This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
IRS Deleted Backups Of 24,000 Lois Lerner Emails Months After Subpoena
Back in 2013 when the IRS' scandalous targeting of "teaparty" organizations was first disclosed and when then IRS-official Lois Lerner pleaded the Fifth while the IRS' defense was that all her emails in the period under question were destroyed due to a local hard disk "failure" (which was then shredded to destroy all evidence) everyone who was not an utter idiot asked a simple question: where are the backup servers? After all, every email not only leaves a permanent trail, it can always be tracked down to a host server.
Today during a testimony by the Treasury's Inspector General for tax administration, J. Russell George, before Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the IRS finally closed that gaping loophole. In the most idiotic way possible.
Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George
As AP reports, according to the IG's deputy Timothy Camus, two "lower-graded" employees at the IRS center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, erased 422 computer backup tapes that contained as many as 24,000 emails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner.
It gets better: the tapes were erased in March 2014, months after congressional investigators requested all of Lerner's emails, and months after Zero Hedge, among many others, said to simply track down the server backups.
And the punchline: according to George, who before "investigating" IRS cimes, was a page for the 1980 Democratic National Convention and a founder of the Howard University College Democrats, the workers might be incompetent, a lead investigator said Thursday, but there is no evidence they were part of a criminal conspiracy to destroy evidence.
Funny: remember the conversation the guy who was overseeing the Deutsche Bank Libor riggers had with a member of the Brither Bankers Association shortly before all hell broke loose?
Mr. Nicholls repeatedly dismissed concerns that Libor could be manipulated. “Banks do not collude to try to set a Libor rating,” he told John Ewan, the BBA official in charge of running Libor.
“I think I am just hearing a lot of hysteria about Libor that is just misinformed,” Mr. Nicholls added.
When the Deutsche Bank official argued that an individual bank wouldn’t be able to improperly influence Libor, which at the time was set by a group of 16 banks, Mr. Ewan responded: “A cabal of them could.”
“What’s a cabal?” Mr. Nicholls asked.
“A group together could,” Mr. Ewan said.
“That’s an interesting conspiracy theory,” Mr. Nicholls responded.
It was interesting. It was also a fact, and it was playing out right under Nicholls' nose for years. All the while he had not the faintest idea.
Same thing with the IRS, only much, much worse: the guy who just informed a committee that two IRS employees purposefully deleted 422 computer backup tapes, containing tens of thousands of Lois Lerner emails, said they did so by accident. Because it would be a "conspiracy theory" to suggest they could have possibly done so maliciously, and hence criminally. Ignore the fact that they had clear Congressional orders to preserve all emails relating to Lois Lerner!
In a statement, the IRS said it repeatedly alerted employees starting in May 2013 that they must save all emails, computer tapes and other records related to investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.
"The IRS recognizes there was a clear breakdown of communication in one part of the organization regarding the need to preserve and retain the backup tapes and information, although (the inspector general) concluded this wasn't intentional," the statement said.
And while the usual idiots will once again rise up and say George is being sincere and not grossly colluding with a criminal cartel engaging in epic malfeasance at the highest level of government, not everyone was utterly lobotomized to the banana republicanization of America.
"It just defies any sense of logic," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "It gets to the point where it truly gets to be unbelievable. Somebody has to be held accountable."
Well, somebody is: two "lower-graded" IRS employees. Better known as scapegoats. At least they didn't also flash crash the market.
Camus said the workers did not fully understand an IRS directive not to destroy email backup tapes. He did not name the workers.
"When interviewed, those employees said, `Our job is to put these pieces of plastic into that machine and magnetically obliterate them. We had no idea that there was any type of preservation (order) from the chief technology officer,'" Camus told the committee.
And the hits just keep on coming: Camus said interviews, sworn statements and a review of the employees' emails turned up no evidence that they were trying to destroy evidence. Well, let's see: if everyone at the IRS is lying under oath, why not two of its lowliest employees desperate to avoid prison time. And as for emails not exposing an IRS crime implicating the IRS with destroying emails, well... it is not even worth bothering to joke about that.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., asked Camus if incompetence was to blame for the tapes being erased.
