The first step was to run “Format C:\” which pretty much hides everything, therefore “nothing was recovered”. It was probably all still there, except the drive was physically smashed, which required malice aforethought.
But Lois Lerner sent all these e-mails to SOMEBODY, and not all their hard drives were similarly degraded.
Are you sure about that? I recall hearing a half-dozen or so other IRS cretins with compromised e-mail.
These criminals see what is working for Lerner, and are using the same "dog-ate-my-e-mails" excuse.