IRS admits to targeting Conservative groups

[lawgator1]

Are you this selective when reading up for a case?

Can you even read at all? I said weak as reported because they only mentioned the one lady, Flax. The article does not tell us who the other five are. And based on the article Flax's involvement is tangential, she's a secretary.

The other five? Don't you think if they mattered at all it would be in the article? And how many of their emails are missing from when? If that was significant, it would surely be in the article.

But of course all you see is "Six more people's emails missing !" You don't bother to look at the significance of it, which from this report seems pretty inconsequential.

I'd like to know the facts about who they were and what occurred, what role if any they played at the IRS, before jumping to the "outrage !" mantra infused in you by Fox News.

I would have thought you'd want to know the actual facts about it, too, before just accepting the headline as "the news."

 

[Grand Vol]

Can you even read at all? I said weak as reported because they only mentioned the one lady, Flax. The article does not tell us who the other five are. And based on the article Flax's involvement is tangential, she's a secretary.

The other five? Don't you think if they mattered at all it would be in the article? And how many of their emails are missing from when? If that was significant, it would surely be in the article.

But of course all you see is "Six more people's emails missing !" You don't bother to look at the significance of it, which from this report seems pretty inconsequential.

I'd like to know the facts about who they were and what occurred, what role if any they played at the IRS, before jumping to the "outrage !" mantra infused in you by Fox News.

I would have thought you'd want to know the actual facts about it, too, before just accepting the headline as "the news."

Who holds more power in an office environment? The executive or the secretary that does most of the legwork?

And I'd love to see you operate for a week without a secretary before you answer.

And you did notice that I didn't cite Fox. But I can:

House committee subpoenas head of IRS to testify on lost Lerner emails | Fox News

However, an untold number are gone. The office of Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., said Friday that the missing emails are mainly ones to and from people outside the IRS, "such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices."

Nothing to see here, move along please.

 

[hog88]

Can you even read at all? I said weak as reported because they only mentioned the one lady, Flax. The article does not tell us who the other five are. And based on the article Flax's involvement is tangential, she's a secretary.

The other five? Don't you think if they mattered at all it would be in the article? And how many of their emails are missing from when? If that was significant, it would surely be in the article.

But of course all you see is "Six more people's emails missing !" You don't bother to look at the significance of it, which from this report seems pretty inconsequential.

I'd like to know the facts about who they were and what occurred, what role if any they played at the IRS, before jumping to the "outrage !" mantra infused in you by Fox News.

I would have thought you'd want to know the actual facts about it, too, before just accepting the headline as "the news."

I'd have though, you being a lawyer, defender of the constitution and all that you would be outraged that any emails are missing.

How many IRS employees missing emails are acceptable IYHO?

 

[AirVol]

I'd have though, you being a lawyer, defender of the constitution and all that you would be outraged that any emails are missing.

How many IRS employees missing emails are acceptable IYHO?

People like him is what's part of the problem. Hell, LG probably thinks OJ is still innocent.

 

[lawgator1]

Who holds more power in an office environment? The executive or the secretary that does most of the legwork?

And I'd love to see you operate for a week without a secretary before you answer.

And you did notice that I didn't cite Fox. But I can:

House committee subpoenas head of IRS to testify on lost Lerner emails | Fox News



Nothing to see here, move along please.

1) Weak dodge by you of the point that you jumped to the conclusion that any of the people or emails are the slightest bit meaningful; and,

2) yeah go ahead and quote the Republican chair of the committee who is utterly guessing what Lerner's emails were about or to whom they were sent, as fact.

Come on, even you can see the folly in that.

 

[hog88]

1) Weak dodge by you of the point that you jumped to the conclusion that any of the people or emails are the slightest bit meaningful; and,

2) yeah go ahead and quote the Republican chair of the committee who is utterly guessing what Lerner's emails were about of to whom they were sent, as fa t.

Come on, even you can see the folly in that.

Doesn't matter if they were sharing recipes, the emails are missing you boob! That by itself is a failure that needs DOJ investigation.

 

[Grand Vol]

1) Weak dodge by you of the point that you jumped to the conclusion that any of the people or emails are the slightest bit meaningful; and,

Oh, LG, you missed the point yet again.

