It was revealed yesterday that Lois Lerner’s hard drive was “scratched” (whatever that is supposed to mean) and the data on it was still recoverable. But, that the IRS did not try to recover it, even though that was recommended by in-house IRS IT experts, who felt they should outsource the recovery project.

The IRS instead chose to “shred” (again, what that is supposed to mean), instead, according to a court filing the IRS made to House Ways and Means Committee investigators. They chose this even though they had already been informed that there was an investigation underway into Lerner? Seriously?

Investigators noted that it is unclear whether the scratch was deliberate or accidental.

“It is unbelievable that we cannot get a simple, straight answer from the IRS about this hard drive,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI). “The Committee was told no data was recoverable and the physical drive was recycled and potentially shredded. To now learn that the hard drive was only scratched, yet the IRS refused to utilize outside experts to recover the data, raises more questions about potential criminal wrong doing at the IRS.”

So first they have the emails, then they don’t have the emails, then they might have the emails… back and forth and back and forth. Just more in a long line of questions about the IRS’ handling of these emails.

Why would they even THINK about destroying the hard drive when they knew Lerner was being looked into unless they (1) had something hide, (2) are completely incompetent as an agency, which is scary considering their role in the implementation of the health care law and their intrusion into our personal financial lives, or (3) both.

Can you even imagine if you went into an IRS audit with record keeping and excuses like this!

The IRS notified contractors yesterday that it needs help in destroying at least another 3,200 hard drives.

The IRS states in the contract paperwork, “After all media are destroyed, they must not be capable of any reuse or information retrieval.”

The agency is expecting to need to have destroyed at least 65,464 magnetic tapes, 5,856 floppy disks, 708 reels, and 3,225 hard drives. The IRS has amassed half a million pieces of electronic storage media, some with personally identifiable taxpayer information. More than 375,000 pieces have already been destroyed. The rest await destruction.

“Due to system changes, a significant amount of electronic portable media containing [personally identifiable information] and potentially sensitive but unclassified data such as taxpayer return information is being collected at IRS facilities and locked in secure storage areas awaiting destruction,” a statement of work attached to the solicitation said.

What is actually a routine job, meant to protect sensitive taxpayer information, comes off as totally ironic and laughable in light of the IRS hard drive problems surrounding the targeting scandal that is currently under investigation.

In case you are interested, the contract paperwork can be found here.

Given the issues surrounding the missing and destroyed hard drives in this investigation, it makes one wonder why they don’t wait on destroying thousands more…just to be on the safe side, you think?

In a never ending battle of are there backups of emails or not, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrel Issa (R-CA) released the transcription of testimony taken last week which shows that the IRS may just be changing it’s story on whether Lois Lerner’s emails are lost or not.

During the transcribed interview, which occurred on Thursday, July 17, with IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane, who supervises the IRS’s targeting scandal document production to Congress, testified that new information now makes him unsure whether email backup tapes containing the Lerner emails in question actually exist or not.

This does not match up with a memo that was sent on June 13, to Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) by the IRS, which said that the IRS “confirmed that back-up tapes from 2011 no longer exist because they have been recycled.”

According to the release of the testimony by Kane to a Committee investigator:

Investigator: You stated at the time that document was produced to Congress, the document, the white paper in Exhibit 3[the June 13 memo], that it was accurate to the best of your knowledge. Is it still accurate?

Kane: There is an issue as to whether or not there is a – that all of the backup recovery tapes were destroyed on the 6‑month retention schedule.

Investigator: So some of those backup tapes may still exist?

Kane: I don’t know whether they are or they aren’t, but it’s an issue that’s being looked at.

This is the same testimony where we learned that additional IRS employees had also suffered IRS crashes, as we reported yesterday.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has asked for the committee to end the criticism of Koskinen and ask no further questions. In a letter sent to Issa on Monday from Cummings, he objected to the decision to call IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to testify at a hearing on Wednesday, which would make it the third time Koskinen will have appeared before the committee in the past month.

Cummings has been at odds with the IRS investigation since the start, announcing within 30 days of the start of the investigation that it was all over and nothing more needed to be done, which of course was not true. He, himself, has been implicated in being a apart of the targeting scandal, with some accusing him of trying to shut the investigation down so that his role in the targeting would not come out.

The Daily Caller reported today:

IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane said in transcribed congressional testimony that more IRS officials experienced computer crashes, bringing the total number of crash victims to “less than 20,” and also said that the agency does not know if the lost emails are still backed up somewhere.

This agency has more problems with computers than any company I have ever worked for in my life! Isn’t it crazy that all of these computer crashes are happening to people involved in the IRS targeting investigation? What are the odds?

Let’s see, so far we have computers crashes, with data loss, reported for:

Lois Lerner: The head of the IRS Exempt Organizations division, until she was placed on administrative leave amidst the controversy and is now being held in Contempt of Congress (not that anything will ever be done about that, in my opinion). She, of course, was the one who famously said all of the targeting was done by a few “rogue” employees in a remote field office in Cincinnati. She also plead the Fifth at House Oversight hearings. You know – the Fifth – so she would not incriminate herself in anything criminal. But, she did NOTHING criminal mind you, according to her subsequent statement that no one was allowed to ask her questions on, because she pleaded the Fifth. Say what? How does that work?

Nikole Flax: The former chief of staff to ex-IRS commissioner Steven Miller. You know, the same Steven Miller who visited the White House 118 times in 2010 and 2011. (George W. Bush’s tax chief visited one time in four years. But, I digress.) Ms. Flax visited the White House 31 times herself, between July 12, 2010 and May 8, 2013.

Michelle Eldridge: IRS National Media Relations Chief, who defended the IRS when it came under fire for whistleblower reprisal from its inspector general and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley (the same Senator we would later find out Lerner tried to target for audit).

Kimberly Kitchens: Agent who donated to Obama’s 2012 campaign and worked in the IRS Exempt Organizations Rulings and Agreements office in Cincinnati in 2012. You know, the same office that Lerner tried to blame back in the beginning for the whole targeting stuff.

Nancy Heagney: Another Cincinatti agent who worked under Lerner.

Julie Chen: An Exempt Organizations agent.

Tyler Chumny: A supervisory agent that served as a Cincinnati-based contact person on at least one tax exempt decision letter signed by Lerner.

So yeah, these were the first seven people who’s computers crashed, that are all tied up in this scandal.

And now we can add the following to the list of computer crashes:

David Fish: Manager of EO Guidance (which develops formal and informal guidance to the public on tax-exempt issues). Also served as Acting Director of Rulings and Agreements in late 2011 and early 2012. Routinely corresponded with Lerner.

Andy Megosh: Group manager in Exempt Organizations guidance. Cited in the Ways and Means Committee’s referral of Lerner to the Justice Department.

Justin Lowe: Lerner’s technical advisor. Prior to that he was a tax-law specialist in EO (Exempt Organizations) Technical and then EO Guidance.

NOT EVEN A SMIDGEN OF CORRUPTION HERE, FOLKS!

Move along. Nothing to see.