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Really? Not even just a little bit, just to say, “Sorry about the whole not-retaining-our-records-when-we-demand-that-you-do” sort of thing? IRS Commissioner John Koskinen asserted that the IRS owes no apologies for the curious epidemic of hard-drive failures among officials involved in the targeting scheme, whose e-mails Congress has spent the last year-plus demanding from the IRS: CAMP: What I didn’t hear in that was an apology to this committee.KOSKINEN: I don’t think an apology is owed. There are not a single e-mail has been lost since the start of this investigation. Every e-mail has been preserved that we have. WE...

Republicans are still pressing the Obama administration to find missing emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and six other IRS personnel, but the White House insists they are not recoverable. "As the IRS said, I.T. professionals worked to restore Lerner's hard drive and were unable to do so," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

. June 18, 2014 Newt Gingrich We are watching the most significant crisis of constitutional order since Watergate, the last time an administration broke the law deliberately and repeatedly. And none of the current cases look more Nixonian than what has been happening at the IRS. Thirteen months ago, President Obama stood before the American people, acknowledged that the IRS had “improperly screened conservative groups,” and promised to get to the bottom of the matter and to “hold the responsible parties accountable.” “It’s inexcusable,” he said, “and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about...

Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive has been recycled, making it likely the lost emails of the lightening rod in the tea party targeting controversy will never be found, according to multiple sources.“We’ve been informed that the hard drive has been thrown away,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, in a brief hallway interview.Two additional sources told POLITICO the same late on Wednesday, citing IRS officials.(Also on POLITICO: White House hits back in IRS flap)It may just be standard government procedure, but the revelation is significant because some lawmakers and observers thought...

<p>WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday it has found no emails between any person in the executive office of the president and a top Internal Revenue Service official who has been connected to the improper scrutiny of political groups. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the White House searched for all communications between the former IRS official, Lois Lerner, and executive office personnel. "We found zero emails," he said.</p>

Republicans on Tuesday charged that the IRS has lost emails of a half dozen of its employees involved in the tea party targeting controversy, including a top aide to the now-fired acting IRS commissioner. In addition to losing two years’ worth of emails sent and received by Lois Lerner, the central figure in the scandal, the IRS “cannot produce records from six other IRS employees involved in the targeting of conservative groups,” Ways and Means Republicans said in a release. That includes Nikole Flax, who was the chief of staff for Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner who was fired...

Republican lawmakers charged Tuesday that the IRS knew for months they had "lost" a massive trove of emails from embattled ex-IRS official Lois Lerner, but kept it "secret" until this past Friday. The lawmakers noted that during this period, newly appointed Commissioner John Koskinen nevertheless assured Congress the agency would produce the documents, which are considered critical to their efforts to probe the targeting of Tea Party and other groups. Further, lawmakers said records from six other IRS workers appear to have gone missing as well. "It looks like the American people were lied to and the IRS tried to...

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...