Despite the damning new revelations in the IRS scandal, ABC and NBC have failed to cover the story as of Monday June 16, and only CBS This Morning reported on the emails on Monday but their evening news program ignoring the IRS alongside ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer and NBC Nightly News.
As Kyle Drennen of NewsBusters noted, “Neither NBC’s Today nor ABC’s Good Morning America bothered to cover the shocking development. However, both broadcasts did manage to find time for full reports on Britain’s baby Prince George learning to walk.”
Rather than continue with its IRS coverage on Monday evening,
- CBS Evening News instead found time to do a full report on Starbucks helping its employees pay for college.
- ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer, gave a full report for Alex Trebek setting the world record for longest game show host and
- NBC Nightly News found time once again to mention that Britain’s Prince George is learning to walk.
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Here’s the story written Friday 13, the day of the dump, by the AP via
US News and World Report
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IRS tells Congress it has lost trove of emails by central figure in tea party investigation
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FILE – This May 22, 2013 file photo shows Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Lois Lerner on Capitol Hill in Washington. The IRS says it has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy. The IRS told congressional investigators Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner’s emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed that year. Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups. The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from 2009 to 2011 because Lerner had copied in other IRS employees. But an untold number are gone. (J. Scott Applewhite, File/Associated Press)
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press – June 13, 2014
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service said Friday it has lost a trove of emails to and from a central figure in the agency’s tea party controversy, sparking outrage from congressional investigators who have been probing the agency for more than a year.
The IRS told Congress Friday it cannot locate many of Lois Lerner’s emails prior to 2011 because her computer crashed during the summer of that year.
Lerner headed the IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status. The IRS acknowledged last year that agents had improperly scrutinized applications for tax-exempt status by tea party and other conservative groups.
“The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’ response to congressional inquiries,” said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “There needs to be an immediate investigation and forensic audit by Department of Justice as well as the inspector general.”
The Ways and Means Committee is one of three congressional committees investigating the IRS over its handling of tea party applications from 2010 to 2012. The Justice Department and the IRS inspector general are also investigating.
Congressional investigators have shown that IRS officials in Washington were closely involved in the handling of tea party applications, many of which languished for more than a year without action. But so far, they have not publicly produced evidence that anyone outside the agency directed the targeting or even knew about it.
If anyone outside the agency was involved, investigators were hoping for clues in Lerner’s emails.
The IRS said technicians went to great lengths trying to recover data from Lerner’s computer in 2011. In emails provided by the IRS, technicians said they sent the computer to a forensic lab run by the agency’s criminal investigations unit. But to no avail.
The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 because Lerner had copied in other IRS employees. The agency said it pieced together the emails from the computers of 82 other IRS employees.
But an untold number are gone. Camp’s office said 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.”
The IRS said in a statement that more than 250 IRS employees have been working to assist congressional investigations, spending nearly $10 million to produce more than 750,000 documents.
Overall, the IRS said it is producing a total of 67,000 emails to and from Lerner, covering the period from 2009 to 2013.
“The IRS is committed to working with Congress,” the IRS said in a statement. “The IRS has remained focused on being thorough and responding as quickly as possible to the wide-ranging requests from Congress while taking steps to protect underlying taxpayer information.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, called Friday’s disclosure “an outrageous impediment” to the committee’s investigation.
“Even more egregious is the fact we are learning about this a full year after our initial request to provide the committee with any and all documents relating to our investigation,” Hatch said.
Lerner has emerged as a key figure in the tea party probe. In May 2013, she was the first IRS official to publicly acknowledge that agents had improperly scrutinized applications.
About two weeks later, Lerner was subpoenaed to testify at a congressional hearing. But after making a brief statement in which she said she had done nothing wrong, Lerner refused to answer questions, invoking her constitutional right against self-incrimination.
The IRS placed Lerner on administrative leave shortly after the congressional hearing. She retired last fall.
In May, the House voted to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress. Her case has been turned over to the U.S. attorney for the district of Columbia.
Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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So, the IRS has a new kind of email system where the emails are kept on the person’s *personal* computer? So if it crashes, it not only deletes the emails on *that* computer, but also deletes the copies on all the other computers of all the other people with whom she was in correspondence?
You mean the IRS doesn’t use an email exchange server? And that server isn’t backed up, in compliance with Sarbanes Oxley? And it can be affected by a client PC crashing?
They really must think we’re idiots. How about we try it next Febuary? Tell them we took a sledge hammer to our drive and lost our online tax receipts because that’s what it would take to lose them.
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WaPo reporters still haven’t written about it – the NYSlimes just reported on it a couple of hours ago – silence from the LATimes. Malaysia reported on it and the Daily Mail…(for what it’s worth PBS mentioned it).
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Bottomline: This story isn’t going anywhere despite the attempts by the Obama-media to censor it. It’s High Crimes and Imprisonment Times for those involved – period!
