Posted on 07/22/2014 3:10:50 PM PDT by kristinn
Washington, DC – Despite early refusals to make available IT professionals who worked on Lois Lerner’s computer, Ways and Means Committee investigators have now learned from interviews that the hard drive of former IRS Exempt Organizations Director Lois Lerner was “scratched,” but data was recoverable. In fact, in-house professionals at the IRS recommended the Agency seek outside assistance in recovering the data. That information conflicts with a July 18, 2014 court filing by the Agency, which stated the data on the hard drive was unrecoverable – including multiple years’ worth of missing emails.
“It is unbelievable that we cannot get a simple, straight answer from the IRS about this hard drive,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI). “The Committee was told no data was recoverable and the physical drive was recycled and potentially shredded. To now learn that the hard drive was only scratched, yet the IRS refused to utilize outside experts to recover the data, raises more questions about potential criminal wrong doing at the IRS.”
It is also unknown whether the scratch was accidental or deliberate, but former federal law enforcement and Department of Defense forensic experts consulted by the Committee say that most of the data on a scratched drive, such as Lerner’s, should have been recoverable. However, in a declaration filed last Friday by the IRS, the agency said it tried but failed to recover the data, but is not sure what happened to the hard drive afterwards other than saying they believe it was recycled, which, according to the court filing means “shredded.”
Further complicating the situation, the Committee’s investigation has revealed evidence that this declaration may not be accurate. A review of internal IRS IT tracking system documents revealed that Lerner’s computer was actually once described as “recovered.” In a transcribed interview on July 18, IRS IT employees were unable to confirm the accuracy of the documents or the meaning of the entry “recovered.”
“It is these constant delays and late revelations that have forced this investigation to go on so long,” Camp added. “If the IRS would just come clean and tell Congress and the American people what really happened, we could put an end to this. Our investigators will not stop until we find the full truth.”
Background:
After the Supreme Court released its January 2010 decision in Citizens United, the IRS spent three years responding to Democrat complaints and calls to stop activities of conservative groups. The IRS in Washington, DC took these complaints as marching orders to subject Americans to harassment for their beliefs by subjecting applicants to extraordinary delay and inappropriate questions, audits, and by making their confidential tax information public.
At a May 10, 2013 legal event, Lerner admitted that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny based on their names and policy positions. Initially, President Obama vowed to work with Congress to “get this thing fixed.” Likewise, upon assuming leadership of the agency, IRS Commissioner Koskinen said his goal was to “find problems quickly, fix them promptly, make sure they stay fixed, and be transparent about the entire process.” Unfortunately, the Administration’s professed eagerness to help Congress investigate the targeting quickly waned and it began obstructing the Committee’s investigation.
The most egregious recent example is the delay in notifying Congress of Lerner’s lost emails. On June 13, 2014, over 13 months into the investigation, and one month after the Committee was promised it would receive all Lerner emails without qualification, Congress learned that potentially thousands of Lerner emails were destroyed by the IRS. The IRS purportedly notified Congress in a letter sent to provide an update on the pace of production. Buried in the third attachment of the 27-page letter was the revelation that over two years’ worth of Lerner’s emails to and from individuals outside the IRS were lost due to an apparent computer crash that occurred in mid-2011. In later correspondence with the Committee, Treasury and the White House admitted learning of the lost emails in April 2014, two months before the IRS informed Congress.
The Committee immediately began investigating the matter. On the following Monday, the IRS’ Deputy CIO told staff that the agency was unable to retrieve information from Lerner’s malfunctioning hard drive, even after sending it to experts at the IRS’s Criminal Investigations unit. When pressed by investigators about any other computer issues, the IRS admitted that six other IRS employees involved in the political targeting also experienced computer crashes.
###
The biggest issue was usually RACF as it did weird things with tapevols datasetnames ... but I had “special” “operations” and “auditor” ...
Because of Issa and Cummings, Law was lost in the US.
There is always corruption, like Holder, but
the complicit EXEMPT drunken, scheming
whores in Congress ONLY make themselves above all Law.
From Fast&Furious, to the Black Panthers attacking
WHITE voters, to the Black on White violence orchestrated
by Holder and Obama, to now rapists and murderers
and infected flown to all States, THEY HAVE DONE
NOTHING OF SUBSTANCE.
All the treasonous EXEMPT belong before Grand juries.
I was all MVS all the time (just a little CMS/VM to run our “profs” e:mail system on a 3033) ,,, 3031/308x/309x Jes2/racf/vtam/ims/cics
I still wonder if they were using “private” email accounts as was discovered at the EPA.
Lois already has been discovered to being trying to hide information (don’t put it in an email! etc.) and circumvent FOIA requests.
#SMIDGEN
Horse hockey and even if it were “scratched” it would still be recoverable.
Hey IRS! When you’re in a whole with your lies, stop digging!
There are many people in this country completely fed up with the lies.
The lies are not even good believable lies. They are a middle finger to all Americans. And it is nothing more than flaunting what they think is their power over us.
Nothing will come of it, no one will be held accountable so what lies they tell are irrelevant.
Come on now! My first ‘puter in 1988, running under DOS, with 2 floppy drives and a hard drive with a whopping 65 meg capacity, might have been susceptible to scratching if handled roughly, but in The Year of Our Lord 2014.....I have my doubts.
“Anyone who emailed her or whom she emailed seems to have suffered an irrecoverable harddrive crash and did not archive their messages as required by law.
Does not pass the smell test....”
*****************************************************************************************
Perhaps its that “irrecoverable hard drive crash” virus that was going around IRS. You know, the virus that infected the computers of recipients’ of Lois Lerner’s emails. Funny virus, that.
Sorry, boss. The drive was scratched!
Enjoy,
BT
I hope some IT person has this drive wrapped like a stain in a blue dress somewhere so they can produce it at the right time for the right payoff....
You know, they really should be able to kick down whatever door needs it, and just take the evidence, given they are destroying what little is left. I get so furious, but the GOP has been slow-walking this for show. It needs to be taken care of.
Dr. Pepper, right through the nose! You owe me a new keyboard.
So what I expect happened is that they did a low level format and put it back in service. Because they don't track at the component level they don't know what machine it went to.
I expect this is coming out because "shredded" drives are probably handled by an outside company that WOULD keep track of serial numbers and would provide certification, by serial numbers, of destroyed drives.
We haz no SANz and no NetBackupz. KMA. ;p
But our elected officials in charge of investigating this are buying the charade that the emails are on the PC hard drive.
Do not confuse them with the real facts
If this was a Dell computer their automated manufacturing “build” sheet for her s/n ‘puter would have the s/n’s of the hdd recorded .... if the drive was reformatted , put in a “spare” status and re-used in another computer then the data is lost. If it was simply quick formatted and is on a shelf then the story changes .. but I think we all know it’ll never be produced and no definitive tracking of it will ever be established.
Good point on all accounts. Also goes to show how liars have a hard time keeping their stories straight.
Yup, you said it.
I scratched one recently. My boss had to replace one of our failed RAID drives, and I got to “scratch” it with .308 and .223 “Drive scratchers” to render it useless :-)
Of note, it’s removal and replacement wasn’t noticeable on the network!
In my experience with PC’s an IT department will keep spare computers for swapout , loaded with whatever apps the organization uses and the tech would only load special apps that aren’t in their standard configuration. Unless it’s an easy to diagnose and fix minor issue like maybe bad memory or a network card the user usually gets a “new” computer.
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.