(Washington Post)  Noted management expert and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen was apparently called out of retirement — like the Ted Williams of evasive, unapologetic bureaucrats — to destroy what is left of his agency’s credibility.

At immediate issue is two years of subpoenaed e-mails from former IRS official Lois Lerner to outside agencies, lost in a convenient computer crash. The possible involvement of other agencies is one focus of a congressional investigation into the heightened IRS scrutiny of conservative nonprofit groups before the 2012 election.
In recent congressional testimony, Koskinen admitted that the e-mails were irretrievably gone; that the “backup tapes” had been erased; and that Lerner’s hard drive was apparently destroyed in an aggressive act of recycling. With that settled, Koskinen expressed his “hope that the investigations  can be concluded in the very near future.”
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Article and video(s) below:

(Via Daily Mail) Republicans dropped a hammer on IRS Commissioner John Koskinen during a testy hearing covering the disappearance of emails tied to the agency’s tea party targeting scandal.
The emails, covering the period January 2009 to April 2011, belonged to embattled former official Lois Lerner and could shed light on whether an expansive scheme to single out conservative groups for special scrutiny was guided by members of Congress or administration officials outside the IRS.

‘The committee requested all of Lois Lerner’s emails over a year ago,’ said House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa. ‘And we subpoenaed the emails in August 2013 and again in February 2014. … You worked to cover up the fact they were missing and only came forward to fess up on a Friday afternoon after you had been caught red-handed.’
‘You personally did not cause the targeting,’ he told Koskinen, referring to the tea party scandal. ‘You personally did not destroy the emails. But by your actions and your deception, you now own this scandal.’ (more…)

(Daily Caller) The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed.
The IRS signed a contract with Sonasoft, an email-archiving company based in San Jose, California, each year from 2005 to 2010. The company, which partners with Microsoft and counts The New York Times among its clients, claims in its company slogans that it provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” Sonasoft in 2009 tweeted, “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to backup their servers why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?” (more…)

(New York Post) To understand the latest outrage in the IRS scandal, mull over what might happen if regulators found significant evidence to implicate Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein in an insider trading scheme.
Let’s say Blankfein asserted his Fifth Amendment right not to answer any questions. Say Goldman was subpoenaed to provide all of Blankfein’s e-mails. Goldman replied that, instead of complying with the subpoena, it was itself reviewing the e-mails in question and was considering which ones to release.
Now imagine that, nearly a year later, Goldman admitted that it had not, in fact, reviewed the e-mails in question, because they had been lost in a computer crash two months before it claimed to be reviewing them. Imagine Goldman also said copies of the e-mails were lost, because while under subpoena it had destroyed the “backup tapes” (whatever those are) that held them and that it had also thrown away Blankfein’s actual hard drive.
The thing about dogs eating homework is, it could actually happen. This can’t. (more…)

Most reasonable people would see the current IRS claims “we can’t find the missing emails” as essentially ridiculous at face value.  Of course the IRS could.    The reason they won’t is likely because of the content therein.
And that’s where things get sketchy.

The lead public face in the deception, Lois Lerner, and the secondary face, IRS commissioner John Koskinen, have the benefit of a blind and politically weaponized Federal Department of Justice (via U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder) with no interest in investigating them or their activity.
Because of the inherent risk to the White House -and the sheer scope of the larger named Democrats in office- the Justice Department (AG Eric Holder) will do nothing to bring the targeting scheme to sunlight.
It’s brutally obvious from the behavior of Lois Lerner and Commissioner Koskinen they are fully cognizant of this fortunate political alignment.
So what alternatives are available ? (more…)

People are calling this: “Paul Ryan Obliterates…” Others say: “Paul Ryan goes off…”
Sorry for disagreeing but this video is neither of those…. AND that’s the problem.
No-one calls these government corruptocrats what they are, “liars”.
If this is the best outrage that GOP congress can muster, they’re toast. That is a weak, wishy-washy, limp-wristed, non-confrontational exchange filled with order and rule delivery. It’s well past time to make a few headlines with a significantly more impactful delivery.

Our republic is under attack direct attack from within.  This poses an even greater risk than could be delivered from a foreign nation. (more…)

(Via Sharyl Attkisson) Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, (R-Calif.) requested that Jennifer O’Connor of the White House Counsel’s office testify next week.
In a letter, Issa requested O’Connor’s appearance at a hearing on Tuesday at 9:30a, a day after IRS Commissioner John Koskinen is scheduled to testify. The Tuesday hearing is entitled, “IRS Obstruction: Lois Lerner’s Missing E-Mails, Part II.”
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Repeat after me: Emails are not stored on “Hard Drives”; they are stored on “servers”.

If your computer crashes, you log onto another computer and access your e-mail. E-mail is not dependent on the workstation.

WASHINGTON DC – Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive has been recycled, making it likely the lost emails of the lightening rod in the tea party targeting controversy will never be found, according to multiple sources.
“We’ve been informed that the hard drive has been thrown away,” Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a brief hallway interview.
Two additional sources told POLITICO the same late Wednesday, citing IRS officials. (more…)

(Via Sharyl Attkisson) Today, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to testify at a hearing Monday about Lois Lerner’s “lost” emails.

On Friday, the IRS disclosed to Congress that it had lost many Lois Lerner emails dated from January 2009 to April 2011 due to a previously undisclosed computer crash in 2011.

In a letter to Koskinen today, Chairman of the Oversight Committee Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said that the Federal Records Act (FRA) was passed by Congress to avoid this very scenario.

“The FRA requires agencies to make and preserve records of agency decisions, policies, and essential transactions, and to take steps to safeguard against the loss of agency records,” wrote Issa.

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