"One could come to that conclusion," Camus said.
Which is ironic, because moments ago the following statement hit:
BREAKING: US officials: State Department can't find 15 Clinton emails released by Benghazi panel.
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 25, 2015
One can surely blame incompetence for those emails being deleted too. In fact, why not just blame the US submergence into third world banana republic status on the grossest incompetence ever conceivable by an administration.
Actually, that would be more or less accurate.
»
- 21472 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
As if nobody saw this coming. The article is somewhat misleading, there is no incompetence here, only criminal activity.
The entire US government is no more than a criminal enterprise covering its own tracks. The only thing that is mildly surprising, is that they would even be remotely concerned about prosecution. It should be clear to everyone by now, there is absolutely no law-enforcement left at any level of government. The only possible outcomes are an all out revolution, or an iron clad tyrannical dictatorship, which for the most part, is all we have now.
They had to be deleted, they had little confederate flags embeded in them.
Methinks there are two "lower-graded" employees at the IRS center in Martinsburg, West Virginia who now have seven-figure offshore accounts ready for them when they retire.
Those accounts will then magically go "poof" when those two "lower-graded" employees suffer mysterious "accidents" once this thing blows over.
Oh yeah. Time to start notifying your Congressmen and Senators that they are officially liable for Misprision of Felony and Misprision of Treason.
Just like Corzine, I'm sure the employees at the IRS will be put in jail.
Oh wait...
Look up Misprision of Felony and Misprision of Treason. You put them on notice now to establish the legal grounds to imprison or execute them after the revolution.
It forces them to pick a side now, rather than later.
How much you wanna bet there were some "confidential" conversations between Obozo and Lerner lurking in those tapes that could never ever be allowed to see the light of day.
Too bad there isn't someone in CONgress who would say something like, "On a scale of 1-10, my BULLSHIT detector is at a 50." and put this guy on the spot. In the real "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" Lois Lerner would be in PRISON. And this lying pile of shit wouldn't be far behind.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Thats what they tell the sheep. Funny how that doesn't apply to "them".
Obstruction of Justice
I knew that you could spell it!
Aw, look what mean ol' Mr. Delete key did!
"the workers might be incompetent, a lead investigator said Thursday, but there is no evidence they were part of a criminal conspiracy to destroy evidence."
In other words, fuck you, you're only a Congressman. There isn't shit you can do about it. Followed by:
"See this? This is the only remaining backup copy I have right here in my hand." Lays it on the desk in front of him, douses with lighter fluid and sets it on fire. Drops mic and walks out of the room.
Lois, meet Oliver. Oliver, meet Lois.
Lois: who the fuck is the old dude
Oliver: I am not a potted plant
Lawyer: Hey that's my line
Anyone under 45: Huh?
every one of the people involved should eliminiate themselves with prejudice
Cool..
You cannot expect any better from a .gov that is
divorcing itself form the Constitution.
I've said it here before, you are not just fighting against corrupt politicians and political hangers-on, bankers and transnational CEOs, and their surrogates in the media. The unaccountable bureaucracy, by design, is what enables these crooks.
If you have a neighbor or friend who works for the government, he is your sworn enemy. He is working against your interests every day.
Worse...you are paying him to do it.
Sad thing is, in small towns across the country, most people with well paying jerbs work for local guv, big gov, MIC or guv-sucking big corp. The shrinking continues on the few who remain private sector. By design I'm guessing.
You said it. When the big box stores ran the locals out of business and governments started paying higher salaries with better benefits, power shifted quickly to Washington and Wall Street.
Local communities never had a chance.
In my podunk corner of the world, I see the Agenda 21 UN, global control thing inching into my space. Funny to watch semi-educated red necks (like me) parroting globalist monkey speak. I raise the alarm and point out why there are strings attached to those feel-good "free!" things like having a "sister city" in some third world shit hole, a bike path paid for by "someone else" or a quasi-regional agreement to conserve water (or traffic congestion, fill in the blank). An endless stream of Delphi technique meetings conducted by fortunately untalented shit heads. Some day the pros may show up. Gotta be ready.
