Free Republic

The IRS’ inability to locate a trove of emails belonging to Lois Lerner, the former agency official at the center of the department’s targeting scandal is “mind-boggling,” according to an expert in electronic discovery. Bruce Webster, who has served as a consulting and IT expert in more than 80 civil lawsuits, is astonished by the fact that the IRS could lose two years’ worth of emails. “It is very well known in both legal and IT circles that as soon as litigation and/or criminal investigation is likely -- not actually initiated, but merely likely -- it is imperative to preserve...

Friendly reminder, America. They think you're stupid: A top White House official blamed a computer crash for the disappearance of emails from embattled former Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner, echoing the explanation the agency gave Congress last week for the two years' worth of missing subpoenaed correspondence. "I think it's entirely reasonable. And it's fact," incoming White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One Monday. "You've never heard of a computer crashing before?" he asked.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) knew for months that Lois Lerner’s emails had been destroyed, even before the current IRS commissioner testified that his agency would produce all of them. The IRS knew as early as February 2014 that Lerner’s emails were missing, top lawmakers on the House Committee on Ways and Means confirmed Tuesday. The IRS had this knowledge nearly three months before IRS commissioner John Koskinen agreed at a hearing to turn over all of Lerner’s emails to the committee. Additionally, the IRS failed to deliver emails from six other IRS employees at the heart of the IRS...

It’s not just Lois Lerner’s e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says it can’t produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans investigating the scandal. The IRS told Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany that computer crashes resulted in additional lost e-mails, including from Nikole Flax, the chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired in the wake of the targeting scandal. The revelation about Lerner’s e-mails rekindled the scandal and today’s news has further inflamed Republicans. Camp and Boustany are now demanding...

URGENT per Fox's @ChadPergram - "Fox has also learned that the emails of six other prominent IRS officials have also gone missing."

by Sharyl Attkisson on June 14, 2014 in News 2 Comments The news came late in the day on Friday the 13th. According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS reports having “lost” former IRS manager Lois Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS employees sent between January of 2009 and April of 2011 due to a ‘computer crash.’ In light of the disclosure, these are some of the logical requests that should be made of the IRS: Please provide a timeline of the crash and documentation covering when it was first discovered and by whom; when, how...

A cottage industry grew up following the revelation that Rosemary Woods, Richard Nixon’s secretary, performed feats of contortionism worthy of Barnum and Bailey in order to “accidentally” erase 18 1/2 minutes of a June 20, 1972, tape that most experts agree contained a conversation between the president and Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman discussing Watergate. Here is Woods demonstrating her act:

Evan Spiegel, CEO and cofounder of $2 billion photo application Snapchat, was social chair of his Stanford University fraternity, Kappa Sigma. During that time, he wrote some cringeworthy emails to get his brothers riled up for parties. They are emails that Spiegel now tells Business Insider he deeply regrets. The emails, obtained by Valleywag's Sam Biddle, are about as offensive and "fratty" as you can imagine, with references to cocaine, excess drinking, and urinating on women. Some of the statements from the early 2010 emails include: “See everyone on the blackout express soon.” “Papa Spiegel [a big-time L.A. lawyer] is...

In a world where texts, tweets and emails can potentially be used against you, billionaire investor Mark Cuban launched Cyber Dust, an app for disappearing text messages and photos. Once the recipient views the note, it vanishes in seconds. Cuban says he was inspired to create this service after being challenged by the FCC over insider trading allegations, of which he was eventually cleared. “What I learned very quickly was they took old emails and messages and created whatever context they wanted to create for it,” says Cuban. Cuban took his idea to app developers and launched Cyber Dust to...

In an April 20 (given the deep connections between the Brotherhood and the Nazi Party, the date may not have been an accident) story in the Jerusalem Post, the question was asked, Will Qatar abandon the Muslim Brotherhood? As they put it, Qatar is the only country who openly supports the Muslim Brotherhood. This followed the pressure exerted on Qatar to do just that from its three Gulf neighbors, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia even threatened a blockade should Qatar not comply. Clearly the Brotherhood, and their revolutionary aims, had been recognized as a threat...

