Eye-popping twist in hunt for 'missing' IRS emails

Eye-popping twist in hunt for 'missing' IRS emails

Lois Lerner

Copies of messages could be stored on 760 computer servers

Garth Kant

http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/brand-new-twist-in-hunt-for-missing-irs-emails/

WASHINGTON – New information from a crusading congressman and the Treasury Department has punched another hole in the story told by the IRS commissioner about Lois Lerner’s missing emails.

It turns out, there may be copies of her missing emails on 760 servers.

IRS chief John Koskinen testified before Congress in June there were no copies of two years’ worth of Lerner’s missing emails because the agency’s backup system consisted of storing all department emails on tapes that were recycled every six months.

Many members of Congress and IT experts were flabbergasted by that, as virtually all businesses store all their archives permanently on servers.

Their suspicions may have been on the mark, according to new information provided by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Jordan, who has been spearheading a House Oversight subcommittee investigation of the IRS, announced on Friday the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, or TIGTA, has identified 760 exchange servers that could contain Lerner’s missing emails from the critical two-year period in question.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio

Jordan’s office released a statement pointing out this new information “contradicts Commissioner Koskinen’s sworn testimony before Congress about Ms. Lerner’s missing e-mails.”

In a letter the congressman sent to Koskinen on Friday, Jordan wrote, “According to TIGTA, the IRS did not search these sources for Ms. Lerner’s e-mails during its process of producing documents to Congress because the IRS was not aware that the exchange servers even existed. According to TIGTA, the IRS was under the mistaken belief that the exchange servers had been destroyed in 2012 until TIGTA’s review of IRS records indicated that the servers had not been destroyed due to budgetary constraints. These 760 exchange server tapes could be a potential source for the destroyed e-mails sent or received by Ms. Lerner.”

Jordan called upon Koskinen to testify on Sept. 17 about IRS efforts to recover Lerner’s emails.

The IRS made the stunning admission in June of this year, on Friday the 13th, that tens of thousands of Lerner’s emails were missing, including those during the crucial period from 2009 to 2011, when she headed the tax-exempt division that she later admitted was inappropriately targeting conservative groups.

Some congressional investigators were immediately suspicious, because the date she told her superiors her laptop had crashed, June 13, 2011, was just 10 days after Congress first began inquiring about the IRS’ targeting of conservatives, when Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., sent a letter to then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman.

Jordan and other Oversight Committee members were also incensed with Koskinen because he took two months to tell investigators about the missing emails.

Senior IRS leadership learned in February of this year that Lerner’s hard drive supposedly crashed in 2011.

Koskinen said he became aware of it in April, when someone also informed the White House.

But it wasn’t until June, two months later, that Koskinen informed Congress.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen

 

As WND reported in July, that revelation caused a furious Jordan to doubt that Koskinen had planned to tell Congress about the missing emails at all.

“My theory is this, Mr. Koskinen, you guys weren’t ever gonna tell us until we caught you,” House Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, pointedly told Koskinen.

And we caught you because Judicial Watch did a FOIA request,” he added.

The line of questioning began with Jordan asking, “Why didn’t you tell us in April? Why’d you wait two months?”

The IRS chief said his motive was to first produce all of Lerner’s emails that the agency possessed.

So, Jordan wondered, why did the IRS reveal Lerner’s hard drive had supposedly crashed, causing the loss of two years of emails, to the Senate Finance Committee on June 13? Why not some other date?

After Koskinen said something to the effect that the occasion seemed right, Jordan countered sharply: “I think it is something different. I think you were never going to tell us.”

Jordan said he believed the IRS was forced to make the revelation after learning the Oversight Committee had obtained a 2010 email between Lerner and Justice Department attorney Tony Pilger in which they discussed the possibility of criminally prosecuting conservative groups.

Jordan said the IRS learned June 9 that congressional investigators had obtained that email.

“Then, suddenly, four days later, on June 13, you tell the Finance Committee” about Lerner’s missing emails, Jordan said.

That’s when the Ohio congressman suggested the IRS chief was “never going to tell us until you got caught.”

Jordan said he believed the only reason the IRS revealed the missing emails was because it had to confess it had lost its version of the crucial email between Pilger and Lerner.

Logical people would conclude, the subcommittee chairman said, that is what made Koskinen decide “we’d better come clean.”

Koskinen bristled at the explosive charge that he had participated in a cover-up.