Like anyone else here who has fought that battle, the progress is not encouraging but we still have to do it. Better to awaken one guy instead of assuming none will listen. Who knows, maybe that one guy you wake up will be a lightning rod to carry the message forward better than we ever could.
NWO delende est.
Good luck in your neck of the woods. Hell, most people can't even get their families to listen.
There's tons of law enforcement left. To enforce laws on serfs like you and me. But not against the elites.
effing goat-effers have forgotten who the eff they work for
Why can't someone in Congress send all of these people (anyone that laid a hand on anything with the computers or backups) to prison for contempt? No matter how many it is, send them. Once they get there they will start singing.
What is wrong with our country. It is broken beyond repair and if the Congress critters don't get control of this mess I'm afraid it's gonna pop at its seems right down the middle soon.
Prosecute and jail someone, anyone, just to prove the system is not totally broken.
"Why can't someone in Congress send all of these people (anyone that laid a hand on anything with the computers or backups) to prison for contempt? No matter how many it is, send them. Once they get there they will start singing."
Quite simple: The Foxes are guarding the hens. The people that have the power to convict them are also corrupt, or are being blackmailed. Its All this is just a three ring circus. Watch as more and more issues come up to distract the masses from the corruption in Washingon (ie Confederate flag), anything that is considered politically incorrect will be attacked.
with tpp, you fools fail to understand bath house is now supreme reich chancellor. i shall never pay for any crimes, hahhaha, excuse me i am late for my plane to tel aviv.
"...erased 422 computer backup tapes that contained as many as 24,000 emails..."
That's 57 emails per tape. I'm a bit suspicious about that number, aren't you? I'm guessing the number of deleted emails is a helluva lot more than 24K. Even an old 5.25" floppy could hold a lot of those.
sickening, the new USSA today !
There is one more copy of all those emails, but they are all located in a cetain NSA data storage center located in Utah. In order to retrieve them though, your going to need an act of God to do it because nobody wants to open the government produced Can, Worms, Mark I, Type II.
The IRS is the bagman for the "bankers", the State Department their "thief in chief"
"I Believe in American Exceptionalism with Every Fiber of My Being."
Do those Being Fibers® include the strings which control his actions?
"Exceptionalism" is "woven into the fabric of American society" now, sort of like Obamacare.
Lois Lerner belongs to a privileged group, they own Hollyweird and Wall Street, and got nearly $13 Trillion of our taxpayer dollars in the big bailout, TOO BIG TO FAIL.
They flaunt the law, the feel as if they are now UNTOUCHABLE, and so the outrages cataloged at ZH continue. From Fast & Furious, to all the other missing emails and etc. From the stroke of a pen gun restrictions and amnesties handed out the non-enforcement of immigration law. They get away with it, whereas if we fail to DOT an I or cross a T BYE BYE, off to Club Fed you go.
Living in this fucked-up country these days is like waking up from a nightmare to a bad acid trip at a carnival.
"This was the Sixth Reich."
But, but, but the Russians and Chineses have government corruptations!
“The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge…" -- HST
http://thegreateststorynevertold.tv/
Let's boldly question even the very existence of God... why did FDR (and Rockefeller and JP Morgan) side with Stalinist Russia over Nazi Germany?
You can also ask yourself why, in 1943, Churchill sent Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The Burden of Jerusalem” to FDR and telling Roosevelt not to mention it, that it must be BURIED???
Indeed. People forget that BOTH Germany and the Soviets invaded Poland. According to treaty, Britain and France should have declared war on both invaders...but they only chose Germany to oppose. Nobody bothers to ask why.
Kudos, TD.
You must ask yourselves, how did we let these Jewish Bolsheviks gain all power in our government?
Surely they control us now as Lenin controlled Russia.
Their next step will be the genocide of Christian Americans as they did with the Orthodox Christians an Russia.
She should join Gary Gensler on Hillary's fiance committee.
why does any of this matter? no one is going to go after anyone now. the left controls the government. the right no longer is relevent. all power resides with the office of the president. this is only the beginning. unlimited gov control. unlimited printing...unlimited abuse.
The right is full of war criminals.
Just like the left.