Who knows more about what goes on in an office environment? The executive or the secretary that's setting things up? But your condescending remark that "she's only a secretary" speaks volumes about how far you would go to marginalize this scandal.

And yes, it is a scandal.

2) yeah go ahead and quote the Republican chair of the committee who is utterly guessing what Lerner's emails were about or to whom they were sent, as fact.

Come on, even you can see the folly in that.

So they were able to retrieve a good number of emails because of courtesy copies and/or replies from members inside the IRS. Okay.

But the ones that would be most incriminating would be the ones to other departments inside the government. And the ones that are suspiciously out of reach.

Now couldn't you use some deductive reasoning and say "well, the ones from the IRS are showing up because of copies and whatnot, so it might stand to reason the ones we are missing are the ones that went outside the IRS."

Simple logic escapes you sometimes. But it's still not answering the big question that how in this day in age where emails are kept on a server and have been for a long, long time, did a computer crashing suddenly wipe out emails that could possibly (I'll give you a possibly) implicate someone in a huge scandal. Have an answer for that? Or are you going to be ignorant and ignore the fact that federal laws were broken (concerning the storage of documents to include electronic ones) and the missing emails could very well lead higher in this? I'm technologically retarded, but even I know there is no such thing as an electronic document that just disappears.

If you were a prosecutor in a case like this, you'd be screaming your head off right now. And the judge and jury would be able to see right past the dodge of whichever attorney came up with that lame excuse.

 

[Grand Vol]

Doesn't matter if they were sharing recipes, the emails are missing you boob! That by itself is a failure that needs DOJ investigation.

I know you would hate having more cops and all, but this is one of the times I think Congress needs their own independent investigative agency with full Federal LEO sanctioning. I wouldn't trust the DOJ to do anything in this matter which is why an independent agency outside the purview of the Executive Branch is needed.

 

[lawgator1]

Oh, LG, you missed the point yet again.

Who knows more about what goes on in an office environment? The executive or the secretary that's setting things up? But your condescending remark that "she's only a secretary" speaks volumes about how far you would go to marginalize this scandal.

And yes, it is a scandal.



So they were able to retrieve a good number of emails because of courtesy copies and/or replies from members inside the IRS. Okay.

But the ones that would be most incriminating would be the ones to other departments inside the government. And the ones that are suspiciously out of reach.

Now couldn't you use some deductive reasoning and say "well, the ones from the IRS are showing up because of copies and whatnot, so it might stand to reason the ones we are missing are the ones that went outside the IRS."

Simple logic escapes you sometimes. But it's still not answering the big question that how in this day in age where emails are kept on a server and have been for a long, long time, did a computer crashing suddenly wipe out emails that could possibly (I'll give you a possibly) implicate someone in a huge scandal. Have an answer for that? Or are you going to be ignorant and ignore the fact that federal laws were broken (concerning the storage of documents to include electronic ones) and the missing emails could very well lead higher in this? I'm technologically retarded, but even I know there is no such thing as an electronic document that just disappears.

If you were a prosecutor in a case like this, you'd be screaming your head off right now. And the judge and jury would be able to see right past the dodge of whichever attorney came up with that lame excuse.

Of course its a scandal....

 

[Grand Vol]

Of course its a scandal....

So if you were a prosecutor in something like this, how far would the excuse of "we can't find the emails" fly with you?

 

[Grand Vol]

And BTW, funny analogy with Nixon's "obstructing justice" picture.

 

[hog88]

I know you would hate having more cops and all, but this is one of the times I think Congress needs their own independent investigative agency with full Federal LEO sanctioning. I wouldn't trust the DOJ to do anything in this matter which is why an independent agency outside the purview of the Executive Branch is needed.

Yeah, don't think I'd like another investigative agency. What they could do is force the administrations hand by compelling the appointment of a Special Prosecutor.

 

[MG1968]

I wonder if LG whistles past every graveyard he encounters.

 

[lawgator1]

So if you were a prosecutor in something like this, how far would the excuse of "we can't find the emails" fly with you?

