IRS claims it has LOST two years' worth of emails from former official Lerner

[Wilikon]

New Emails: IRS Had “Secret Research Project” To Obtain Donor Lists From Non-Profit Groups



The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) improperly obtained donor lists from nonprofit groups as part of a “secret research project” being run by Lois Lerner and other officials.

IRS official David Fish revealed the “secret research project” in a June 27, 2012 email to Lerner’s direct subordinate Holly Paz, according to emails released Thursday by the nonprofit group Judicial Watch, which obtained the emails in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

“Joseph Urban [IRS Technical Advisor, Tax Exempt and Government Entities] had actually started a secret research project on whether we could, consistent with 6104, argue that [REDACTED],” Fish wrote.

“Joe was quite agitated yesterday when I told him what we were doing. (He was involved when the initial question was raised, but we didn’t continue reading him in),” Fish continued. “At one point he started saying that this was a decision for Steve Miller–I told him we were already doing it, and that I didn’t know whether Lois had already talked to Nikole [Flax, former IRS Chief of Staff to IRS Commissioner Steve Miller] about this. Would not be surprised if he already started working on Lois.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” Paz replied. “The decision was made by Steve, based on advice from P and A. [Procedure and Administration].”

Lois Lerner and Nikole Flax, who were both part of the “secret research project,” both suffered computer crashes that allegedly wiped out their emails, according to the IRS.

Another email released Thursday showed that Lerner obtaining donor information from groups “was not needed across-the-board and not used in making the agency’s determination on exempt status,” according to an IRS deputy chief counsel.

http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/04/new-emails-irs-obtained-donor-lists-for-secret-research-project/#ixzz3CUcqGCyK

[Keninishna]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

[Wilikon]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

  Yes I believe this is exactly what happened at the IRS. The dog ate the tape back up too 


Not a smidgen of corruption.....

[Raize]

I've been a gov't system administrator and I find this whole nonsense of having lost emails completely ridiculous. Oftentimes there's multiple places users have them stored, home computer, mobile device, server, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly backups. That they'd be deleted/removed from all three is an outright lie. I bet their sys admin wants to tell the truth but is being hamstrung right now by his superiors.

[Mike Christ]

The Truth About the IRS Scandal: Was an Election Stolen? w/ Stefan Molyneux

[Spendulus]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

[Wilikon]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

So far none. If one is fired then the other domino knows it will fall and will have nothing to lose. They are ALL-IN in this.

[omgbossis21]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

So far none. If one is fired then the other domino knows it will fall and will have nothing to lose. They are ALL-IN in this.

I tend to keep my mouth quiet if he does something I don't like.  I would hate to be targeted by the entire IRS, could you imagine?  It would take nothing for them to ensure your being broke the rest of life and hounded with audits, tax issues etc.

[Wilikon]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

So far none. If one is fired then the other domino knows it will fall and will have nothing to lose. They are ALL-IN in this.

I tend to keep my mouth quiet if he does something I don't like.  I would hate to be targeted by the entire IRS, could you imagine?  It would take nothing for them to ensure your being broke the rest of life and hounded with audits, tax issues etc.

That is why books and movies about people who dare to do the right thing while facing assured doom are made. That is why their names never die, generations after generations. We would all keep our mouth shut when faced with a bully like lerner and her team... While hoping for someone else to do the right thing for all of us.


We are like sheep.

[Spendulus]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

So far none. If one is fired then the other domino knows it will fall and will have nothing to lose. They are ALL-IN in this.

I tend to keep my mouth quiet if he does something I don't like.  I would hate to be targeted by the entire IRS, could you imagine?  It would take nothing for them to ensure your being broke the rest of life and hounded with audits, tax issues etc.

That is why books and movies about people who dare to do the right thing while facing assured doom are made. That is why their names never die, generations after generations. We would all keep our mouth shut when faced with a bully like lerner and her team... While hoping for someone else to do the right thing for all of us.


We are like sheep.

I am Spartacus.

