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Paul L. Caron
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Friday, August 29, 2014

The IRS Scandal, Day 477

IRS Logo 2Sharyl Attkisson:  Can Justice Dept. Investigate IRS Impartially?:

Should a special counsel take over the Justice Department probe of lost IRS emails and the targeting of conservative tax-exempt groups?

Attorney General Eric Holder says there’s no need: his Justice Department is conducting a thorough and fair investigation.

But can the Justice Department be impartial in IRS probe of “lost” documents while, at the same time, defending the IRS in civil litigation over the lapse?

The question is raised in the context of a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed against the IRS by the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch. In what seems to be yet another about-face, Justice Department lawyers Friday told Judicial Watch the elusive documents may have been saved, after all, on some type of government-wide backup system from which materials are difficult to retrieve. So, on the one hand, the Justice Department is investigating the IRS. On the other, it is representing and defending the IRS.

 

The order from U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan was certainly clear enough. In a landmark victory for Judicial Watch, the federal judge ordered the IRS to submit sworn declarations detailing what happened to Lois Lerner’s “lost” emails and what steps were being taken to find them. What was provided was a garbled explanation from no less than five IRS officials with more holes than a block of Swiss cheese. ...

These sworn declarations came from five IRS officials: Aaron G. Signor, John H. Minsek, Stephen L. Manning, Timothy P. Camus, and Thomas J. Kane.

We noted that the IRS and DOJ filings seem to treat as a joke Judge Sullivan’s order requiring the IRS to produce details about Lois Lerner’s “lost” emails and any efforts to retrieve and produce them to Judicial Watch as required under law.

This is the story we’re supposed to believe, according to these IRS officials: Lerner’s crashed drive was analyzed by two technicians who employed a variety of tech tactics to recover the data, to no avail. The drives – which, mind you, had no recoverable data according to these experts – were then “degaussed” (wiped clean) “to protect against any possible disclosure of… taxpayer information.” Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the IRS email scandal would have realized that these filings were a blatant continuation of the cover-up.

Well, if there’s one thing I know, it is that most federal courts don’t take kindly to being treated disrespectfully and expected to act like a somnolent member of Congress as administration officials mislead, omit, and play games.

Sure enough, in a stunning move, Judge Sullivan took the extraordinary step of launching an independent inquiry into the issue of Lerner’s missing emails. ...

Judicial Watch has filed hundreds of FOIA lawsuits. I have never seen this type of court action in all my 16 years at Judicial Watch.

Judge Sullivan has already authorized Judicial Watch to submit a request for limited discovery into the missing IRS records after September 10. So stay tuned for further details very soon.

Judge Sullivan took the additional step of appointing Magistrate Judge John M. Facciola to manage and assist in discussions between Judicial Watch and the IRS about how to obtain the missing records. Magistrate Facciola is an expert in e-discovery.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/08/the-irs-8.html

IRS News, IRS Scandal, Tax | Permalink

Comments

This was news a week ago, and Fox News, of all things, got the scoop that explained that Judicial Watch's lawyers had misinterpreted the phone call in question. So "what seem[ed] to be yet another about-face, [in which] Justice Department lawyers [last] Friday [purportedly] told Judicial Watch the elusive documents may have been saved, after all, on some type of government-wide backup system from which materials are difficult to retrieve," proved to be just another of Judicial Watch's many and frequent self-aggrandizing press releases.

Posted by: Publius Novus | Aug 29, 2014 6:15:12 AM