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Paul L. Caron
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Tuesday, September 9, 2014

The IRS Scandal, Day 488

IRS Logo 2New York Observer: Will Orange Be the New Black for IRS Chief Lois Lerner?, by Sidney Powell:

With five more Computer Crashes, a “pattern of racketeering activity” may be emerging.

Late last Friday afternoon, in a blatant “late news dump” to avoid making headlines about the Internal Revenue’s witch hunt against conservative non-profits, the IRS disclosed to Congress that five more of the IRS computers containing relevant records had mysteriously crashed. Those computers belonged to colleagues of Lois Lerner, whose conduct is at the center of the investigation.

Perhaps there is some strange computer virus that selectively trashes records inconvenient to incumbents, like the “glitch” that erased part of Nixon’s tapes. How else to explain the fact that this is the fourth announcement of an ever-expanding computer calamity connected to Lois Lerner to emerge from the IRS? First it was just Lerner’s computer that was affected, then those of her closest co-conspirators, then “no more than twenty” computers, and now an ever larger batch of burned out workstations.

Even more interesting, the IRS has apparently not yet shared this newest tidbit with Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the distinguished and courageous jurist presiding over Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Judge Sullivan has made the most progress so far in uncovering the conspiracy among Lerner and friends to target, harass and illegally obtain information from conservative non-profit organizations to benefit Mr. Obama’s reelection campaign—for which the law firm of Ms. Lerner’s husband, Michael Miles, also hosted a voter registration event. ...

While the agency continues to blame “computer crashes” for the now more than 20 people whose emails are “missing,” no IRS official has yet to identify when or how each computer crashed—much less why. We know Lois Lerner’s hard drive, which was “scratched” only a matter of days after receiving a letter from Congress requesting her emails. The IRS then destroyed it. The IRS followed a year later with the destruction of her unimpaired Blackberry containing emails for the same period. As we reported first, it made no effort whatsoever to obtain information from the Blackberry—despite being well into the Congressional inquiry. That is obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence—worse than the conduct for which Leslie Caldwell, now head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, destroyed Arthur Andersen LLP and its 85,000 jobs.

Any number of federal criminal statutes might apply to these facts, including Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1343—Wire Fraud; Section 1503—Influencing officer generally; 1505—Obstruction of proceedings before department, agencies and committees; and Section 1519—Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations. Sections 1343 and 1503 are also predicate offenses for the federal Racketeering Statute, Section 1961, which provides that a “pattern of racketeering activity” can be proved by committing two predicate acts. These statutes are punishable by terms of imprisonment varying from five to twenty years. ...

So yet again, the IRS simply creates more questions and at least five more reasons for Judge Sullivan to name a special prosecutor. When did each of the now more than 20 computer crashes occur—by date and time? How could that possibly happen? Why did the IRS prematurely cancel its longstanding contract for backup? Why did it take this long to find out that 5 more had “crashed?” Where is the Blackberry or other device for each of the persons whose computer crashed? What servers are implicated? Whose resignations are forthcoming? Why is Koskinen still there? Who is on Emmet Sullivan’s short list to be the special prosecutor?

Evidence is mounting by the day that Lois Lerner and her co-conspirators abused the power of the sovereign, violated the trust of the people, lied to Congress, destroyed documents and evidence of their wrongdoing, and violated multiple criminal statutes.

With the revelations of this last week, Lois Lerner and the IRS might as well be sitting on a ticking bomb . . . and it’s about to explode.

Forbes:  IRS Loses Emails Of 5 More Key Employees, Including Lois Lerner's Aide, by Robert W. Wood:

The IRS announced that it lost emails from five more IRS workers relevant to the ongoing investigation into whether the IRS targeted conservative groups. It’s a new black eye for an agency that has had many. It was only a few months ago that the IRS revealed that Lois Lerner’s emails were gone.

Lerner remains the key figure at the heart of the controversy. Now, in another belated announcement, the “we lost five more too” raises new questions why no one seems to know very much. Or maybe they won’t say. When the whole mess came to light, Mr. Lerner refused to testify and was held in contempt of Congress. She could be prosecuted and face jail, though that’s unlikely.

The five employees include a senior aide to Ms. Lerner. Two of the latest 5 IRS employees with “computer crashes” worked in the Cincinnati IRS office processing applications for tax-exempt status. The Cincinnati office, it’s worth remembering, was where those “rogue” employees of the IRS were off supposedly doing their own thing without the say-so of their bosses at the headquarters of the IRS in DC.

(Image credit: grassfire.com)

(Demand an IRS Independent Prosecutor Petition available at http://grassfire.com/2014/06/irs-independent-prosecutor/. Image credit: grassfire.com)

Again blaming computer crashes, the IRS said it found no evidence that anyone deliberately destroyed evidence. But Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and he isn’t so sure.

“First it was only Lois Lerner,” Rep. Issa said. “Now we learn there are 5 others, several months after the administration supposedly came clean about email losses. To the contrary.… each of the five hard drive issues resulting in a probable loss of emails substantially predates the onset of the investigations in 2013.”

The IRS had a backup tape system, but officials have said the agency routinely recycled the tapes. Besides, some of the real juice may be in text or instant messages. In 2013 when the IRS targeting scandal was already brewing, Ms. Lerner asked an IRS IT specialist if the IRS saved texts. No, they are not automatically saved, came back the response. The IT person went on to say that saving them was possible, though, so be careful.

“Perfect,” came Ms. Lerner’s reply. Congressional investigators, Judicial Watch and others doubtless want emails and texts, especially since it now appears that there was a little more off-the-grid mentality when it came to texts. Many Republicans think former IRS official Lois Lerner knows a lot.

USA Today:  E-mails Show IRS Attempts at Damage Control:

Lerner has emerged as the central figure in the IRS' handling of tax-exemption applications by conservative groups before the 2012 election. The Exempt Organizations office she headed subjected groups with names such as "Tea Party" and "Patriots" to more scrutiny and longer wait times than similar liberal advocacy groups, according to congressional Republicans.

The Democratic-controlled Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released the documents Friday along with a report finding that mismanagement, and not political bias, was responsible for the targeting.

The documents show Lerner's efforts to persuade Treasury auditors that there was no institutional bias at the IRS, the agency's attempts to head off a damaging investigation with a pre-emptive apology, and Lerner's pep talk to her staff after the apology.

 

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.

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Comments

Any independent prosecutor selected by the current AG will take years and produce pap. It's only a couple of years until we have a shot at one who will actually investigate.

Posted by: PersonFromPorlock | Sep 9, 2014 8:24:08 AM