Posted on 06/24/2015 5:18:18 PM PDT by mandaladon
WASHINGTON (AP) — IRS employees erased computer backup tapes a month after officials discovered that thousands of emails related to the tax agency's tea party scandal had been lost, according to government investigators.
The investigators, however, concluded that employees erased the tapes by mistake, not as part of an attempt to destroy evidence.
As many as 24,000 emails were lost because 422 backup tapes were erased, according to J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
The revelation is likely to fuel conspiracy theories among conservatives who say the IRS has obstructed congressional investigations into the scandal.
George is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee Thursday morning about his investigation into the emails. The Associated Press obtained a copy of his prepared testimony.
An IRS spokeswoman said Wednesday evening the agency had no immediate comment.
George set off a firestorm in May 2013 with an audit that said IRS agents improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.
Several hundred groups had their applications delayed for a year or more. Some were asked inappropriate questions about donors and group activities, the inspector general's report said.
The lost emails were to and from Lois Lerner, who used to head the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. In June 2014, the IRS told Congress it had lost an unknown number of Lerner's emails when her computer hard drive crashed in 2011.
The IRS had discovered that the emails were lost in February 2014. A total of 422 computer backup tapes were erased a month later, George says in his testimony.
At the time, IRS officials said the emails could not be recovered.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It was the "top news story" literally for years with the left and liberal press organs. The Left in America still has its underwear in knots about it. Talk about obessions!
The revelation is likely to fuel conspiracy theories among conservatives who say the IRS has obstructed congressional investigations into the scandal.
Yahoo News needs a fact checker and proofreader. Oh, nevermind. I'll do it.
The revelation is likely to fuel conspiracy theories result in the only logical conclusion among conservatives all clear thinking people who say can see as plain as day that the IRS has obstructed congressional investigations into the scandal. All others are willfully blind, corrupt or just plain stupid.
I recently suffered a full blown computer crash that resulted in Dell sending me a replacement laptop. But in order to get that, I had to agree to send the crashed computer back to them. After transferring all my files to the replacement computer, I erased the hard drive on the old one before sending it back.
Funny thing -- it was impossible to erase the hard drive, although I looked up how to do it, followed the instructions, and tried many times to complete the task, all without success -- much to my frustration.
Further online research on how to do it led me to a software program called Darik's Nuke and Boot (DBAN), which I downloaded and which finally enabled me to wipe the hard drive clean after first creating a boot disk and starting the computer from that. Even then, before launching DBAN, it gave me several warnings that I was about to permanently delete the data from the hard drive.
And once I launched the program, the program took TWELVE HOURS to complete the task of wiping the hard drive clean.
I am no techie, but based on this experience, I would submit that it is absolutely impossible to erase a hard drive by mistake. It requires a very deliberate and specialized sequence of events to accomplish that erasure.
It is obvious that the IRS DELIBERATELY erased the hard drive, because based on my experience, there is just no way to do it by accident.
Pull the other one, you lying felons.
I have lost all faith in Issa, Gowdy, Chaffetz and the rest of them. Especially Gowdy! I thought for SURE he’d achieve accountability for these criminals in one form or another, but.. NADA.
They are part of the ruling elite and will stop at nothing to preserve their power. The definition of corrupt power does not do justice to their actions. I myself prefer the name "Assassins of the Constitution."
The investigators, however, concluded that employees erased the tapes by mistake, not as part of an attempt to destroy evidence... Yeah right.
DOH!
Don’t you mean the GOPD? Grand Old Party Dunderheads?
Or how about the GOAT? Grand Old Active Traitors?
Or the other GOPD? Grand Old Planted Democrats?
The dimwit party has been infiltrated with commies, marxists, and islamists, so in order to completely destroy our Country,
they’re trying and succeeding to infiltrate and subvert the Republican Party as well. We the People are simply a big bank
account from which all political parties feel they can draw a bunch of $$$ anytime they want it, not need, but want it.
Conservatism and godliness are the only ways successfully to run a country. It has been proven time and again in the
two-hundred and some odd years since the founding of this nation, and we don’t stand a chance of survival unless we
return to the Constitution and our Founding Fathers’ ways.
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