The IRS Scandal, Day 671

Washington Post, Clinton’s E-mail Drama Is Acted Out on the World Stage:

Several days before the world found out that Hillary Clinton used a private e-mail account exclusively for all communication as secretary of state, including work-related conversations, a Republican congressman sought to bar Internal Revenue Service employees from using their non-official e-mail for government business.

Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Tex.) introduced a bill on Feb. 27 directed at the IRS and intended to address allegations that former IRS official Lois Lerner used her personal account to discuss IRS matters. A House Republican-conducted report released in March 2014 said: “Her willingness to handle this information on a non-official e-mail account highlights her disregard for confidential taxpayer information.”

Marchant’s somewhat prescient legislation highlights a loophole in the Federal Records Act. While employees of the federal government are discouraged from using personal e-mail, it’s not barred. The law was updated in late 2014 to say that if personal e-mail is used for work, it must be turned over to be officially archived within 20 days.

In September 2014, during a House Oversight Committee hearing on the Lerner e-mails, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said it’s policy not to use personal e-mail.

“One of the things we’re doing is making sure everybody understands that you cannot use your e-mail for IRS business,” he said. “That’s been a policy; we need to reinforce that.”

But the IRS employee manual says only that “sensitive but unclassified” data can’t be e-mailed outside the IRS network — there’s nothing about an outright prohibition.

In the case of Lerner, House Republicans wanted her e-mails during their investigation into whether the IRS had targeted nonprofits for their political leanings when considering tax-exempt status.

Though the Clinton story shone a light on the federal government’s e-mail policy, Marchant’s office said he doesn’t have any plans to expand the bill to prohibit official business on all feds’ personal e-mail accounts.

Human Events, No One in Government Knows How to Use Email — Except Hillary Clinton:

[R]evelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used her private email address, [email protected], during her tenure to conduct State Department business, [brought] the topic of email and Internet security back into the national limelight. ... A public probing of Clinton’s email set-up has revealed a staggering ignorance on the part of government officials when it comes to email specifically, and technology more generally. ...

A much bigger technological foul on the part of the government is the scandal surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s handling of the emails of Lois Lerner, the former director of the Exempt Organizations Unit.

Faced by the House Committee on Oversight’s investigation into its alleged targeting of tax-exempt conservative nonprofit organizations, the IRS claimed to have lost up to two years’ worth of Lerner’s emails.

How could this be possible?

Because of a “computer crash,” IRS officials claimed. And any back-ups were automatically deleted, said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. This, despite the fact that emails are stored on cloud servers and were explicitly required by law to be recorded and backed up in a secure location.

Months later, it’s now been revealed those emails are not only recoverable, but an archive of up to 33,000 emails, up to 10 years’ worth, were easily found by a separate department.

Tim Camus, deputy inspector general of the Treasury Department, said finding the emails was done without issue. “They were right where you would expect them to be,” he told the Oversight Committee on Feb. 27.

Federal officials are now probing for potential criminal activity related to the covering-up of Lerner’s emails.

• The IRS Scandal, Day 670 (Mar. 10, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 669 (Mar. 9, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 668 (Mar. 8, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 667 (Mar. 7, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 666 (Mar. 6, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 665 (Mar. 5, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 664 (Mar. 4, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 663 (Mar. 3, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 662 (Mar. 2, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 661 (Mar. 1, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 660 (Feb. 28, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 659 (Feb. 27, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 658 (Feb. 26, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 657 (Feb. 25, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 656 (Feb. 24, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 655 (Feb. 23, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 654 (Feb. 22, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 653 (Feb. 21, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 652 (Feb. 20, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 651 (Feb. 19, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 650 (Feb. 18, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 649 (Feb. 17, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 648 (Feb. 16, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 647 (Feb. 15, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 646 (Feb. 14, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 645 (Feb. 13, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 644 (Feb. 12, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 643 (Feb. 11, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 642 (Feb. 10, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 641 (Feb. 9, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 640 (Feb. 8, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 639 (Feb. 7, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 638 (Feb. 6, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 637 (Feb. 5, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 636 (Feb. 4, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 635 (Feb. 3, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 634 (Feb. 2, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 633 (Feb. 1, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 632 (Jan. 31, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 631 (Jan. 30, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 630 (Jan. 29, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 629 (Jan. 28, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 628 (Jan. 27, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 627 (Jan. 26, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 626 (Jan. 25, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 625 (Jan. 24, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 624 (Jan. 23, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 623 (Jan. 22, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 622 (Jan. 21, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 621 (Jan. 20, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 620 (Jan. 19, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 619 (Jan. 18, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 618 (Jan. 17, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 617 (Jan. 16, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 616 (Jan. 15, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 615 (Jan. 14, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 614 (Jan. 13, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 613 (Jan. 12, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 612 (Jan. 11, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 611 (Jan. 10, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 610 (Jan. 9, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 609 (Jan. 8, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 608 (Jan. 7, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 607 (Jan. 6, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 606 (Jan. 5, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 605 (Jan. 4, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 604 (Jan. 3, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 603 (Jan. 2, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 602 (Jan. 1, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 601 (Dec. 31, 2014)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 501-600 (Sept. 22, 2014-Dec. 30, 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)