Posted on 06/16/2014 3:26:57 PM PDT by PoloSec
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 (R-Calif.) accused the IRS of "continued obstruction and game-playing" and announced he had subpoenaed the agency's commissioner to appear before Congress.
"For too long, the IRS has promised to produce requested - and, later, subpoenaed - documents, only to respond later with excuses and inaction," Issa said.
But the White House dismissed Republican complaints as conspiratorial.
"I think it’s entirely reasonable, because it’s the truth and it’s a fact, and speculation otherwise I think is indicative of the kinds of conspiracies that are propagated around this story. And they’re propagated in a way that has left people with a very mistaken impression about what exactly occurred," Earnest said.
Earnest also said the administration had turned over some 67,000 other emails sent or received by Lerner during her tenure at the agency, calling it a "good-faith effort" by the IRS to assist in investigations.
"So if we are trying to hide Lois Lerner’s e-mails from congressional oversight, there’s a pretty large loophole," Earnest said.
"The far-fetched skepticism expressed by some Republican members of Congress I think is not at all surprising and not particularly believable," Earnest added.
The President is asserting that the IRS doesn’t keep backups of their emails? And it took them a whole YEAR to come up with this zinger?
It’s not even just a matter of keeping backups anymore. These emails would have been replicated in multiple locations from the time they were created.
We’re past the days of the Mac+ and floppy disks.
Garbage. This is an insult to the nation's intelligence and these days, that isn't easy.
You know this is how the excuse happened. They were all sitting around in a room thinking of things to say and then this excuse came up....Yeah they will believe it, it is entirely reasonable.
THey are desperate and just stalling for time...this is an utterly ridiculous excuse
White House: Explanations for lost Lerner emails ‘entirely reasonable’
For The STUPID !!!!!
Goes a long way to explaining why they could not build a website for under a $billion. They have no clue.
Bo ate them...maybe Moosechelle too.
The dog ate my homework??
The worse excuse is why the GOP hasn’t got serious about this for two years now.
oh yeah, he’s saying this to reporters....oh you, wink wink, those darn computers are always crashing and losing emails you know...
That’s the thing IF the Republicans were serious about getting to the bottom of this they would march out enmasse and say “They are lying. There is no way this can happen. Produce the emails or be arrested.”
A “glitch”. A “computer crash”. Do they think we’re complete and total fools?
(Judging from the results of the 2008 and 2012 elections, I think so)
Does the 2016 GOP Presidential candidate want to win? Promise to go into the IRS and FIRE practically everyone. Banks can handle the 941/940 money and then start over.
Fire the IT folks first. Then anyone with a title longer than 3 words.
Two words: John Boehner. Two more: Darryl Issa.
Both are useless.
Huff, puff, cry, cave. Repeat often.
The GOP is not interested in truly investigating the IRS scandal. Behind closed doors Boehner and McConnell are likely cheering on the IRS in their efforts to kill the tea party. The GOPe leadership is letting the IRS take the lead in killing the tea party so they don't have to work as hard in killing it themselves.
They are more of a danger than Obama simply because there is nothing Obama does that they have not either assisted or covered up for.
Because the GOP hates the Tea Party as well, the have no problem with the irs doing this to them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.