It turns out Lois Lerner is as bad at destroying all incriminating evidence as she is at correctly pleading the Fifth.

Earlier this evening, the House Ways and Means Committee released e-mail evidence showing that Lois Lerner threatened to investigate Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and his wife in December of 2012 over an e-mail inviting the senator and his wife to speak at and attend a seminar. Lerner was invited to the same event (the specific event and sender of the invitation were redacted), and it appears that another IRS staffer, attorney Matthew Giuliano, solicited the invitation for Lerner. The invitation for Grassley appeared to have been inadvertently included in the e-mail, prompting Lerner’s audit threat.

Lerner jumped on the e-mail, and suggested that the organization soliciting her and Grassley’s participation should be “referred to Exam,” shorthand for an investigation and audit by the IRS:

freeman3 wrote:Please advise if the scandal reaches the White House. Until then, back to my fantasy baseball team(s)...

freeman3 wrote:Well , if it were me, I would appoint someone who would clean house at the IRS to hopefully clear it of this political taint. I am not sure this investigation of the IRS is going to yield much more and I guess I am a little skeptical of the intent behind it. In my line of work, I come into contact with a lot of people who have state power--police officers, judges, deputy district attorneys, deputy attorney generals, assistant US attorneys,etc . That's 20 years of observing the behavior of persons who have been authorized to exercise state power...consider me a skeptic about the ability of most people being able to handle that power without abuse unless there is strong leadership and institutional structures within an organization inhibiting abuse of power. When the head of the organization abuses power, one could imagine that failure filters down to the lower ranks...
So, yes, something needs to be at the IRS...is that what this investigation is about? If so, then there are problems at the IRS have been identified that need to be cleaned up. But if its purpose is to taint Obama, I think it is a waste of time.

Now, the International Association of Information Technology Asset Managers (IAITAM) expresses its skepticism. By way of background, this organization administers internationally accepted certifications for information technology professionals.

Here is what IAITAM’s president, Dr. Barbara Rembiesa, says about the disappearance of Lerner emails:

The notion that these emails just magically vanished makes no sense whatsoever. That is not how IT asset management at major businesses and government institutions works in this country.

When the hard drive in question was destroyed, the IRS should have called in an accredited IT Asset Destruction (ITAD) professional or firm to complete that process, which requires extensive documentation, official signoffs, approvals, and signatures of completion. If this was done, there would be records. If this was not done, this is the smoking gun that proves the drive or drives were destroyed improperly – or not at all.

Sure, investigate. Potential abuses of power need to be thoroughly investigated. Unless someone is a libertarian and hates the IRS I am not sure the results will be riveting but, yes, it needs to be done.

rickyp wrote:freeman

Sure, investigate. Potential abuses of power need to be thoroughly investigated. Unless someone is a libertarian and hates the IRS I am not sure the results will be riveting but, yes, it needs to be done.

you know whats always lost in this IRS scandal. That the organizations that were targeted were usually gulity.

rickyp wrote:freeman

Sure, investigate. Potential abuses of power need to be thoroughly investigated. Unless someone is a libertarian and hates the IRS I am not sure the results will be riveting but, yes, it needs to be done.

you know whats always lost in this IRS scandal. That the organizations that were targeted were usually gulity.

The IRS agreed to settle NOM’s case against it on the basis of a consent judgment under which it will receive $50,000 as actual damages. I wrote about the settlement yesterday in “Crimes of the IRS, NOM edition.”

Despite the relevance of this case to the current controversies involving the IRS, and the illumination it casts on them, the coverage this case has received ranges from pitiful to nonexistent. Politico mails it in here. As you may have guessed already, the New York Times hasn’t made it to the post office.

I contacted John yesterday to ask if he would comment on the significance of the settlement. He has authorized me to post this message sent in response to my request. Analyze this:

The IRS claims that it was an inadvertent mistake by a low level clerk in the processing facility in Ogden, Utah. Her name is Wendy Peters, and we don’t have any reason to think she was involved in a deliberate disclosure. The fellow on the receiving end, Matthew Meisel, a gay rights activist in Boston, had submitted a request for our tax return. (Because we’re a non-profit, the 990 tax form is public, but not the Schedule B list of donors).

What troubles us are a couple of things. First, Wendy’s whole job was to make sure tax returns were properly redacted before being mailed out. Seems odd that the one time that didn’t happen was on the most politically sensitive set of donors.

Second, the IRS originally claimed the tax return got mailed out to Meisel in March 2011. But then a document was produced by Meisel in response to our subpoena in which he claimed to have a “promising conduit” for our tax return donor information. That document was dated February 2011 – before the supposed inadvertent disclosure. [John attached a copy of the relevant email that is omitted here.] So the IRS/DOJ changed the story, claiming without any further evidence that the return was actually mailed to Meisel in early February. Of course, they don’t have any documents to prove that one way or the other.

Third, and most damaging, in my view: Meisel asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when we deposed him. Because the DOJ has already announced that it would not be prosecuting anyone for this, we asked the DOJ to grant him immunity so that we could compel him to answer our questions. DOJ refused, which is a huge red flag that there is likely something more to uncover here.

freeman3 wrote:Please advise if the scandal reaches the White House. Until then, back to my fantasy baseball team(s)...

geojanes wrote:We want to know that the IRS is doing their job, for sure, and if people are gaming the system, they need to be all over that. No one is saying otherwise, I don't think.

But the lost emails smacks of a cover-up. The truth needs to come out. Motives need to be understood. Why is that such a difficult concept? Why would anyone equivocate on that?

The IRS under the Obama Administration has spent over $4 billion on contracts labeled under information technology and software despite IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testifying this week that budgetary restraints prevented the agency from spending $10 million to save and store emails.

Koskinen said “declining budget resources” at the IRS caused the agency decided to reject spending the $10 million needed to ensure emails were properly secured.

A review of IRS spending by the Free Beacon shows the agency has spent a massive amount on what it labeled as IT/software and data processing contracts in the past five fiscal years. The official government’s spending website shows the IRS spent $4.4 billion during this time period.