The IRS Scandal, Day 776

New York Observer:  A Shameless IRS Is STILL Withholding Lois Lerner Emails, by Sidney Powell:

In the continuing saga of the IRS, the Department of Justice, and their efforts to hide evidence and obstruct justice to protect Lois Lerner and the administration’s targeting of its political opposition, the IRS now claims that thousands of emails found on backup tapes Commissioner Koskinen told Congress did not exist are not IRS records, the IRS has no control over them, and they can’t produce them. In fact, the IRS won’t even say whether it has the thousands of additional “lost” emails. And down the rabbit hole we head—where “up means down” and “stop means go.”

Knowledge of Ms. Lerner’s abuse of power within the IRS to target conservative groups for harassment and denials of tax-exempt status surfaced more than two years ago, along with apparent links to the White House. Congress has been investigating, but the IRS has repeatedly lied and stonewalled. The Treasury Inspector General issued a report, acknowledging the abuse and improprieties and is now in the midst of a criminal investigation. The Department of Justice has done nothing.

In one of its more stunning developments, IRS asserted that Lois Lerner’s computer had crashed, preventing any ability to recover her emails. Even more shocking, soon the claimed crashed expanded to everyone in the IRS who was involved with Lerner—more than 20 computers. Of course, we all knew that there are backups and copies on servers, Blackberry, and other devices.

Nonetheless, Commissioner Koskinen told Congress that the IRS did not have backup tapes of Lois Lerner’s emails. He claimed the IRS had worked hard to try to find them, but they had been destroyed.

Watchdog non-profit Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that landed in the court of federal judge Emmett G. Sullivan. ... [T]he Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) belied Mr. Koskinen’s claims within a day—finding the first 744 “non-existent” backup tapes containing thousands of emails exactly where they should have been. Upon further review, the Inspector General identified a missing document, which quickly led to an additional 424 tapes of backup emails—all from the IT department of the IRS in West Virginia. Mr. Koskinen had not even asked them about the tapes.

The Department of Justice did nothing. Many people have been prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for far less in the way of perjury. ...

Now, according to the most recent filing by Judicial Watch, the IRS asserts that the emails are not records of the IRS. Being a Texan, I’m not 100 percent sure how to pronounce it, but “chutzpah” is the only word to describe this latest assertion. To borrow from Lewis Carroll, “Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.”

The IRS and its Department of Justice lawyers must be imagining that these emails were not repeatedly sought by Congress and Judicial Watch while in the possession of the IRS. The IRS must be imagining that its own commissioner never lied to Congress, the court and the public about their existence and purported efforts to find them. And it must be imagining that each of its seven filings in Judge Sullivan’s court did not fail to reveal the existence of the backup tapes. It must be imagining that Judge Sullivan won’t remember the lengths to which he and the magistrate went to try to find the emails and any backups. And it is imagining that it can continue stalling and lying indefinitely, while no one in the government is held accountable for far more serious legal infractions than those for which ordinary citizens have been imprisoned.

It took Judge Sullivan only two days to grant Judicial Watch’s request to require IRS to disclose whether all emails the inspector general found have been turned over to the IRS, where it stands in the review process, and how many of the 1,268 tapes have been processed for recovery or when that process will be complete.

Stunningly, in its response the IRS again said nothing. It simply punted to the Inspector General. It claims that because of that investigation, it cannot disclose more Lois Lerner or other emails. It just stalls. ...

If the IRS won’t provide information, set and meet a deadline, perhaps Judge Sullivan will turn to the Inspector General to answer his questions. If neither does, Judge Sullivan still has the option of naming a special prosecutor.

President Obama was right when he said there isn’t “a smidgeon of corruption in the IRS.” Rather, it is rife with it. Someone needs to end the madness, and teach the IRS that stop means stop.

• The IRS Scandal, Day 775 (June 23, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 774 (June 22, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 773 (June 21, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 772 (June 20, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 771 (June 19, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 770 (June 18, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 769 (June 17, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 768 (June 16, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 767 (June 15, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 766 (June 14, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 765 (June 13, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 764 (June 12, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 763 (June 11, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 762 (June 10, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 761 (June 9, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 760 (June 8, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 759 (June 7, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 758 (June 6, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 757 (June 5, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 756 (June 4, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 755 (June 3, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 754 (June 2, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 753 (June 1, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 752 (May 31, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 751 (May 30, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 750 (May 29, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 749 (May 28, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 748 (May 27, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 747 (May 26, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 746 (May 25, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 745 (May 24, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 744 (May 23, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 743 (May 22, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 742 (May 21, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 741 (May 20, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 740 (May 19, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 739 (May 18, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 738 (May 17, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 737 (May 16, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 736 (May 15, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 735 (May 14, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 734 (May 13, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 733 (May 12, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 732 (May 11, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 731 (May 10, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Two Years And Counting (May 9, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 729 (May 8, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 728 (May 7, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 727 (May 6, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 726 (May 5, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 725 (May 4, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 724 (May 3, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 723 (May 2, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 722 (May 1, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 721 (Apr. 30, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 720 (Apr. 29, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 719 (Apr. 28, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 718 (Apr. 27, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 717 (Apr. 26, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 716 (Apr. 25, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 715 (Apr. 24, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 714 (Apr. 23, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 713 (Apr. 22, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 712 (Apr. 21, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 711 (Apr. 20, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 710 (Apr. 19, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 709 (Apr. 18, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 708 (Apr. 17, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 707 (Apr. 16, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 706 (Apr. 15, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 705 (Apr. 14, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 704 (Apr. 13, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 703 (Apr. 12, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 702 (Apr. 11, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 701 (Apr. 10, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 601-700 (Dec. 31, 2014 - April 9, 2015)
• 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)