While much of last week's news was about the smoking gun that linked the White House to the false talking points about the attack in Benghazi, another email that would have shed light on how those talking points came about was nearly completely redacted by the government. The email has as its subject, "SBU/CLOSEHOLD: 0800 SVTS on Movie Protests/Violence." SBU stands for "Sensitive But Unclassified" and SVTS most likely refers to "Secure Video Teleconference System." Ironically, though labeled unclassified, nearly the entirety of the email was redacted before it was given to Judicial Watch. It was written by Eric Pelofsky,...

One day after The White House released 100 pages of Benghazi emails, a report has surfaced alleging that Republicans released a set with altered text. CBS News reported Thursday that leaked versions sent out by the GOP last Friday had visible differences than Wednesday's official batch. Two correspondences that were singled out in the report came from National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. The GOP version of Rhodes' comment, according to CBS News: "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want...

"I have evidence that not only are they hiding it, there's an intent to hide it. I can't disclose that evidence yet, but I have evidence there was a systematic, intentional decision to withhold certain documents from Congress." On Friday, Trey Gowdy appeared on Fox News to discuss Benghazi and the convening of new committee to investigate when he made the above comment about the Obama adminstration's obvious cover-up. "We're just sick of it," he continued. "So we're gonna get him to come and explain why we're getting documents 20 months late." [video here] In his trademark style, Congressman Gowdy...

After more than a year of resisting the calls of a vast majority of his conference, Speaker John Boehner is relenting and forming a special committee to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya and resulting scandal. “The administration's withholding of documents – emails showing greater White House involvement in misleading the American people – is a flagrant violation of trust and undermines the basic principles of oversight upon which our system of government is built. And it forces us to ask the question, what else about Benghazi is the Obama administration still hiding from the American...

MRC president Brent Bozell appeared on “The Kelly File” with substitute host Martha MacCallum to discuss new e-mails about Benghazi and Fox News coverage of Benghazi. The e-mails are between State Department PR operative Victoria Nuland and friendly Associated Press reporter Matt Lee, discussing the alleged “BS” on Fox during “The O’Reilly Factor” on September 13, 2012, two days after the consulate attacks. Bozell thought the Obama publicist and the AP reporter sounded way too much like each other. (Video, transcript below)

The CBS Evening News on Wednesday ignored one of the day’s top news stories: the revelation that White House aide Ben Rhodes — brother of CBS president David Rhodes — instructed Susan Rice to emphasize a false talking point about the 2012 terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya. In a White House email chain recently obtained through a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, Ben Rhodes urged Rice “[t]o underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy” ahead of her infamous appearance on several Sunday shows. The decision by CBS to ignore the story...

April 30, 2014, 02:39 pm Carney: Email was not about Benghazi By Justin Sink Press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that a newly-revealed email showing a White House official preparing then-U.S. ambassador Susan Rice for television interviews was not explicitly in reference to the terror attack in Benghazi. "The email and the talking points were not about Benghazi," Carney said. "They were about the general situation in the Muslim world." A set of documents obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request included an email from deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes to...

Newly released emails on the Benghazi terror attack suggest a senior White House aide played a central role in preparing former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for her controversial Sunday show appearances -- where she wrongly blamed protests over an Internet video. More than 100 pages of documents were released to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Among them was a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications. The Rhodes email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with...

WASHINGTON — A House committee is voting on whether to hold a former Internal Revenue Service official in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions at a pair of hearings.

US intelligence chiefs have confirmed that the National Security Agency has used a "back door" in surveillance law to perform warrantless searches on Americans’ communications. The NSA's collection programs are ostensibly targeted at foreigners, but in August the Guardian revealed a secret rule change allowing NSA analysts to search for Americans' details within the databases. Now, in a letter to Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the intelligence committee, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has confirmed for the first time the use of this legal authority to search for data related to “US persons”.