More has come out on that. I know you don't like it, but here it is:


"The IRS has described the missing e-mails as dating from 2009 to mid-2011. At that point, the agency says its computer system had a strict limit for the e-mail capacity of each employee’s account. If a worker went above that capacity, they had to either move e-mails to their hard drive or delete them. When Lois Lerner’s hard drive crashed in 2011, the agency states, her saved e-mails were lost from her account and computer.



The IRS provided e-mails from 2011 in which Lerner asked IT support staff for help with her broken hard drive and missing e-mails. The agency says it has recovered 24,000 of those e-mails by searching the accounts of 83 other IRS employees who corresponded with Lerner."


_____________________



This "scandal" is so much partisan hackery that the GOP membership is literally tripping over themselves to get to be the first to question the IRS chief over it.


"As senators met with Koskinen in private, two House committees also investigating the IRS controversy seemed to vie for who could hold the first public questioning of the IRS chief.


House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Michigan, announced that Koskinen has agreed to testify about the crashed hard drive and missing e-mails Tuesday, June 24.


Within minutes of that announcement, House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-California, announced he had issued a subpoena for Koskinen to testify at his committee Monday night, June 23.


Koskinen said he was happy to testify and was aware of and planning to attend the Ways & Means hearing.


As for the House Oversight subpoena, “I don’t know why anybody would subpoena me,” Koskinen said. “I’ve showed up at seven hearings this spring already. If you want me for a hearing, you just call. You don’t have to subpoena me.”



IRS faces volley of new scrutiny – CNN Political Ticker - CNN.com Blogs

That last pat is pure gold. Poor Issa, worried he is being upstaged as phony scandal king. What a hateful POS he is.

 

[hog88]

More has come out on that. I know you don't like it, but here it is:


"The IRS has described the missing e-mails as dating from 2009 to mid-2011. At that point, the agency says its computer system had a strict limit for the e-mail capacity of each employee’s account. If a worker went above that capacity, they had to either move e-mails to their hard drive or delete them. When Lois Lerner’s hard drive crashed in 2011, the agency states, her saved e-mails were lost from her account and computer.



The IRS provided e-mails from 2011 in which Lerner asked IT support staff for help with her broken hard drive and missing e-mails. The agency says it has recovered 24,000 of those e-mails by searching the accounts of 83 other IRS employees who corresponded with Lerner."

Where are the printed copies? How about their servers? Backups, off-site storage? Those emails are not "gone" simply because a computer crashed or someone deleted them from their machine.

Would you lose all of your email records if your work computer crashed? Does your firm use backup and off-site storage?

 

[lawgator1]

Where are the printed copies? How about their servers? Backups, off-site storage? Those emails are not "gone" simply because a computer crashed or someone deleted them from their machine.

Would you lose all of your email records if your work computer crashed? Does your firm use backup and off-site storage?

No, we are on the cloud now. I don't think we were in 2011, though. I think we had a server then.

I agree that they should have the emails. But there is a difference between criticizing them for not having properly backed them up versus the altogether different contention that they lost them on purpose or do have them and are hiding them and lying about it.

I agree with the former.

The latter I've seen no evidence to support and in particular given that her computer, which is where she stored her overage of emails crashed back in 2011, before this was even an issue, and that at the time she asked the IT people to try to resurrect it and they could not, and given that the FBI has tried to work with the her computer to try to salvage any emails, and given that they've gone to the trouble they did to go to 83 other people thereto try to recover what they could, I think the burden would be on the GOP to show there is more to it.

When you consider all the people involved in all of that, well over 100 people, if it was some made up excuse I would think we'd hear about that.

So buffoonery, yes. Malevolent scandal, that seems unlikely. Not impossible. I'm open to evidence of it. But so far its a lot of crying wolf, again.

 

[Obsessed]

No, we are on the cloud now. I don't think we were in 2011, though. I think we had a server then.

I agree that they should have the emails. But there is a difference between criticizing them for not having properly backed them up versus the altogether different contention that they lost them on purpose or do have them and are hiding them and lying about it.

I agree with the former.

The latter I've seen no evidence to support and in particular given that her computer, which is where she stored her overage of emails crashed back in 2011, before this was even an issue, and that at the time she asked the IT people to try to resurrect it and they could not, and given that the FBI has tried to work with the her computer to try to salvage any emails, and given that they've gone to the trouble they did to go to 83 other people thereto try to recover what they could, I think the burden would be on the GOP to show there is more to it.

