Posted on 07/22/2014 3:10:50 PM PDT by kristinn
Washington, DC – Despite early refusals to make available IT professionals who worked on Lois Lerner’s computer, Ways and Means Committee investigators have now learned from interviews that the hard drive of former IRS Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner was “scratched,” but data was recoverable. In fact, in-house professionals at the IRS recommended the Agency seek outside assistance in recovering the data. That information conflicts with a July 18, 2014 court filing by the Agency, which stated the data on the hard drive was unrecoverable – including multiple years’ worth of missing emails.
“It is unbelievable that we cannot get a simple, straight answer from the IRS about this hard drive,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI). “The Committee was told no data was recoverable and the physical drive was recycled and potentially shredded. To now learn that the hard drive was only scratched, yet the IRS refused to utilize outside experts to recover the data, raises more questions about potential criminal wrong doing at the IRS.”
It is also unknown whether the scratch was accidental or deliberate, but former federal law enforcement and Department of Defense forensic experts consulted by the Committee say that most of the data on a scratched drive, such as Lerner’s, should have been recoverable. However, in a declaration filed last Friday by the IRS, the agency said it tried but failed to recover the data, but is not sure what happened to the hard drive afterwards other than saying they believe it was recycled, which, according to the court filing means “shredded.”
Further complicating the situation, the Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that this declaration may not be accurate. A review of internal IRS IT tracking system documents revealed that Lerner’s computer was actually once described as “recovered.” In a transcribed interview on July 18, IRS IT employees were unable to confirm the accuracy of the documents or the meaning of the entry “recovered.”
“It is these constant delays and late revelations that have forced this investigation to go on so long,” Camp added. “If the IRS would just come clean and tell Congress and the American people what really happened, we could put an end to this. Our investigators will not stop until we find the full truth.”
Background:
After the Supreme Court released its January 2010 decision in Citizens United, the IRS spent three years responding to Democrat complaints and calls to stop activities of conservative groups. The IRS in Washington, DC took these complaints as marching orders to subject Americans to harassment for their beliefs by subjecting applicants to extraordinary delay and inappropriate questions, audits, and by making their confidential tax information public.
At a May 10, 2013 legal event, Lerner admitted that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny based on their names and policy positions. Initially, President Obama vowed to work with Congress to “get this thing fixed.” Likewise, upon assuming leadership of the agency, IRS Commissioner Koskinen said his goal was to “find problems quickly, fix them promptly, make sure they stay fixed, and be transparent about the entire process.” Unfortunately, the Administration’s professed eagerness to help Congress investigate the targeting quickly waned and it began obstructing the Committee’s investigation.
The most egregious recent example is the delay in notifying Congress of Lerner’s lost emails. On June 13, 2014, over 13 months into the investigation, and one month after the Committee was promised it would receive all Lerner emails without qualification, Congress learned that potentially thousands of Lerner emails were destroyed by the IRS. The IRS purportedly notified Congress in a letter sent to provide an update on the pace of production. Buried in the third attachment of the 27-page letter was the revelation that over two years’ worth of Lerner’s emails to and from individuals outside the IRS were lost due to an apparent computer crash that occurred in mid-2011. In later correspondence with the Committee, Treasury and the White House admitted learning of the lost emails in April 2014, two months before the IRS informed Congress.
The Committee immediately began investigating the matter. On the following Monday, the IRS’ Deputy CIO told staff that the agency was unable to retrieve information from Lerner’s malfunctioning hard drive, even after sending it to experts at the IRS’s Criminal Investigations unit. When pressed by investigators about any other computer issues, the IRS admitted that six other IRS employees involved in the political targeting also experienced computer crashes.
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“The truth will come out.”
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Yes, we’re at the point where judges are bringing in IRS staff and asking questions under oath. Judges who know better than to accept “I don’t know”s and “I can’t recall”s. They’re also calling in IT folks with direct involvement and knowledge of the data storage processes.
In my experience, the IT folks are much more likely to give straight answers and not try to mislead. In other words, we’re getting to the point where the ‘Scheiße’ is going to be hitting the fan — and IRS staff and the Regime know it.
Post of the day!
That, above all, justifies a revolution, just to clean things up.
That’s my understanding. I once had an active tower fall off a desk, killed the drive (probably a scratch.) Using off-the-shelf recovery software I was able to recover all the data I wanted very easily. My understanding is that unless the drive has catastrophic physical damage (siezed mechanics, fried circuitry) then it is recoverable to great extent via software alone, and moreso by just the typical power user.
Obviously somebody didn’t want these files.
This level of corruption and the cover-up is frightening. And it’s only one front among many.
see Richard m. nixon
Had a former coworker remove a laptop hard drive and substitute another one. Big company had forensic IT staff that detected it. Hope Gowdy has a bunch of really smart techies to tear a new ass on this.
This story is almost enough to make me question whether those emails were fabricated.
“And the other seven were “scratched” in the same manner in the same time frame?...”
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Well perhaps the IRS has a mouse infestation or an infestation of ‘RATS that needs to be extirpated?
Elegant solution.
It's revenge for the computer geeks treating the journalist students like the double-digit IQ retards that they are...
I was using that crap in the mid 80’s. It takes lots of space to store and you have to deal with idiots that can’t label them. But why they still doing that? lol
I don’t get it. Maybe I’m too old and tapes to me are these large, round things you put a plastic cover around and stickers for ID you have log.
Small, dat types in a server I understand. Had those in my safe in a big hotel. But now with massive digital servers and backup sites, etc. makes no sense.
Also, SENIOR EXECUTIVES are usually "of a certain age", as I delicately put it, and have to be taken care like small children when it comes to computer stuff.
Simply put, most of their generation cannot handle computer logic and do not have "computer intuition", which is possessed by their successors, the Video Children.
They're important, so they have "people" for that.
Why are we still going on and on about a stupid hard drive? That hard drive is unimportant. What matters is where are the network and tape backups should have copies of ever single piece of IRS email traffic going back several years? That is the scandal here... The IRS appears to have destroyed or hidden vast amounts of mission critical data!
Also, the same sort of thing applies to the IT staff at IRS. Right now, anyone who has them on their resume is in a bad place. Would you hire them?
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