The IRS Scandal, Day 821

Forbes:  Dear IRS Employees: Emails Go To Congress, So Let's Text, by Robert W. Wood:

For more than two years, President Obama has denied there is an IRS problem, quipping that there is not a smidgen of corruption at the IRS. He has long claimed that any missteps were innocent, entirely the fault of bonehead decisions in local offices. ...

Yet it is harder and harder to believe. IRS documents have revealed a Lois Lerner email about teaching IRS staffers to understand the potential pitfalls of revealing too much information to Congress. Forget email. Instead, the IRS used a neat instant messaging system that automatically deleted office communications. House Oversight Committee documentation suggests it was used deliberately by IRS officials to evade public scrutiny. The fact that the IRS use instant messaging to hide internal communications came out more than a year ago, yet it is still pooh poohed by the administration. ...

Some of the real juice may be in text or instant messages. In 2013, when the IRS targeting scandal was brewing, Ms. Lerner asked an IRS IT specialist if the IRS saved texts? The response was music to Ms. Lerner’s ears. No, they are not automatically saved, was IT’s response. The IT person went on to say that saving them was possible, though, so be careful. “Perfect,” was Ms. Lerner’s reply. And remember all those many millions of dollars of taxpayer money the IRS spent looking?

Yet House Members were recently told by the Inspector General that the IT staff of the IRS said they were never even asked for backup tapes to find Lerner’s emails. Deputy Inspector General Tim Camus said finding the emails was easy. “They were right where you would expect them to be,” he told the Oversight Committee. ...

Mr. Koskinen has testified before Congress numerous times. On March 26, 2014, he pledged that the IRS would produce all of Ms. Lerner’s emails. Yet he knew there were big problems, and the ‘facts’ and dates just don’t line up. Mr. Koskinen lamented the lost or destroyed backup tapes. Mr. Koskinen testified he had “confirmed” that all of the tapes were unrecoverable.

In fact, approximately 700 backup tapes had not been erased and contained relevant information. The inspector general said the 700 still-good backup tapes recovered were found within 15 days of the IRS’s informing Congress they were not recoverable! What was so difficult? The inspector general’s staff simply drove to Martinsburg, WV and asked for the tapes. The IRS had never even asked whether the tapes existed. Well, maybe they sent a text.

• The IRS Scandal, Day 820 (Aug. 7, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 819 (Aug. 6, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 818 (Aug. 5, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 817 (Aug. 4, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 816 (Aug. 3, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 815 (Aug. 2, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 814 (Aug. 1, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 813 (July 31, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 812 (July 30, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 811 (July 29, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 810 (July 28, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 809 (July 27, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 808 (July 26, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 807 (July 25, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 806 (July 24, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 805 (July 23, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 804 (July 22, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 803 (July 21, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 802 (July 20, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 801 (July 19, 2015)
• The IRS Scandal, Days 701-800 (April 10, 2015 - July 18, 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)