...but....they (the right) arent in power so who cares...! we will never have a conservative president again. everyone works for the gov. the left (the commies) won. the commies funded the naacp and the womens rights movement. putin won...........
The bastards who funded the communists are doing it again, chumping everyone into thinking there is a left and a right. Boogey man politics still works.
"the left (the commies) won. the commies funded the naacp and the womens rights movement. putin won"
Putin won? hardly the US & EU is going after Putin. Unfortunately Russia is more or less anti-communist/socialist, but is authoritarian. Perhaps it would better to suggest karl Marx & Stalin won.
The constitution demands US citizens take up arms against a government like this.
It's good to know that once the Republicans retake the White House that there is no law anymore.
Serious Democrats should be calling for prison terms for these dirtbags.
"It's good to know that once the Republicans retake the White House"
No way will the GOP win in 2016. The TTP trade deal sealed a landslide loss for them. Its not helping that the GOP frontrunners are Moe (Jeb), Larry (Rubio) and Trump (Curly), which Shremp (Cruz or perhaps Christie). It would not supprise me that Obama supported TPP in order to set up GOP to lose. Note that the majority of DNC voted against it and the GOP voted for it.
There is also the chance that the TPP may just made Obama dictator and there will be no 2016 election.
The US appears to be in the early stages of book burning (ie the Confederate flag). Book stores are ending sales of books connected with the flag or the civil war. There is talk of dismantling the Jefferson memorial (slave owner). After Jefferson is demonized, it will Washington (also a slave owner) on the list for demonization. It would not surprise me that they will be replaced with momumemts of Karl Marx or something worse.
Would it really matter if the committee had the emails. Nope, no one would do a minute of time. Scooter Libby will go down in history as the last federal employee to do hard time.
But without government, who will erase emails?
Hitlery.
There is only one way to stop these malfeasances of office.
Start impeaching the managers.
There is only one way to arrive at the truth.
Subpoena the lowest rung and impeach anyone who fails to squeal on the next highest level.
Criminal investigations always start at the bottom, not at the top.
that would work if we were not a soviet.
But without government, who will erase emails?
Luckily, they're all in jail now, right?
But without government who will "permanently" erase emails?
Jail.
I think they mean backup drives, not backup tapes. I can't remember the last time I used tape to backup my shit - Commodore 64? But otherwise it's funny looking at a system that was designed to be accountable, open and lawful run by a bunch of criminals who must go through the motions of this system by deleting their own criminal activities which itself are criminal offences. Confused? You should be. Apparently subpeona = Del & shred in this farcical gangsterland.
They mean tapes.
Tapes have been in play at the back-end the entire time due to cost (much lower than hard drives) and when networked can back up every node on a network very efficiently.
So what other nodes did they (live) lose?
Sounds like no one should file taxes next year. And then claim their hard drives crashed and their mom threw out there backup tapes... HONEST!
Gee, I wonder if our PATHETIC congress will throw this cunt in jail? Let me guess,,, Not. Issa sure talks tuff.
Dup. ( damn touch screens)
Do Not look at that.....
TPP? Don't look...
Destroying emails? Don't look...
HEY EVERYBODY.. Confederate FLags.... GET UPSET. LOOK THIS WAY....
The tribe girl's emails go missing so it's seems predictable they'd trot out a black guy to explain it as an innocent mistake.
Love the flag. Do it just to piss em off.
"As AP reports, according to the IG's deputy Timothy Camus, two "lower-graded" employees at the IRS center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, erased 422 computer backup tapes that contained as many as 24,000 emails to and from former IRS official Lois Lerner."
As we all await the "two lower-graded employees" to be named, put under oath to confirm IG Deputy Timothy Camus' undoubtedly well documented theory of just how "two lower-graded" employees had access to and authority to...delete fucking anything without a "higher-grade" approval.
This is right up there with "we recycled" Lois Lerners (and most people she communicated with) hard drive(s)...lol.
Clearly we need better liars in charge of this nut house.
Yes, I'm writing in Jim Carrey and Jodie Foster next election.
