The emails reside on the Exchange (email) Server, not the local hard drive. Besides, haven’t other Obama staff been using private Gmail accounts to do the dirty work?
I wonder if the IRS uses a service like Office365? Which is to wonder if the service provider could be subpoenaed?
Simple solution. Any government employee who accesses any private email account from a government computer is frog-marched out.
I’m guessing that’s the real problem. Someone gave permission for these dirtbagz to use their personal computers to hide oficial business and that “someone”is scared crapless. But the other half of the emails is still on gummint servers. Personal or not the law requiring traceability is liable to bite somebody in the butt. In a former life I did occasional audits on gummint record keeping and no one dared tell me that they couldn’t find the paper. Doing so could start a criminal prosecution first thing Monday morning.
When you have old men like Hatch in congress and others who have aides turn on their computers for them, you can say “The computer shredded all the emails” and they’ll believe it.