His voice rising, the commissioner retorted, “When you find evidence to support that, I’d like to see it.”

a bit to regain his composure, he maintained, “If you think we could produce a report in four days, you don’t know how a large organization functions.”

Jordan calmly replied that he didn’t think the IRS put together the report in four days.

“I think you just stuck it into the report,” he said, suggesting the IRS thinking was, “They got us, we’d better come clean.”

Koskinen shot back: “Can I respond to that? That’s a serious charge. If you find any such evidence, I’ll be astounded. Before you make that kind of charge and claim, you ought to have better evidence than a single email dated June 9.”

Jordan said he was just pointing out the “timing is pretty suspect,” because the IRS had just discovered investigators were getting emails from the Justice Department they weren’t getting from the tax agency.

“In light of everything we’ve heard from the IRS, when you start looking at the timeline, it looks pretty suspect,” explained Jordan.

“And all I’m saying is, I’m not sure they were gonna tell us.”

Later in that July hearing, Jordan further hammered the point home.

He said IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane told the committee that senior IRS leadership first became concerned about the possibility of missing emails from Lerner on Feb. 2 and confirmed a hard-drive crash only two days later.

Yet, Jordan pointed out, “you come to Congress” three times after that without informing investigators about the missing emails, “and we’re supposed to buy that? C’mon.”

Even before those exchanges, GOP lawmakers had said it was a mathematical near-certainty that the IRS has been engaged in a cover-up.

At the opening of the hearing, Jordan expressed exasperation that the IRS story has gone from reporting the crash of just Lerner’s hard drive to seven or eight hard-drive crashes to as many as 20 crashes of hard drives belonging to IRS personnel under investigation.

Calling it “unbelievable,” Jordan noted the committee has now learned that almost one-fourth of the IRS people under investigation may have had hard-drive crashes.

Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif, said it was now clear there was a “convenient loss of data by far more people than is explained by the relevant math formulas.”

That number may have grown even larger.

In Friday’s letter, Jordan noted, “According to TIGTA, 31 custodians – out of 118 total – experienced computer issues, and at least eight custodians may have lost e-mails during the period under investigation. In addition, according to a declaration filed in Judicial Watch’s lawsuit, the IRS admitted that it ‘wiped clean’ Ms. Lerner’s blackberry in June 2012 – months after Committee staff questioned Ms. Lerner about allegations that the IRS was targeting conservative groups and after Chairman Issa and I wrote to her about these allegations. TIGTA has stated that a second blackberry belonging to Ms. Lerner was destroyed in November 2010.”

Jordan is sure to have pointed questions for Koskinen as to why Lerner’s blackberry, containing all of her emails, was wiped clean even after she, and the IRS, came under suspicion for abusing their power and targeting the president’s critics.

John Koskinen        

John A. Koskinen is the commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and a director at the AES Corporation.

                             

Note: Charles O. Rossotti was the commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), is the chairman for the AES Corporation, and a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).

Philip Lader is a director at the AES Corporation, and a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).

Philip A. Odeen was the chairman for the AES Corporation, and is a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank).

Open Society Foundations was a funder for the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank), and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank).

George Soros is the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations, a board member for the International Crisis Group, and the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Aspen Institute (think tank), and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank).

Henry A. Kissinger is a director at the Atlantic Council of the United States (think tank), a member of the Bohemian Club, a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank

Belizean_Grove is the equivalent to the male-only social group, the Bohemian Club.

Henrietta Holsman Fore is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a member of the Belizean Grove.

Deborah L. Wince-Smith is a member of the Belizean Grove, and was a member of the IRS Oversight Board.

IRS Oversight Board is a citizen’s board for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

John A. Koskinen is the commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and a director at the AES Corporation.

Moises Naim is a director at the AES Corporation, and a senior associate, International Economics Program for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and was a board member for the International Crisis Group.

Jessica Tuchman Mathews is the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), was a board member for the International Crisis Group, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).

Ed Griffin’s interview with Norman Dodd in 1982

(The investigation into the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace uncovered the plans for population control by involving the United States in war)

http://www.illuminati-news.com/110106a.htm

Jamie S. Gorelick was a trustee at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and is a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

William J. Wilkins was a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and is the chief counsel at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for the Barack Obama administration.

Andrew Carnegie was the founder of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (think tank), and the founder of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

Samuel W. Bodman III is a trustee emeritus at the Carnegie Institution for Science, was a director at the AES Corporation, and the deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is a division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

John A. Koskinen is the commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and a director at the AES Corporation.