy know just what you stated. It's definitely an in your face move.

AllenS said...

Tell the IRS that you lost your records and see what happens.

Meade said...

We need to lose the IRS.

Unknown said...

Like to waste money? Are you able to help the administration win elections with fraud and illegal targeting? - you get a raise.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

This is a complete and utter lie. Like ST says. The emails exist.

Why not hold the IRS to the same standard as I was held to when I was a broker working in the financial industry.

SEC requirements for archiving and preserving emails and other electronic records.

According to the law, electronic records must be archived in a non-rewritable and non-erasable manner. Records must also be easily accessible when stored. These mandates will ensure the stored document or email is the original and hasn't been altered, and they can be retrieved in a timely manner.

Of course, this is easily accomplished through the use of an email archiving solution, which the SEC endorses for companies to the meet regulatory compliance.


Every email and electronic transaction I did was archived off site. My computer could blow to Hell and the records would still exist.

Bull...shit...

KCFleming said...

Thankfully, the average citizen will continue to deal with the IRS by faithfully recording and reporting all of their potentially taxable transactions.

IRS lying will have no effect on reported income.
None at all.

Shouting Thomas said...

@Pogo

The IRS is certainly lying.

The order to attack and undermine the Tea Party, we now know without doubt, come directly from President Obama.

FYI... I'm not a member of any Tea Party organization.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The old arrangement... for lack of a better word readily coming to mind... this is pretty much new territory we are in now...

It used to be said that in politics it wasn't the crime that would get you nailed but the cover-up.

That's not true anymore.

The cover-up, once embarked upon, just has to stay the course and not budge regardless the contradictory evidence and the lameness, incredulous nature of the cover-up.

And the reason why this is now possible is the thing we may resist having to admit... when there are no consequences, accountability is out the window.

Unknown said...

With Holder at the top holding the line, all is hopeless.

Shouting Thomas said...

With Holder at the top holding the line, all is hopeless.

Congress either impeaches, or capitulates and accepts that there is no check on an outlaw President.

Meade said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax6QGmKhRwo&feature=youtu.be

Shouting Thomas said...

That's some video.

The answer is that a search on Outlook for Lerner's e-mails would produce every e-mail she sent or received within that specified period within a matter of seconds or minutes.

Those e-mails could then quickly be dumped on to a flash drive and handed to the investigatory committee.

In other words, compliance with the House committee subpoena could be completed within one working day.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I don't believe them but, the way I understand it, if you use Outlook for your email, your emails do reside on your computer's hard drive. If that hard drive was not backed up, you could lose the emails in a crash.

ndspinelli said...

I bet Edward Snowden has them.

Unknown said...

With the democrat party - there is no malfeasance, no graft, no greed, no corruption - only happy coincidences.

I'm Full of Soup said...

This is just more proof that many of us were right that Obama had no aptitude nor qualifications nor experience to be a competent president.

And it is nice to be right but unfortunately the country is going down the tubes and being right is of little solace.

edutcher said...

Even if they were wiped, there's an image somewhere and (dare I say?) either the DOJ or NSA has the computer forensics talent and equipment to get them.

Chip S. said...

If someone w. truly great photoshopping skills (wh. leaves me out) could put Lois Lerner and a PC in this pic I think it might go viral.

Rabel said...

Federal law thoroughly covers record retention and deletion by cabinet agencies. It places requirements on the departments and their employees.

Within each department a mini-bureaucracy dedicated to these tasks exists with representatives designated at each individual office location.

However, much of the burden of meeting the very detailed obligations regarding record retention (and removal) requirements is placed on individual employees.

It is conceivable that Lerner's emails were exclusively located on her computer's hard drive. Confidentiality requirements at the IRS might have allowed or even possibly required this arrangement.

However, she would have been required to effectively manage the longer term storage of those emails to meet the legal and administrative obligations.

If the IRS claim is essentially true, then Lerner failed to meet those requirements. This could be due to either incompetence or malice.

I'm going with malice.

Paddy O said...

Maybe they should look in the trunk where boxes of votes are often found.

Lydia said...

Here's what the IRS says:

The IRS explains in [its letter to Congress] that it has not always backed up all employee emails due to the cost the agency would incur for allowing 90,000 employees to store their information on the IRS’s internal system.

Currently, IRS employees have the capacity to store about 6,000 emails in their active Outlook email boxes, which are saved on the IRS centralized network. But the letter and background document sent to the Hill Friday said they could only store about 1,800 emails in their active folders prior to July 2011.

When their inboxes were full, IRS employees had to make room by either deleting emails or archiving them on their personal computers. Archived data were not stored by the IRS but by the individual.

Such archived emails on Lerner’s computer were what were lost when her computer crashed.

“Any of Ms. Lerner’s email that was only stored on that computer’s hard drive would have been lost when the hard drive crashed and could not be recovered,” the letter reads.


Sounds like a lousy system, and that they still don't back-up all emails.

Lydia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rabel said...

"The IRS explains in [its letter to Congress] that it has not always backed up all employee emails due to the cost the agency would incur for allowing 90,000 employees to store their information on the IRS’s internal system."

Cost analysis from 2002.

rcocean said...

As Ed said, if they were on her hard drive and not DELIBERATELY DESTROYED, they can be recovered.

rcocean said...

Also, I find it unbelievable that a women involved in so many high risk high profile tax cases would be able to "lose" her emails.

