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.
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when thermites are not the best fit.. ;-}
“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.”
So, who gets the conspiracy and obstruction charges??
Does ‘scratched’ mean it was physically manipulated with, say the tip of some scissors, OR does it mean it was defective and scratched (like in bowling when you go over the line and disqualified)? If the first it could only mean it was intentionally manipulated to create a defect, not that it had a defect. Obstruction of justice comes to mind.
low information congressmen.
Why should people that ignorant be making laws we have to obey??
I’m a graduate of the Ron Reil school of hard drive repair :)
Again and again, what is most important for the propaganda effort is the gradual emergence of at least 2 and preferably 3 or more competing theories so that the public sentiment and Darrell Issa-grade amateur lawyer-playing can be jerked from one to another. In this way, because there is no linear pursuit of what really happened (nor the willingness to accurately report same) and there is no coherent custody of these hard drives EVEN THOUGH POSSESSION of the HDDS is utterly meaningless, this whole thing is going to be diffused off into never-never land. What happened to Lois Lerner getting arrested? Wasn’t that supposed to happen last week?
Will those who testified or admitted affidavits that said the disks were destroyed by charged with perjury?
Great post!!!
‘Emails are not stored on a local PC’s hard drive.’
When my computer after 7 years and various bugs finally bite the dust, I hooked up my new one, went to my email site, put in username and password and low and behold, there my 28000 emails were along with my contact list.
This is all B/S.
“The homework was eating my dog and then the police shot it.”
*****************************************************************************************
Your dog was likely trying to videotape the police with its iPhone and refused to stop. Justified shooting; give the police a three week paid vacation (administrative leave).
Also, the police property room apparently lost the evidence (the homework).
Her cat scratched it when he went after her mouse.
The jokes just write themselves!
Camp: you expected a straight answer, from the IRS?!?! You’re kidding! Get real! We don’t have a written tax code that stretches from here to Neptune for a reason.
Sheesh - if you ever get audited just tell them you had it all stored on computer and the hard drive got scratched and then you threw it away - I am sure they will be understanding - not!
I think it was the kittehs...
It's possible. The thing that scratches the platter would be the read/write head itself which travels on a swinging arm, just barely above the surface of the platter. A sharp shock (like dropping the machine) while the platters are spinning could do it. It's also called a "head crash". Recovery of data from the drive at that point would likely require the assistance of firms that have specialized equipment for remounting and reading platters slowly, sector by sector.
Absolute criminal joke.
Dropped it down the staircase, twice?
Actually, a drive can experience a "head crash" that can result in a loss of some data. The heads that read the data are "flying" above the surface of the disks at a height of only a few thousandths of an inch. If the disk is subject to a hard jolt while the disk is spinning, then heads can crash onto the surface of the disk. The area where the heads contact the disk are damaged and the data stored there can be lost. If the damaged area contains part of the OS, the system may be unable to boot.
However, it would take a lot of head crashes to lose a significant amount of data from the drive. And as long as the drive will still spin up, you can place the drive into another system, do a bit-by-bit copy of the drive onto a new drive, and then recover the data from the undamaged areas of the drive.
probably stepped on it a few times in the process of trying to pick it up
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.
Anyone who was in the chain of communication had a “backup” of her emails (she wasn’t just sending them to herself).
Even if they were “no longer on the server”, they were still in other peoples’ mailboxes. Until the order came down from within to destroy the damaging information.
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