[rottndog]

Here’s the question I would like to have answered...we know the emails were backed up on multiple servers, and archived as well. If in fact the e-mails no longer exist, it could only be by deliberate and illegal acts. WHO would have the administrative authority on these systems to access and delete the e-mails, and what if any record of that access would exist and could be retrieved?

[Robe]

My experience is with a local school district.(Now retired)
(3 large High Schools, and umteen middle and elementary schools)
We, due to costs, had our teachers and administrators archive their emails at the end of each school year to their respective hard drives, and the servers would be scrubbed.
They were advised to keep those archived emails on a external drive.
So potentially, if they didn't follow directions, they could lose a year's worth of emails.
That said, however, we have paid $400-$500 on occasion for drives to be recovered by a tech firm that specializes in data recovery. (a lawyer in the dist office didn't do as directed) But if she got the Blue screen of Death, the drive didn't "Crash", Windows XP did !.. Data can still be recovered in house,if we at a local school dist can do this I'm sure the experts at IRS CIS surely can.