[Wilikon]

IRS Told Treasury & White House About Missing Emails Before Telling Congress


In a new development, we’ve learned it was IRS Commission John Koskinen’s own chief legal advisor at the IRS, Catherine Duval, who informed someone at the Treasury Department, who told someone at the White House that emails were missing, while Congress, which subpoenaed the documents, was left in the dark.

Duval disclosed that she was the source when she gave closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committee before Congress’ summer break. The emails in question are from IRS manager Lois Lerner who’s implicated in the agency’s improper targeting of conservative groups.

Duval acknowledged she told Treasury’s senior counsel there were “issues” finding emails.

“We are friends, we talk,” Duval testified. “I believe we talked about it in mid to late April.”

Congress wasn’t told until June.

Republican Darrell Issa heads the Oversight Committee. He says the IRS was focused on political damage control.

“This is very troubling because this organization’s supposed to be apolitical,” Issa told us. “They’re supposed to in fact inform us all at the same time.”

We asked Representative Issa, “The IRS telling the Treasury Department which told the White House well before Congress, tells you what?”

“It tells us they’re still playing deny, delay and cover up,” said Issa.

http://www.foxsanantonio.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/missing-emails-irs-not-telling-congress-6282.shtml#.VBCqFPldV8F

[Wilikon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMkUz192B_A


A senior communications aide to Attorney General Eric Holder seemingly called House oversight committee chairman Darrell Issa’s staff by accident and asked for their help spinning new revelations about the IRS scandal, Issa said in a September 8 letter to Holder.

The aide, Brian Fallon, is a former senior aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and a well-known personality on Capitol Hill. The letter describes Fallon as “audibly shaken” when he realizes his request to leak documents to help get ahead of news stories about them was mistakenly made to the very office he was seeking to undermine. Issa believes the call was intended to be made to Democratic Rep. Elijah Cumming’s staff, the ranking member on the oversight panel, the letter said.

According to the letter, Fallon – who is not named in the letter but confirmed he made the call – asked if the aides could release the IRS scandal documents to “selected reporters” to give Fallon an “opportunity to comment publicly on it.”

Fallon explained to Issa aides that the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs had not permitted him to release the documents to the public and he wanted to get ahead of the story “before the Majority” – meaning Issa – could share it, according to the letter.

Issa aides – who had placed the call on speakerphone – were “caught off guard by the unusual nature of the call and the odd request” and asked Fallon to “e-mail the material for evaluation.”
“At this point,” Fallon “abruptly placed the call on hold for approximately three minutes.” When Fallon returned to the call, “he was audibly shaken. He immediately stated that there was a ‘change in plans’ and that there would be no effort” by DOJ to release the material early.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/09/Letter-Holder-Aide-Accidentally-Calls-Issa-For-Help-Spinning-IRS-Scandal

[dankkk]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

I would not at all be surprised if we were to see people/companies let go right around when Lenner's computer "crashed" and as a result the backups are "not available". The Obama administration has stonewalled this investigation and has publicly came very close to breaking the law.

[Spendulus]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

I would not at all be surprised if we were to see people/companies let go right around when Lenner's computer "crashed" and as a result the backups are "not available". The Obama administration has stonewalled this investigation and has publicly came very close to breaking the law.

Yeah.  Also consider that a fair majority of people, maybe 3/4, are not so rigidly and dogmatically political that they would always support the D or R.  If something was wrong in their office, they'd do what was right.

But I know where those IRS emails are.  They are in the same box with Obama's birth certificate and college records.

[Wilikon]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

I would not at all be surprised if we were to see people/companies let go right around when Lenner's computer "crashed" and as a result the backups are "not available". The Obama administration has stonewalled this investigation and has publicly came very close to breaking the law.

Yeah.  Also consider that a fair majority of people, maybe 3/4, are not so rigidly and dogmatically political that they would always support the D or R.  If something was wrong in their office, they'd do what was right.

But I know where those IRS emails are.  They are in the same box with Obama's birth certificate and college records.

In that case only one dude can help us get those emails then....