There needs to be a Special Prosecutor. Will the Republicans have the guts to fight for one?

rcocean said...

Its amazing how the Democrat Presidents and their flunkies do stuff that shouldn't be done, and get away with it.

Remember when Clinton got a hold of hundreds FBI investigation files on people in DC. Files that were never supposed to be released to anyone?

Now this.

Aridog said...

RAbel .... I am seldom one to critique you, but you said ...

It is conceivable that Lerner's emails were exclusively located on her computer's hard drive...

In the Federal environment, which I was part of, with SSID access to four global servers, that is simply not true...or even possible.

The ludicrous claim is especially incredible becasue they assert the emails lost are those to other agencies...in other words, the very emails that must go through the own agency server and through the receiving agency server. No way to retain those messages solely on the individual's PC alone.

As I have already said, I retrieved copies of every email I received or sent since 1995 and it required I scan/copy both my PC's Outlook files (.pst files) as well as the District email server's files (also .pst files). Anyone wants to stop my house I will prove it to them first hand, on my back up drives.

Never the less, less just say a huge giant geedang-mongus catastrophe occurred...wiping all several servers, selectively only, simultaneously.

A forensic recovery outfit, such as Kroll/OnTrack could recover the files from the servers or their back ups. I have used Kroll/OnTrack within the past 30 days to do just that on damaged HDD's.

This whole thing is so laughable it is scary. Because we cannot do one damn thing about it...lied to our faces , when we know the words are lies, and proud of it is how the bureaucrats involved feel.

Aridog said...

And I say it is scary because nothing short of a coup d'état is capable of stopping this lawless behavior by the government, executives down through the senior bureaucrats.

At present, they isn't likely to happen...since it requires extant elements of the government under those very bureaucrats control to undertake the effort.

In short, status quo rules.

Meade said...

"In short, "

That's what she said. TILT!

Leland said...

Because we cannot do one damn thing about it

Not necessarily true. This is actionable. It is simple, easy to understand. The media has ignored it for awhile, but Congress should not. Reps should be lining up on the floor to demand a special prosecutor. Holder will refuse, but by then, the media will have to start covering. Again, this is simple and easy to understand.

There is nothing racist about Lerner. There is nothing wrong with demanding the IRS provide records. Holder refusing to prosecute obstruction of justice just won't hold much water. If Holder continues on course, then Congress holds him in contempt again, but this time impeachment of his office should be discussed (if he refuses).

But someone needs to go to jail for this obstruction. Even if you accept everything the IRS is saying now, there is still the fact that this information comes out now, a year later. A year after the IRS Commissioner gave testimony to Congress saying all her emails were being archived. So if you believe the IRS today, then someone, perhaps the Commissioner himself, lied to Congress. If you believe the stories a year ago, someone is lying now. This is simple, and it is easy for people to grasp.

Aridog said...

Leland...I agree with what you propose. I am just not confident it will happen. I can only hope.

I know without even a shadow of doubt that the IRS story about the selectively missing files is a lie, for reasons I have cited earlier. Simply said, anything thing like what is alleged had to be deliberate and painstakingly executed.

One of the reasons I gave for retiring early as a DOD "Fed" was that: "The first liar no longer stands a chance in the federal government." Your third paragraph is a great example of what I was trying to say.

Meade said...

Aridog said...

"Leland...I agree...I am...I can...

I know...I have...I gave...I was..."

TILT!

Rabel said...

She's still got a thing for Richard, don't you know.

I'd keep an eye out if I were you. Unless you're OK with that sort of thing.

Tend your garden and such.

Amartel said...

This is par for the progressive course.
Remember when Hillary Clinton "lost" those billing records from her law firm? Then they turned up in the White House residential quarters? And even earlier in her wonderful career in "public service" she was canned from the committee investigating Nixon after Watergate by REMOVING LEGAL PRECEDENT from public access, and hiding it in her office, and then submitting a false brief saying there was no legal precedent for right to representation during impeachment. The irony, it burns.

Politicians lie, this is known, but these progressive pols are deceitful to the bone because they are crusaders (or jihadists, if you prefer). And the lying is expected and acceptable and forgiven by their followers.

There are two possibilities:
1. The general public is so used to progressives lying, generally and specifically, that it is expected and accepted even if not forgiven; or
2. The general public is finally going to wake up and resent the constant brazen fraudulence. It is insulting.

ndspinelli said...

Folks, I coached baseball for over 30 years. You can't play that game w/o focus. If you have what is known as "Rabbit Ears" hearing everything said, no matter how stupid, from other players and fans, well you can't play the game. EVERYONE here has been focused and self disciplined all week. You all get game balls!

Lydia said...

This seems to fit here: Poll: Bill Clinton Most Admired President Over Past 25 Years

Aridog said...

Lydia...really? You must be kidding.

Lydia said...

Aridog,

I thought it was a fit because of what Amartel said:

Politicians lie, this is known, but these progressive pols are deceitful to the bone because they are crusaders (or jihadists, if you prefer). And the lying is expected and acceptable and forgiven by their followers.

There are two possibilities:
1. The general public is so used to progressives lying, generally and specifically, that it is expected and accepted even if not forgiven; or
2. The general public is finally going to wake up and resent the constant brazen fraudulence. It is insulting.


The poll seems to rule out the second possibility, doesn't it?

Aridog said...

Lydia ...yes, it does. Some days I am just dense. ;(