Ok, if they say it's incompetency, then how can we trust the IRS with taxpayer money or taxpayer personal information? If they destroy emails, hard drives and backup tapes that contained information that was subpoenaed, that alone shows how grossly incompetent they are and, therefore, not qualified to handle money and sensitive information. The Republicans should use this reason to shut down the IRS until they are overhauled. If not, the Repubs will confirm that they truly are sellouts, don't represent their party voters and should all be voted out ASAP.
edit:
Yes it was sabotage, but they need to be challenged on everything they do to try and weasel out of it - this is treason.
Never attribute to stupidity what is clearly self-beneficial malevolence.
Na they just like to rub our face in it. To them its still just a funny as it was during the election.
nsa has it all
let's ask them
There are still ways...but I will not mention them here - I don't want to make their incometency any worse.
What is a Treasury Inspector General and why does a society need one?
Because Affirmatively Axtioning Diversity Director was already filled.
Really? They're going to blame it on tape monkeys? WTF?
Backup systems these days are point and click. Point at the email server, click restore from backup. Robots then go off and pick up the tapes and restore the data. *Copies* of the tapes are then taken off site to a secure storage location so the original data is still in the robot and safely stored in the event of nuclear meltdown.
Silly rabbit. Logic and common sense does not apply to government.
Here is a FUCKING SIMPLE ?.
How often were massive tape erasures taking place?
"So often you won't even notice" ~ Elwood Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S65lJGs7YC8
Kill all IRS personnel, destroy all IRS assets. Problem solved.
what's the point, with the dept of partisan injustice anything goes as they will not proscecute any leftist, criminal or not. Add in a complient corrupt media who does not even report the news unless it is complimentary to the extremist commies or detrimental to the conservatives. Notice I did not say rinogopers who are now the leftist msm best buddies!
I'm sure if any of these things make it to the Supreme Court, Chief Roberts will argue for the majority that there was no intent to deceive, so there is no guilt.
No accountability. No respect for the law. It will only get worse.
bath house, how do you want me to rule on this?
i'll send your orders soon, just us.
Criminal sons of bitches.
Why hasn't anyone murdered this cunt already?
Because she is a Loyal Bolshevik operative, serving her master(s).
What, are you provocateur? Threaten to murder someone? We don't need idiots like you on ZH!
Let the stupid fool blow off steam it's his ass. Who are you somekind of fucked up Nazi government agent?
That last sentence made no sense.
Perhaps, if you are a senseless pussy. Point is , he is obviously extremly pissed off , with cause. Better he gets it off in words than converts it to actions. Difficult for punk ass sheeple to comprehend isn't it? Best report him to the governmunts , dus ye tink?
Whatever, you take the risks, you deal with the consequences. He doesn't even know what a Nazi is aparently.
Don't even try telling me that nobody saved those e-mails.
They could have easily forewarded them to their own personal e-mail accounts.
Yes, if it were you or I it would be a mass computer pickup before we knew who was at the door.
Hell, the NSA has copies! The criminals!
The Bolshevik Records must be kept secret...
Has she used he 2nd passport yet?
"I am a memeber of the Master Race. Who I investigate is beyond anyone's purview.
I and I alone am The IRS."
The IRS is nothing more than one of the hundreds of collection centres for the Rotschilds' Iron Bank. All slavery funds end up in their bank "no matter what you are told". Income tax is a tax on one's labour, and as such is a slavery tax. And every fucking penny of it goes to the criminal Rotschild mafia.
Amen! All direct taxes must be apportioned among the States! The courts are totally corrupt on this issue. No justice!!
It was clearly Nixon's secretary's siblings at work.
"It's a family tradition"
OK. So, they KNEW they had backup tapes that contained sensitive, subpoenad information and instead of simply fetching the tapes and extracting the data, they issued some general instructions not to delete any backup tapes, and promptly deleted them.
To lay-person it's called a
"cluster f*ck order"
If they were sgt's we'd all be pow or kia years ago. I've been deleting IrReSponsible crap for years
How you squaring this anarchy zh nihilists?
I'm still practicing knots and waiting for the witch burning hour.
Let's say it all together:
I am Jack's complete lack of...
honesty
Crowd funded Star Chamber!
Justice served, you do it or we will.