When you consider all the people involved in all of that, well over 100 people, if it was some made up excuse I would think we'd hear about that.

So buffoonery, yes. Malevolent scandal, that seems unlikely. Not impossible. I'm open to evidence of it. But so far its a lot of crying wolf, again.

I pray that you are not really this naive....

 

[hog88]

No, we are on the cloud now. I don't think we were in 2011, though. I think we had a server then.

I agree that they should have the emails. But there is a difference between criticizing them for not having properly backed them up versus the altogether different contention that they lost them on purpose or do have them and are hiding them and lying about it.

I agree with the former.

The latter I've seen no evidence to support and in particular given that her computer, which is where she stored her overage of emails crashed back in 2011, before this was even an issue, and that at the time she asked the IT people to try to resurrect it and they could not, and given that the FBI has tried to work with the her computer to try to salvage any emails, and given that they've gone to the trouble they did to go to 83 other people thereto try to recover what they could, I think the burden would be on the GOP to show there is more to it.

When you consider all the people involved in all of that, well over 100 people, if it was some made up excuse I would think we'd hear about that.

So buffoonery, yes. Malevolent scandal, that seems unlikely. Not impossible. I'm open to evidence of it. But so far its a lot of crying wolf, again.

The emails would not be stored on her computer!!! They would be stored on the mail server which is backed up and archived, the fact her computer crashed is irrelevant!

But let's just play along and say they were, the IRS was not following federal law and all of those email are lost for good. That alone proves incompetence, irresponsibility and contempt for the law which SHOULD trigger a deep anal probing investigation. Just imagine if you used the same "computer crashed" excuse as a defense in an audit? How much understanding do you think you would get?

 

[Grand Vol]

No, we are on the cloud now. I don't think we were in 2011, though. I think we had a server then.

I agree that they should have the emails. But there is a difference between criticizing them for not having properly backed them up versus the altogether different contention that they lost them on purpose or do have them and are hiding them and lying about it.

I agree with the former.

The latter I've seen no evidence to support and in particular given that her computer, which is where she stored her overage of emails crashed back in 2011, before this was even an issue, and that at the time she asked the IT people to try to resurrect it and they could not, and given that the FBI has tried to work with the her computer to try to salvage any emails, and given that they've gone to the trouble they did to go to 83 other people thereto try to recover what they could, I think the burden would be on the GOP to show there is more to it.

When you consider all the people involved in all of that, well over 100 people, if it was some made up excuse I would think we'd hear about that.

So buffoonery, yes. Malevolent scandal, that seems unlikely. Not impossible. I'm open to evidence of it. But so far its a lot of crying wolf, again.

Here's the problem that you're missing/omitting.

Any time an email goes through a server, a record is kept. And that's not hard drive based. Well, it is drive based, but not in a PC format. And those things do get backed up and kept for posterity. So this whole nonsense that her computer crashed is just that, nonsense. There are electronic records of this somewhere, I'd flat guarantee it.

There are electronic fingerprints of everything we do all over the place. And you still expect me to believe that there is zero record of this?

The only time you can't find an email or electronic record is when don't want that email to be found. And this whole thing you referenced in a previous post about how the IRS has limits on the size of an inbox is nonsense as well. So you're telling me an senior level executive at the IRS gets exactly what the lowest analyst gets?

You can't be this dense or ignorant of technology. I'm bad enough and even I know this stuff.

 

[lawgator1]

The emails would not be stored on her computer!!! They would be stored on the mail server which is backed up and archived, the fact her computer crashed is irrelevant!

But let's just play along and say they were, the IRS was not following federal law and all of those email are lost for good. That alone proves incompetence, irresponsibility and contempt for the law which SHOULD trigger a deep anal probing investigation. Just imagine if you used the same "computer crashed" excuse as a defense in an audit? How much understanding do you think you would get?

Ok, yes, they have a problem in not complying with reasonable practices on saving emails. That's not criminal. Don't go overboard.

What you and the others want to do here is, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, use their incompetence in not keeping emails as a justification to conclude its purposeful. That is not warranted here, at least not yet, and your insistence that its just obviously the case that its purposeful undermines your credibility and supports the opposition's charge that the claims are based in pure partisanship.

