The IRS Scandal, Day 547

Legal Insurrection:  Judicial Watch:  IRS “Did Not Undertake Any Significant Efforts to Obtain” Missing Lerner Emails:

Democrats who had hoped for at least a week to sleep off their election night hangovers are getting no rest after the latest disclosure of court documents by advocacy group Judicial Watch.

Judicial Watch has spent a great deal of time and resources seeking information about the IRS targeting of conservative groups.

In September, Judicial Watch asked the court for permission to conduct discovery into how “lost and/or destroyed” records might be recovered; the IRS is fighting transparency efforts, but their latest response to the discovery request contains inconsistencies that could pull the rug out from under IRS officials responsible for the cover up.

Via Judicial Watch:

Judicial Watch lawyers reviewed the IRS court filings and concluded that the agency “did not undertake any significant efforts to obtain the emails.”

IRS attorneys conceded that they had failed to search the agency’s servers for missing emails because they decided that “the servers would not result in the recovery of any information.” They admitted they had failed to search the agency’s disaster recovery tapes because they had “no reason to believe that the tapes are a potential source of recovering” the missing emails. And they conceded that they had not searched the government-wide back-up system because they had “no reason to believe such a system … even exists.”

But what’s this? The inconvenient truth, documented for all time courtesy of court filings? [Emphasis in bold mine:]

The IRS admitted to Judge Sullivan that the agency failed to “submit declarations about any of the foregoing items because it had no reason to believe that they were sources from which to recover information lost as a result of Lerner’s hard drive failure.” [Emphasis added] Department of Justice attorneys for the IRS had previously told Judicial Watch that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search. In the October federal court filing, the IRS does not deny that the government-wide back-up system exists, and acknowledges to the court that 760 other email “servers” have been discovered but had not been searched.

The IRS also refuses to disclose the names of the IRS officials who may have information about the IRS scandal, citing unspecified threats. The IRS says it pulled documents about the scandal from various employees into a “Congressional database” and that it has only searched this one “database” for missing records. Incredibly, the IRS has not searched any of the IRS’s regular computer systems for any missing records and admits that it has only searched a “database” that it knows does not contain the missing records being sought by the court, Judicial Watch, and Congress.

After two years of fighting, it has become clear to the attorneys at Judicial Watch and to the public that this administration is not interested in transparency as to the IRS targeting of conservatives.

• The IRS Scandal, Day 546 (Nov. 6, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 545 (Nov. 5, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 544 (Nov. 4, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 543 (Nov. 3, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 542 (Nov. 2, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 541 (Nov. 1, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 540 (Oct. 31, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 539 (Oct. 30, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 538 (Oct. 29, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 537 (Oct. 28, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 536 (Oct. 27, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 535 (Oct. 26, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 534 (Oct. 25, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 533 (Oct. 24, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 532 (Oct. 23, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 531 (Oct. 22, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 530 (Oct. 21, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 529 (Oct. 20, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 528 (Oct. 19, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 527 (Oct. 18, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 526 (Oct. 17, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 525 (Oct. 16, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 524 (Oct. 15, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 523 (Oct. 14, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 522 (Oct. 13, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 521 (Oct. 12, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 520 (Oct. 11, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 519 (Oct. 10, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 518 (Oct. 9, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 517 (Oct. 8, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 516 (Oct. 7, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 515 (Oct. 6, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 514 (Oct. 5, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 513 (Oct. 4, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 512 (Oct. 3, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 511 (Oct. 2, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 510 (Oct. 1, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 509 (Sept. 30, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 508 (Sept. 29, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 507 (Sept. 28, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 506 (Sept. 27, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 505 (Sept. 26, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 504 (Sept. 25, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 503 (Sept. 24, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 502 (Sept. 23, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 501 (Sept. 22, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 401-500 (June 14, 2014 - Sept. 21,2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 301-400 (Mar. 6, 2014 - June 13, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 201-300 (Nov. 26, 2013 - Mar. 5, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 101-200 (Aug. 18, 2013 - Nov. 25, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 1-100 (May 10, 2013 - Aug. 17, 2013)