The whole thing is bull shit. I am an IT expert with over 34 years experience. There is a standing record retention policy in every significant organization. Any variation to shorten the time only comes from higher ups PERIOD! No way in Hell the IT people would EVER delete user data without user instruction.
Backups of the backups are still out there.
Is it just me, or does that J Russell George dude look like that retarded kid in the movie Radio? Seriously, compare the two facial expressions...
http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1640865024/tt0316465?ref_=tt_pv_md_3
There is a procedure to be followed to destroy tapes. Why isn't this committee look into that? Decision to destroy tapes has been made by someone, before people who actually destroy tapes, get them. There should be a paper trail. Part of that procedure is taking tapes out of circulation because thet contain data subject to investigation. This committee seems inept and uninformed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmzsWxPLIOo
The guillotines are watching and listing.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Dear IRS,
My hard drive died and took all my records with it. Therefore I am invoking the Lois Lerner defense. Please except this check for $1.43 as my payment for of all that is due you. Don't spend it all on bullets.
If I recover my data from the hard drive, I will send you any difference.
Sincerely, and cold regards,
A friend in spirit of Joe Stack.
It does not need to be proven as a criminal conspiracy. It is still against the law and those deleting the files can be prosecuted.
Throw them in jail... oh, wait, that would depend on the un-justice department to actually enforce the laws.
Is this piece of burnt toast trying to tell us that the IRS data center was running out of backup drive space and had to erase records to make room for next year’s IRS Email chatter?
Maybe we should all chip in and buy the IRS a big sleeve of CD-Rs. Or maybe Bluffdale UT could rent them a little rack space and a couple hundred drive arrays. I hear there is PLENTY of storage out west.
Funny how the IRS is like an elephant that never forgets when it comes to a tax return you filed in 1999.
The backup drives that document your cooked goose never seem to get ash canned.
Why would you make backups and then destroy them anyway?
Who’s in charge of this shit show?
Rusty?
Bueller?
Anyone?
~ DC
They weren't incompetant. These two were probably the two best most pliant employees that the IT department had at the time. They probably didn't even know what they were erasing. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and shits in the water. Its probably a duck.
You are correct. They are not the incompetent ones. The question is who directed the tapes to be sent to the record destruction department?
The IRS lies about what "income" is and participates in the prosecution and imprisonment of Americans every day for not filing "returns" that we are not required by law. So why would anyone expect them to obey the law? heck if Congress continues to support the fraud why would they expect the IRS employees to have anymore fidelity to the law than they do?
I still don't understand why Russia doesn't target and launch its entire nuclear arsenal at the US.
So "silverer" that was really a stupid comment. I checked your profile and you have been here for 49 weeks and have NO votes. You look like a Troll bot.
As my last post before I log out until Sept. 17th., I wish to remind people that, when the time comes, the IRS' system and computers are vulnerable to "stuffing."
That is where garbage data is deliberately pushed into a system or database. That system or database will then begin to spew garbage--Garbage-In, Garbage-Out (GIGO).
As the government, and IRS, have little facility, or ability, to rectify the resulting mess, the whole corrupt system of theft will collapse into the sludge from which it, they, came.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Why wouldn't Lois be summarily fired because it happened on her watch whether she knew about it or not. Isn't that what is supposed to happen? Isn't that what democrats will demand of the repulicants when they lose the key to the big house?
You couldn't make this shit up.
No.Rule.Of.Law.
Once the IT dept was notified to delete the backups....backups of the backups were made. They are still out there.
duplicate
One of the reasons the Chinese execute their "elite, corrupt and publicly stupid" is to ensure that their people continue to have faith in and support for the government and the party.
Every time "Just Us" protects their own, the legitimacy of the government in the eyes of the people decreases. The only respect the current government has is based on fear, historically a recipe for domestic disaster.
I need to start bringing a vomit bag to Zerohedge. No federal grand jury. Congress let this happen by not securing the servers. Congress still won't do anything. The supposedly "independent" investigator is covering for these assholes. "Incompetent"? Are fucking kidding me? Yes, they just accidently erased the one person's emails and backups who was being investigated at that hell hole of a government agnecy. We should just start calling TBTJ what it really is: Anarchy for the elites and tyranny for the rest.