Slashdot Mirror
IRS Lost Emails of 6 More Employees Under Investigation
phrackthat writes with an update to Friday's news that the IRS cannot locate two years worth of email from Lois Lerner, a central figure in the controversy surrounding the IRS's apparent targeting of Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny. Now, the IRS says there are another six workers for whom the agency cannot locate emails. As with Lerner, they attribute the unrecoverable emails to computer crashes.
Among them was Nikole Flax, who was chief of staff to Lerner’s boss, then-deputy commissioner Steven Miller. Miller later became acting IRS commissioner, but was forced to resign last year after the agency acknowledged that agents had improperly scrutinized tea party and other conservative groups when they applied for tax-exempt status. Documents have shown some liberal groups were also flagged. ... Lerner’s computer crashed in the summer of 2011, depriving investigators of many of her prior emails. Flax’s computer crashed in December 2011, Camp and Boustany said. The IRS said Friday that technicians went to great lengths trying to recover data from Lerner’s computer in 2011. In emails provided by the IRS, technicians said they sent the computer to a forensic lab run by the agency’s criminal investigations unit. But to no avail.
If it's not corrupt, then at least massively inept.
Yes, of course they do. And they do regular backups. This story only flies with people who are not knowledgeable about computers in a business environment. Apparently the IRS thought there were enough of those that the people crying bullshit could be made to seem like right wing loonies.
But this isn't a right wing vs left wing issue -- whatever the current administration gets away with, will be fair game for the next administration, regardless of party.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
> This is a massive conspiracy. The IRS is hopelessly corru
Beware of confirmation bias. The question we should ask is how many people who are not "under investigation" have also had their emails lost. I bet it is most of them. This just sounds like typical big-organization incompetence.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
How does this get -1? I think I would like to hear from people who disagree with this perspective.
I suspect the word "conspiracy" is the problem. A conspiracy has ALREADY been proven in this case. They already admitted to targeting specific people for additional scutiny and persecution. That is conspiracy. The point now is to find out how far up it goes.
Any suffieciently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
. . . unfortunately, the receivers' disk have also crashed.
It should be pretty obvious to everyone now. The IRS is not going help the investigation. If fact, they are obstructing it.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Sorry to repeat myself, but this was a late post to the first incarnation of this story.
Sharyl Attkisson (investigative reporter formerly with CBS) has posted some questions that should be asked:
This is a massive conspiracy. The IRS is hopelessly corrupt. We need a special prosecutor and get people under oath. There needs to be a lot of jail time handed out, starting with the vile Lois Lerner.
For everyone that wants to jump to protect Obama... keep in mind republicans are likely to win the next election, and they'll have the opportunity to use the IRS in the same way if this doesn't get fixed. I personally think they're all scum.
Thats the point
clever and funny but i'm afraid that type thinking creates a smokescreen for malice to hide behind. we don't want that.
i think when it comes to government there's very constructive and healthy benefit to treating stupidity same as malice.
using your position of power to use groups as your personal S.S. division of the political party to silence opposition is the heart of it. Not only did these groups get targeted and never approved, while other parties got rubber stamped without so much as a single question, but they also demanded a list of ALL donors so they could audit their personal taxes as well. This is tantamount to political harassment to prevent anyone from donating money in order to avoid said harassment. This is called EXTORTION UNDER THE COLOR OF AUTHORITY and its one of the most egregious crimes someone in authority can commit. Its no different than a cop showing up and saying that he saw you speeding the other day and you need to pay him to avoid going to jail for reckless driving. Its an absolute abuse of authority. As a libertarian I find any and all parties that practice this intimidation entirely revolting.
such as "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" while under oath? The only consequence he suffered was disbarment.
You should read what the IRS Inspector General said. It was overwhelmingly conservative/tea party groups that were affected, many delayed for so long they withdrew their application (closed down). It was quite secret (internal BOLO requests), it was unlawful (illegal information required before any action could be taken), and it was harmful (many groups folded because of the delay).
At least, that's what the Inspector General said. But I'm sure they are biased against their bosses and shouldn't be trusted...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I guess you stopped paying attention to this story quite a while ago, which is understandable. They only made that argument for a week or two. They have since admitted wrong-doing, first blaming it on a field office, but later documents showed to orders came from Washington. I don't recall the EXACT numbers offhand, but something like 342 conservative groups were targeted and 4 liberal groups ended up being sent over in the stack. It has now been shown conclusively that the order was to target conservative and libertarian groups. The question now is who gave the order. Nobody active in politics on the left brings up the few liberal groups who got mixed in the the conservatives and libertarians anymore - they know that's not just a losing argument, but one that makes them look like liars when the numbers are mentioned.
Corrupt or inept, either way they should never collect a government paycheck again, ever. Nor a pension check.
It's been well documented that several planning parenthood organizations and ACORN affiliates were rubber stamped without questions as to how many times a day they pray and who were their donors. Questions they actually asked of other groups. In fact they didn't receive a single question. The tea party should have set up fake planning parenthood companies to get automatic free passes.
It's simply wrong regardless. Determining a non profit does not require questions about religious beliefs and/or submitting a detailed list of donors to then turn around and audit them also. This is the US version of the Schutzstaffel and not an accounting firm. There should not be a legal arm, not should they be purchasing hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammo. If someone is violating tax laws let the FBI handle it. It does not require the irs to be outfitted with hundreds of SWAT specialized divisions with tanks and body armor. Wake up before it's too late and you realize that you're a character in Animal Farm.
It's quite a coincidence that all seven of the computers storing information that Congress is requesting all "crashed" and the emails were lost to seven computer "glitches". Just think of the odds. What an uncanny streak of misfortune. The emails just vanished and the investigation can't continue. Oh well.
Just ignore the fact that the words "crashed" and "glitch" are not technical terms an IT professional would use and only serve to obfuscate rather than clarify how those emails might be retrieved. Those boxes with the blinky lights are just subject to the whims of fate, I reckon.
I can't really fault the IRS for not handing over evidence that would at a minimum would put them out of their jobs and/or ideally behind prison bars. What surprises me is what bad liars they are.
One progressive group was targeted, and some tea party groups suddenly got approval after the story about it broke into the news. And I do mean suddenly, as in all of them within a week of it breaking--after two years of waiting. If that doesn't scream corruption I don't know what does.
Om, nomnomnom...