If it were me leading one of these committees, I'd issue something like the following statement:

"We have learned that the IRS cannot produce emails for Ms. Lerner for approximately two years. That is unacceptable. It is standard practice to save emails to a server, or through the email system itself.

This thwarts our ability to fully investigate the situation. We therefore intend to subpoena the information technology personnel who worked on this particular issue, the appropriate personnel at the agency generally responsible for maintaining all emails, and the director of the agency.

At a minimum, the failure to preserve emails is a serious breach of accepted minimum practices for all federal agencies and we will get to the bottom of it."

Then, you have appropriately said your outrage and you have hinted that you want to find out if its real and are going to talk to a lot of people to find out whether it was an excuse. That way, if the evidence falls flat you can still say they are in the wrong, because they are. And if the evidence is that its gaming the system, then you open the door to getting into that.

What you have not done is make the huge leap from negligence to nefarious. And it is that constant leap that the GOP makes, particularly these committee chairmen, to get on Fox News, that is so unwarranted and, frankly, distasteful.

A little reasoned restraint here would lend that committee process and effort a little credibility, which is so sorely lacking right now.

 

[W.TN.Orange Blood]

Hey LG, I think you'd like to be on Fox News all the time & you're just jealous that you're not important enough.

 

[hog88]

Ok, yes, they have a problem in not complying with reasonable practices on saving emails. That's not criminal. Don't go overboard.

What you and the others want to do here is, despite all of the evidence to the contrary, use their incompetence in not keeping emails as a justification to conclude its purposeful. That is not warranted here, at least not yet, and your insistence that its just obviously the case that its purposeful undermines your credibility and supports the opposition's charge that the claims are based in pure partisanship.

If it were me leading one of these committees, I'd issue something like the following statement:

"We have learned that the IRS cannot produce emails for Ms. Lerner for approximately two years. That is unacceptable. It is standard practice to save emails to a server, or through the email system itself.

This thwarts our ability to fully investigate the situation. We therefore intend to subpoena the information technology personnel who worked on this particular issue, the appropriate personnel at the agency generally responsible for maintaining all emails, and the director of the agency.

At a minimum, the failure to preserve emails is a serious breach of accepted minimum practices for all federal agencies and we will get to the bottom of it."

Then, you have appropriately said your outrage and you have hinted that you want to find out if its real and are going to talk to a lot of people to find out whether it was an excuse. That way, if the evidence falls flat you can still say they are in the wrong, because they are. And if the evidence is that its gaming the system, then you open the door to getting into that.

What you have not done is make the huge leap from negligence to nefarious. And it is that constant leap that the GOP makes, particularly these committee chairmen, to get on Fox News, that is so unwarranted and, frankly, distasteful.

A little reasoned restraint here would lend that committee process and effort a little credibility, which is so sorely lacking right now.

How could it not be purposeful? More than 1 computer would have to crash for it to be otherwise.

What I would do if I was the committee chair would be to subpoena the records of all computer hard drive crashes during that same time at the IRS. Then just take a random sample of 10 or 15 and see if they could produce the email records from them. Under supervision of course.

 

[lawgator1]

Hey LG, I think you'd like to be on Fox News all the time & you're just jealous that you're not important enough.

I'd like to be on when she's on:

 

[lawgator1]

How could it not be purposeful? More than 1 computer would have to crash for it to be otherwise.

What I would do if I was the committee chair would be to subpoena the records of all computer hard drive crashes during that same time at the IRS. Then just take a random sample of 10 or 15 and see if they could produce the email records from them. Under supervision of course.

That unfortunately would not prove that hers could have been recovered. It would just be more supposition and inference.

Subpoena and question the tech geeks who dealt with it, plus the policy people who are supposed to have made sure this did not happen. If its made up, one of them will say so.

 

[hog88]

That unfortunately would not prove that hers could have been recovered. It would just be more supposition and inference.

Subpoena and question the tech geeks who dealt with it, plus the policy people who are supposed to have made sure this did not happen. If its made up, one of them will say so.

Unless they plead the 5th....

And if they could recover the others, not involved in this case it would prove her emails were intentionally wiped.