[dankkk]

I'm an IT professional, you would be surprised how many people just keep a .pst on their local hard drive with all their emails on it which eventually dies even though they are trained to put them on the network share.

I had a service company that maintained the backup tape drives for a government installation for about ten years.  They could produce anything they wanted, no ifs ands or buts.

It would be interesting to see who's been hired and who's been fired in that chain of command of people overseeing the backups, since this nonsense started.

I would not at all be surprised if we were to see people/companies let go right around when Lenner's computer "crashed" and as a result the backups are "not available". The Obama administration has stonewalled this investigation and has publicly came very close to breaking the law.

Yeah.  Also consider that a fair majority of people, maybe 3/4, are not so rigidly and dogmatically political that they would always support the D or R.  If something was wrong in their office, they'd do what was right.

But I know where those IRS emails are.  They are in the same box with Obama's birth certificate and college records.

My point was that when people and companies were fired when her computer crashed then it would be easier to set it up such that their replacements would overlook needing to find the backups of her computer files. The people being let go would not know that they were fired merely to cause chaos to avoid recovering the data. This would only take a very small number of people (probably only one or two) to execute

[Wilikon]

Koskinen: ‘Hard Drive Crashes Continue As We Speak’


Internal Revenue Service (IRS) commissioner John Koskinen testified Wednesday that the IRS did not save any of the information on Lois Lerner’s destroyed Blackberry and that there is no outside system to store agency emails.

“Hard drive crashes continue as we speak,” Koskinen admitted at a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing when asked if any computers had recently crashed under his watch.

Koskinen admitted that destroying records would be an act “not consistent with the law,” but maintained that there’s no evidence that the IRS intentionally destroyed records.

“Ms. Lerner’s Blackberry was replaced in February 2012 as part of an ongoing Blackberry update….it was disposed of under standard procedures at that time,” Koskinen said.

Koskinen claimed that information from Lerner’s Blackberry could not be transferred to her new model because “Our Blackberries only display email that is displayed by our employees’ Microsoft Outlook emails, which is maintained on IRS servers.”

Koskinen also said that there’s no outside system to save IRS employees’ emails.

“There is no system outside the IRS, government or otherwise, that the IRS uses to back up or store emails,” Koskinen said.

Koskinen didn’t mention that the IRS terminated its years-long contract with its email archiving company Sonasoft shortly after Lerner’s computer crashed.

“It is not clear that there are backup tapes that have any information on them,” Koskinen said. “I never said they disappeared, I said they were recycled.”

But the IRS could have easily saved all records, information, and history on Lois Lerner’s Blackberry, according to a Blackberry user guide.

“If you have installed the BlackBerry® Desktop Software on your computer, you can back up and restore most of your BlackBerry smartphone data, including messages, organizer data, fonts, saved searches, and browser bookmarks using the BlackBerry Desktop Software. For more information, see the Help in the BlackBerry Desktop Software,” according to Blackberry.

“If your email account uses a BlackBerry® Enterprise Server, you might be able to restore synchronized organizer data to your smartphone over the wireless network. To restore synchronized organizer data over the wireless network, you must have an activation password. For more information, contact your administrator,” the Blackberry manual continues.

Koskinen said that if the agency destroyed records then “that was an act not consistent with the law” but said, “There’s no evidence that there were records destroyed.”

Koskinen also admitted that IRS employees routinely use personal email accounts to conduct agency business but maintained that “they do it inadvertently.”

http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/17/koskinen-hard-drive-crashes-continue-as-we-speak/

[omgbossis21]

If somebody produces those emails he's a hero.  However within the year he will commit the usual government related "suicide".

[Spendulus]

If somebody produces those emails he's a hero.  However within the year he will commit the usual government related "suicide".

Or some others will.

[leannemckim46]

If somebody produces those emails he's a hero.  However within the year he will commit the usual government related "suicide".

Whistle-blowers are generally protected under federal law. Therefore it would be illegal for anyone to retaliate against them for producing evidence against the IRS. Also once the evidence is released the "damage" would have been done to the Obama administration and testimony would generally not be necessary, so faking his suicide would do little for president Obama