The latest twist in the investigation of former IRS official Lois Lerner and the
IRS's persecution of tax-exempt Tea Party groups
took another troubling turn Friday when the agency claimed Lerner's
emails went missing. We're supposed to believe a mysterious computer
crash wiped out the vast majority of Lerner's emails covering the period
in question -- January 2009 to April 2011 -- while not affecting stored
communications for any other time frame, or for any other member of her
division, or in the agency as a whole. The odds of such a misfortune
taking place without the aid of corrupt individuals looking to obstruct
justice are virtually impossible.
Remember
when Richard Nixon's secretary, Rose Mary Woods, accidently deleted 18
minutes of Oval Office tapes related to the Watergate scandal? Nobody
believed that was accidental, either. And as Fox News analyst Charles
Krauthammer reminds us, "[T]he second article of impeachment for Richard
Nixon was the abuse of the IRS to pursue political enemies. This is a
high crime. This is not a triviality."
IT
professionals repeat the mantra "email is forever." That's particularly
the case in any large organization like a corporation or a government
agency. Norman Cillo, a former program manager for Microsoft,
told The Blaze
that government email servers have built-in redundancies, and there is
always more than one server in operation. Each server has swappable disk
drives that can be removed if they fail, and all email servers use tape
backups that can be referred to if the server
and the disk drives crash all at once.
Even
if Lerner's own computer crashed, it would have no effect on the emails
she has sent or received because the emails would be stored on the
server, not on her computer. And if it was the server that crashed, why
were only Lerner's emails affected, and not any of those sent or
received by thousands of other IRS employees? Even then, Cillo
explained, the emails could be retrieved because there are backup
systems that prevent them from being lost forever, unless someone
deliberately flushed them out of the system.
Darrell
Issa, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman and head
of the IRS tax-exempt investigation, was incredulous. "Do they really
expect the American people to believe that, after having withheld these
emails for a year, they're just now realizing the most critical time
period is missing?" No wonder the announcement was
buried in an unrelated letter from the IRS to two senators.
The
loss of Lerner's emails further complicates an investigation already
stymied by lack of cooperation from the IRS and foot dragging by the
Justice Department. Attorney General Eric Holder has done nothing to
move the investigation forward, and under questioning from the House
committee, acting deputy U.S. AG David O'Neil admitted having no idea
how many prosecutors were working on the case. Now the case moves along a
tangent, because investigators have to deal with "missing" emails.
This
new level of the investigation should focus on the procedures the IRS
uses to secure its data. What was the timeline for the supposed crash,
its discovery, and the handling of the data that was lost? Who is in
charge of the servers and the data recovery? Why did the required
redundancies fail to restore lost data?
This
is textbook obfuscation by the IRS, and by the Obama White House in
general. The media sycophants who run interference for the president are
quick to point out that rogue elements in the IRS are responsible, not
Obama. When we look at the long list of this administration's scandals,
according to this logic, we are left to assume rogue elements exist in
the IRS, the ATF, the State Department, the NSA, Veterans Affairs, the
EPA, the Justice Department and so on. With so many corrupt individuals
in all these executive-level agencies, at what point does Obama
ultimately become responsible? Or when does he admit maybe big
government isn't always the answer?
Andrew McCarthy of National Review
points out presidential accountability was a very specific element
written into the Constitution. One leader of the executive branch, a
president, rather than a committee, is vested with a lot of power. "The
president is responsible for all the officials and agencies delegated to
wield the power the Constitution vests only in him," McCarthy writes.
Our president seems to think he remains above responsibility and, even
more laughably, above reproach.
In
his 2009 Arizona State University commencement address, Obama noted
that the university had denied him an honorary degree and "joked" that
"President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all
about being audited by the IRS." His joke is less funny than ever.
