POINTS IN THIS STORY:
1) all computers and email data have multiple archive back up hard drives and tapes, this is the IRS after all.
2) a simple search pulls up all emails
3) they first bilked the tax payers for another $10 million before coming up with this story.
4) so if you can simply search and submit emails, then why all the time, employees and money? Oh, people needed to read the emails before submitting them to congress to see if they were incriminating to the current administration, Lois Lerner or others. In other words, they got paid to make it go away, and after the tremendous amount of evidence, they decided the best course was to destroy the evidence. And the back ups? Why is no one asking for the computer back ups? How about the FBI takes their swat team in and confiscate all their computers, just like they would to you?
5) are we all living in the Republic of Chicago now? are you fed up yet?
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.
“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’ response to congressional inquiries,” said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the inspector general.”
The Ways and Means Committee is one of three congressional committees investigating the IRS over its handling of tea party applications from 2010 to 2012. The Justice Department and the IRS inspector general are also investigating.
Congressional investigators have shown that IRS officials in Washington were closely involved in the handling of tea party applications, many of which languished for more than a year without action. But so far, they have not publicly produced evidence that anyone outside the agency directed the targeting or even knew about it.
If anyone outside the agency was involved, investigators were hoping for clues in Lerner’s emails.
The IRS said technicians went to great lengths trying to recover data from Lerner’s computer in 2011. In emails provided by the IRS, technicians said they sent the computer to a forensic lab run by the agency’s criminal investigations unit. But to no avail.
The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 because Lerner had copied in other IRS employees. The agency said it pieced together the emails from the computers of 82 other IRS employees.
But an untold number are gone. Camp’s office said the missing emails are mainly ones to and from people outside the IRS, “such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices.”
The IRS said in a statement that more than 250 IRS employees have been working to assist congressional investigations, spending nearly $10 million to produce more than 750,000 documents.
Overall, the IRS said it is producing a total of 67,000 emails to and from Lerner, covering the period from 2009 to 2013.
“The IRS is committed to working with Congress,” the IRS said in a statement. “The IRS has remained focused on being thorough and responding as quickly as possible to the wide-ranging requests from Congress while taking steps to protect underlying taxpayer information.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, called Friday’s disclosure “an outrageous impediment” to the committee’s investigation.
“Even more egregious is the fact we are learning about this a full year after our initial request to provide the committee with any and all documents relating to our investigation,” Hatch said.
Lerner has emerged as a key figure in the tea party probe. In May 2013, she was the first IRS official to publicly acknowledge that agents had improperly scrutinized applications.
About two weeks later, Lerner was subpoenaed to testify at a congressional hearing. But after making a brief statement in which she said she had done nothing wrong, Lerner refused to answer questions, invoking her constitutional right against self-incrimination.
The IRS placed Lerner on administrative leave shortly after the congressional hearing. She retired last fall.
In May, the House voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress. Her case has been turned over to the U.S. attorney for the district of Columbia.
ORIGINAL
