Would You Believe, Another Crashed Hard Drive?

The Blaze ^ | 7/14/14 | Pete Kasperowicz

[blueyon]

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Monday made yet another request to the federal government for details about a crashed hard drive that may have contained information allowing criminal charges to be brought against a federal official.

Issa’s newest letter concerns the hard drive of April Sands, a former employee at the Federal Election Commission who resigned in the spring after admitting to violations of the Hatch Act. That law puts restrictions on the ability of government officials to conduct political activities while on the job, or from government offices.

[Jack Black]

One of my desires is that the next GOP administration NOT drop this as “water over the dam” but immediately sic competent Federal Prosecutors on everyone involved in this and seek indictments.

It’s amazing when you look back at the Scooter Libby farce. Bush was such a straight shooter that he went to the Nth degree to remove any implication of wrong doing. He ordered everyone to cooperate fully with the Special Prosecutor, who was partisan dog, and who invented a perjury trap for Scooter Libby after Rove proved too smart for them. (He was pulled in front of the Grand Jury something like six times).

A all black jury didn’t give him a chance, and he got five years in prison, over nothing, essentially, as the SP new from the start that he was not the person who had leaked the Plame CIA employment to the press. The guy who did leak it was a Dem holdover in State, and never prosecuted (because his actions were not illegal).

So, this can not be allowed to stand. The failure to prosecute the Clinton Crime Cabal for their many traitorous actions in office is why we are still vexed with them on the national stage.

NO STONE SHOULD BE LEFT UNTURNED IN PROSECUTING OBAMA REGIME CRIMINALS!

[Scrambler Bob]

Those hard drives, plus some guns and ammo, are the root cause of the rising seas, not gobal warming and glacier melting.

[logic101.net]

That law puts restrictions on the ability of government officials to conduct political activities while on the job

In WI people go to prison for that. Oh, sorry, only if they are Republicans.

[WILLIALAL]

....Not ONCE have I EVER had a hard drive crash to the point where I couldn’t retrieve information from it......

Someone explain to me how a hard drive crash eliminates data from itself in a government network?
How did her office operate after the crash, since all data was apparently irretrievably lost? How did she operate with a brand new clean computer?

The answer is it doesn’t work that way. In government, when your computer malfunctions, an IT tech is sent to fix it. If it can’t be fixed, a new computer is given to you, and here is the important part, your old data is reloaded on your new computer from baked up files from a main computer storage device. This device may only store data for a few weeks or months, but it is there long enough to reload on a replacement computer without loss of data.

You do not lose that much data when a drive crashes. Period.

[First_Salute]

“The data was lost in a hard drive involved failure.”

[WILLIALAL]

The point is, even if the IRS beat all those odds and all 7 drives crashed, the majority of their data was restorable off of back up drives, where I worked it was called the T drive and your computer data was backed up every night, just in case your computer did malfunction, your data could be reloaded on a new computer and your office could continue to function, and that included your emails.

These are out right lies. Yes this administration is just giving the finger to te American people.

[The_Media_never_lie]

As soon as the drive crashed, it HAD to be immediately recycled. This was done even though the data probably could have been retrieved. They are such responsible, environmentally conscious bureaucrats.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Yes EXACTLY, and that is what drives me crazy, they are lying through their teeth to the point of being beyond ridiculous, they are literally giving their middle finger to the court, so WHY aren’t they being ARRESTED? This is insane! This excuse they are giving is like saying “the hard drive went through a time machine and is in the year 2136” it just a insanely ridiculous excuse, so what are they waiting for? I thought Lerner was suppose to be arrested? This unreal what they get away with.

[kcvl]

A lawyer for the Federal Election Commission has resigned after being found to have engaged in prohibited political activity to help President Obama’s reelection on government time. The Federal Election Commission is the agency charged with regulating campaign finance for the presidential campaigns and serving as a purportedly neutral federal agency. The Washington Times reports on a finding by the Office of Special Counsel about the actions of this FEC lawyer:

The employee, a lawyer whose name wasn’t divulged, solicited campaign donations for Mr. Obama and other political campaigns, and even took part in a web broadcast from an FEC facility where the employee criticized the GOP and Republican 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

[WILLIALAL]

...As soon as the drive crashed, it HAD to be immediately recycled. ,,,,

That is not how government IT programs work. A work order is placed to fix a broken computer, serial number and all. A tech is dispatched to evaluate the problem, if it is determined that the computer has to be replaced then a new one is installed and your old data is reloaded onto your new computer from a storage device.
Issa needs to subpoena the IT people at the IRS, and not the director.

