Posted on 06/13/2014 4:15:59 PM PDT by Red Steel
According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS has "lost" two years of emails belonging to former head of tax exempt organizations Lois Lerner. The IRS doesn't have a record of her emails to outside groups or government agencies from January 2009 through April 2011, conveniently encompassing some of the same time when tea party groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution. The IRS says the loss of emails is due to a "computer crash" and claims emails from or to Lerner from the White House, Democratic members of Congress, the Treasury Department, FEC and Department of Justice cannot be located. They do however have emails belonging to Lerner that she sent to other IRS employees.
“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’s response to Congressional inquiries. There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the Inspector General," Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp said in a statement. “Just a short time ago, Commissioner Koskinen promised to produce all Lerner documents. It appears now that was an empty promise. Frankly, these are the critical years of the targeting of conservative groups that could explain who knew what when, and what, if any, coordination there was between agencies. Instead, because of this loss of documents, we are conveniently left to believe that Lois Lerner acted alone. This failure of the IRS requires the White House, which promised to get to the bottom of this, to do an Administration-wide search and production of any emails to or from Lois Lerner. The Administration has repeatedly referred us back to the IRS for production of materials. It is clear that is wholly insufficient when it comes to determining the full scope of the violation of taxpayer rights.”
Emails belonging to Lerner that were not "lost" have shown that she was in contact with Democratic members of Congress and the Department of Justice about prosecuting tea party groups. Just this week, emails surfaced showing Lerner sent confidential tax information belonging to conservative groups to the FBI for investigation just before the 2010 midterm elections.
According to Camp, this is the first time the IRS has disclosed the loss of emails since the investigation into IRS targeting of conservatives started more than a year ago.
Camp: Learning about this over a year into the investigation is unacceptable & calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response — Ways and Means (@WaysandMeansGOP) June 13, 2014
UPDATE: Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa responds:
“Isn’t it convenient for the Obama Administration that the IRS now says it has suddenly realized it lost Lois Lerner’s emails requested by Congress and promised by Commissioner John Koskinen? Do they really expect the American people to believe that, after having withheld these emails for a year, they're just now realizing the most critical time period is missing? Congressional oversight has revealed that the IRS has –potentially illegally– shared confidential taxpayer information with the FBI and lost crucial email records even as the agency continues to withhold information by not fully complying with the Committee’s subpoena. Left to the IRS’ own preferences, the White House would still be retelling the lie that this was all about mismanagement confined to a local office. The supposed loss of Lerner’s emails further blows a hole in the credibility of claims that the IRS is complying with Congressional requests and their repeated assurances that they’re working to get to the truth. If there wasn't nefarious conduct that went much higher than Lois Lerner in the IRS targeting scandal, why are they playing these games?"
This post has been updated.
Video from March of an IRS official testifying that the e-mails are archived.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax6QGmKhRwo
They can be found super fast in Cell Block H.
IIRC, the regs about emails require retention for a fairly long time with multiple backup copies for safekeeping.
I think this is a bunch of BS. But whatcha gonna do when the people involved (nobama’s minions) are a bunch of scumbag corruptocrats? I suspect even the IG dept is corrupt.
Lois Lerner needs a 20 year prison term which will be conveniently pardoned by nobamascum.
It’s Obama’s fault.
What are you going to do about it Issa?
Imprison her or shut up you complicit little jerk. Enough theater - GET RESULTS ya pansy.
What are the chances that the IRSS will lose their records of me?
That’s about the size of it.
Nixon picked his nose and wiped it on the flag...
THIS burns the flag... and hangs Lady Liberty in effigy..
Paul Sperry of WorldNetDaily reported on missing White House emails of Al Gore and how the entire email archive process was tainted during the Clinton-Gore campaign financing scandal investigations.
The Democrat party was always a criminal and corrupt organization.
-PJ
More lying from the criminals in the Obama/Holder/Hillary racketeering, criminal enterprise. Lawlessness as far as the eye can see.
Will the Republican establishment leaders in Congress be dumb enough to accept this latest lie? Probably!
This case needs an independent counsel in the worst way. These criminals need the actual THREAT of criminal prosecution for perjury and obstruction of justice in order to make them divulge the truth.
BS. We know that the NSA has to have it.
There were senders and there were recipients. In order for the emails to be "lost", servers on both ends of the communications would have to have crashed simultaneously - for two years.
Seems like someone in IT would have noticed. But given the dearth of IT specialists in DC, maybe not.
For some odd reason, I don’t hear ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN screaming for answers....
"IRS Has 'Lost' Two Years of Lois Lerner's Emails": IMPOSSIBLE
There’s not even a smidgen of email from that period?
Imagine if something like this happened with a Republican in the Whitehouse. What would the liberals demand? Figure that out and do it to them.
Yep, and I'm sure Holder's FBI will get right on it (to cover up any loose ends, that is.)
“...given the dearth of IT specialists in DC...”
They were all busy working on the 0bammacare website.
TREY GOWDY BETTER POUNCE NOW!!!!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.