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The Internal Revenue Service is required by federal law to keep records of all agency emails and to print out hard copies of the emails to make sure they get saved in the event of a computer glitch. The IRS recently claimed that it lost 24,000 of 67,000 emails that ex-official Lois Lerner sent between 2009 and 2011, due to a computer crash. The IRS, which agreed to turn over all of Lerner’s emails to the House Committee on Ways and Means, specifically lost emails Lerner sent to other Obama administration agencies and the White House. Lerner is a major...

On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service informed Congressional investigators that it could not recover two years of emails from Lois Lerner, the former head of the agency's tax-exempt status department. Lerner has been at the center of the investigation into how and why the IRS applied additional scrutiny to the tax-exempt applications of Tea Party-affiliated organizations.

"Congressional investigators are fuming over revelations that the Internal Revenue Service has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency's tea party controversy." That's the opening sentence of the Associated Press story on the IRS's claim that it lost an unknown number of emails over two years relating to the agency's alleged targeting of political groups hostile to the president. But note how the AP casts the story: The investigators -- Republican lawmakers -- are outraged. Is it really so hard to imagine that if this were a Republican administration, the story wouldn't be...

With an eye on the presidency in 2017, another Clinton is parsing words and pandering. Obama, as you might remember, dismissed the undisputed fact that the IRS targeted political groups. He called it a "phony scandal" and declared that "not even a smidgen of corruption" exists inside the IRS—this without an independent investigation or the least bit of transparency from his administration. Stretching the bounds of credulity, the IRS announced Friday that countless emails to and from Lois Lerner were "lost." As a former head of the IRS division that did the screening, Lerner is a key to determining whether...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A House committee says that President Obama's "political rhetoric" was critical in the IRS' decision to target Tea Party, pro-family, and other groups that had politically conservative leanings. In a 77-page report released on Monday, the House Oversight Committee said, "President Obama's bully pulpit led to the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative tax-exempt applicants." The report also places blame on "congressional Democrats," "Senior White House officials," "and other left-wing political figures and commentators."

Scandal: In testimony last March, the IRS chief told Congress that the now-allegedly irretrievable emails were not immediately available because they were safely stored offline. Maybe the NSA can help find them? Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to testify June 23 about Lois Lerner's suddenly lost emails. One of the topics is expected to be his prior contradictory congressional testimony. Koskinen testified about the emails at an Oversight hearing in March and, as investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson notes, gave quite the opposite impression from the current storyline that has every computer nerd in...

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.

resident Barack Obama has flouted the law again and again -- unilaterally rewriting the health law at least 18 times since passage; changing immigration law by executive fiat (after having explained that to do so would be beyond the scope of his constitutional authority); dictating that union claims should trump creditors in the General Motors and Chrysler bailouts; altering the welfare laws by regulation; making recess appointments when Congress was not, in fact, in recess; and many more. After each arrogation of power, critics have protested, "He can't do that!" Yes, he can -- because there is nothing to stop...

Explanations provided by the Internal Revenue Service for how it lost two years of former employee Lois Lerner's emails are "entirely reasonable," the White House said on Monday. "You’ve never heard of a computer crashing before?" White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters traveling with the president aboard Air Force One. Congressional Republicans have blasted the IRS's admission that it lost Lerner's emails from between 2009 and 2011 because of an apparent computer error. Lerner resigned from the agency amid controversy over charges her division unfairly targeted conservative political groups. In a statement Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa...

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...

Scandal: The IRS descends into criminal enterprise, with word of a 26-month gap of lost emails from the very period it was illegally targeting Tea Party groups. Computer crash? Try obstruction of justice. Just as the claim that President Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, inadvertently hit the "erase" button instead of "pause" gave impetus to the drive to impeach Nixon, so too should the IRS announcement that it can't find two years of Lois Lerner's emails lead to a criminal investigation of this administration and creation of a select committee. In April we wrote, "Lois Lerner Should Go To Jail."...

Corruption: A House panel votes this week to formally ask the DOJ to pursue criminal charges against former IRS employee Lois Lerner. It is time someone in this administration were held accountable for something. A staff report by House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa reveals testimony by IRS agents that the IRS has not deliberately targeted progressive groups. Now comes word that the House Ways and Means Committee is sending a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder accusing former IRS director of tax-exempt organizations Lois Lerner of committing at least three crimes in the IRS's targeting tea party and other...

New emails show that the woman at the center of the IRS scandal over special scrutiny of conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status targeted tea party applications specifically and directed they be held up. While a possible "wag the dog" attack on Syria and other "phony" scandals like Benghazi have grabbed the headlines, Congress has continued its investigation into the Obama administration's targeting of tea party groups that sprang up in opposition to ObamaCare by the agency charged with enforcing it, the Internal Revenue Service. [snip] In the February 2011 email, Lerner advised her staff — including then-Exempt Organizations Technical...

Lois G. Lerner, the employee at the center of the IRS tea party targeting scandal, wanted to recover files from her computer hard drive after it crashed in 2011, but when told it was impossible, she took a philosophical view. “Sometimes stuff just happens,” she said in a 2011 email to the IRS tech staff that tried to recover documents from the hard drive.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claimed Friday that it cannot produce Lois Lerner’s emails to and from the White House and other administration departments due to a supposed computer crash. The IRS previously agreed to hand over all of the ex-IRS official’s emails from 2009 to 2011 to the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Dave Camp. But the IRS claimed Friday that it has Lerner’s emails to and from other IRS officials but it cannot produce emails to and from the Treasury and Justice Departments, the Federal Election Commission, or Democratic offices. The IRS’ computer crash may...

According to the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS has "lost" two years of emails belonging to former head of tax exempt organizations Lois Lerner. The IRS doesn't have a record of her emails to outside groups or government agencies from January 2009 through April 2011, conveniently encompassing some of the same time when tea party groups were being targeted for extra scrutiny and possible criminal prosecution. The IRS says the loss of emails is due to a "computer crash" and claims emails from or to Lerner from the White House, Democratic members of Congress, the Treasury Department, FEC...

The smoking gun in the IRS targeting scandal could be found in the Senate, one advocacy group says, pointing out a correspondence it believes pressured the tax agency to impose extra scrutiny on conservative groups as part of a Democratic election strategy in 2010 and 2012. The Center for Competitive Politics, which opposes campaign finance restrictions and other limits on political speech, filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics against nine Democratic senators, most notably Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin of Illinois and Carl Levin of Michigan, for repeated lobbying of the IRS to probe conservative groups. It also...

Z Street representative Lori Lowenthal Marcus spoke out in March 2013 about the harassment the pro-Israel group received from the Obama IRS: “They told us terrorism happens in Israel. Therefore, they had to look into our organization because they thought we might be funding terrorism. We’re a purely educational entity. We didn’t fund anybody. We barely funded ourselves.” Remember: This is the same administration that wouldn’t call the Benghazi massacre a terrorist attack but accused a pro-Israel group of supporting terror.

A lawsuit alleging that the IRS discriminates against pro-Israel groups will be allowed to move forward, a federal judge ruled this week in Washington, D.C. The IRS has been fighting to quash the lawsuit filed in 2009 by pro-Israel group Z Street, claiming the court does not have jurisdiction to hear the matter. However, Judge Ketanje Brown Jackson rejected the agency’s request to dismiss the case on Wednesday and ordered the IRS to respond to Z Street’s complaint within the next 30 days. Z Street says its constitutional rights were violated by an IRS policy that allegedly singles pro-Israel groups...