[kcvl]

“The FEC [Office of Inspector General] sought to pursue criminal charges stemming from Ms. Sands’s solicitation of political contributions while on duty inside the FEC building. However, the FEC recycled Ms. Sands’s hard drive before the OIG was able to seize it, and therefore the OIG was unable to show that Ms. Sands’s solicitations and political activity were done from an FEC computer. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia thereafter declined criminal prosecution.”

[tanknetter]

the OIG was unable to show that Ms. Sands’s solicitations and political activity were done from an FEC computer. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia thereafter declined criminal prosecution.”

That's bullsh*t.

The Hatch Act prohibits Federal Employees from soliciting political donations. Period. Doesn't matter whether it was on a government computer or personal one - it's still a conflict of interest and prosecutable as a felony (I believe).

[kcvl]

Sands was allowed to resign quietly and anonymously from her $133,264 a year job.

Sands once worked with Lois Lerner when Lerner was at the FEC. Lerner, too, stands accused of using her government office to help political allies.

Like Sands, Lerner was also allowed to resign and continue to enjoy generous federal retirement benefits. Sands had been at the FEC for at least eight years, which means she is likely to receive somewhere in the neighborhood of $853 a month from the taxpayers (to be inflation adjusted) upon reaching age 65 in 20 years or so.

[tanknetter]

Something else, it should be easy enough to subpoena Twitter to get the logs tracing her activity to a government computer.

[kcvl]

Sands did not respond to a request for comment made through the @ReignofApril Twitter account that Jordan and Issa say Sands used to solicit campaign contributions for Obama and other Democrats, and also to post on-the-job commentary like “I just don’t understand how anyone but straight white men can vote Republican.”

Although Sands made her Twitter postings “protected” immediately after The Plain Dealer sent her a message seeking comment on Issa and Jordan’s claims, a cached version of her feed is available here.

The pair said Sands’ bias was so strong, that she even called all Republicans her enemy in a Tweet that said “If you’re still calling yourself a Republican after the #WarOnWomen, their stated RNC platform, & Birtherism, you are my enemy. Done.”

[minnesota_bound]

Why can’t these people be arrested for obstruction?

[ProudChrwm]

Obama and his staff must be held accountable. Hard drive failure! Transparent President indeed. We see who he is!

[kcvl]

Meet x-#FEC lawyer April Sands, caught using government time to help #Obama win reelection.

[Hurricane]

“Subpoena the IT people”
Great approach, start there and work your way up. Give them lmmunity if necessary.

[kcvl]

According to OSC, this lawyer “posted dozens of partisan political tweets, including many soliciting campaign contributions to President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign,” despite Hatch Act prohibitions on such fundraising. The lawyer also “participated in a Huffington Post Live internet broadcast via webcam from an FEC facility, criticizing the Republican Party and then-Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.”

Although neither the OSC nor the Public Affairs office of the FEC would reveal the employee’s identity, my former colleague at the Justice Department, Christian Adams, has identified the Huffington Post Live broadcast (which can be viewed here) and the name of the employee, a lawyer no less: April Sands.

If there is any agency in the government where employees need to take extra steps in being nonpartisan and politically circumspect, it is the Federal Election Commission. The FEC is responsible for enforcing federal campaign-finance laws that involve one of the most sensitive areas of the First Amendment: political activity and political speech. In targeting candidates for investigation over possible violations of the law, the FEC must avoid even the appearance of acting in a partisan manner. I can’t think of a bigger black eye for the agency — or a more dangerous development — than having one of its own employees violate the Hatch Act for engaging in partisan political activity.

One can’t help but wonder how long Ms. Sands had been engaging in this activity. Were her supervisors or fellow lawyers aware of it? If so, what steps did they take to stop it? If not, why not?

The OSC press release offers no answers, and the Public Affairs Office at the FEC would not even confirm to Christian Adams that Sands ever worked at the FEC. (I know she did, because she was there when I was a commissioner.) Given Sands’s position as one of the lawyers in the Office of General Counsel responsible for investigating and making recommendations to the commissioners about possible violations of the law by candidates and political committees, the FEC has no choice but to pull the files on all the cases she was involved in and conduct an independent review of her actions in those files. The agency has an obligation to ensure that her partisan propensities did not bias or influence any of those investigations.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/377045/illegal-political-activity-fec-hans-von-spakovsky