In what is the most incredible set of circumstances, the IRS lady who was responsible for exempt-organizations and ended up taking the 5th (for those outside the country the 5th Amendment is in the U.S. Constitution and says, in effect, a person does not have to testify if the information given will incriminate them), says her computer ate her e-mail. This e-mail, some believe, will show there was somebody in the White House who knew that she was trying to make it harder for Tea Party groups to get tax exempt status, maybe even directing that it be done. No evidence of it was ever found, which means there was none to be found, or what was there was not "discovered" in discovery. This is not the first time that has happened, as any good lawyer knows.
So, after a year of slogging around, providing "unprecedented efforts" costing over $10M (undoubtedly a hard number to believe), to supply Congress with documents and information covering the matter of her testimony, this revelation is announced, almost as an aside. [See John D. McKinnon, IRS Says Official's Emails were Lost in Computer Crash, The Wall Street Journal, 14 June 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/irs-provides-more-emails-in-conservative-group-targeting-probe-1402684543?cb=logged0.8742854848969728 ]
When you teach, you hear all of the usual stories about why my term paper was not submitted by the due date, why I can't take that exam on Tuesday, or why I missed class that day. I have reminded more than one student that grand-parents can only die once, and that new computer will keep those documents somewhere, even if you don't try hard to make it happen. There are no systems in government that don't have backups, and even a public person with something to hide, knows that hiding is not easy to do. But, even IRS knows, nobody with a brain is buying this story.
Anytime a government agency tries to sell an incredible story, it usually ends up in hot water. Watergate was the best of them, but the "I didn't have sex with that woman" was right up there with the best. Lately, we are treated to such beauties as "we weren't negotiating with terrorists", "we always bring our boys home", and "a video caused those people to riot and kill our Ambassador". These are tied up in ritual beliefs that the public will buy anything if it is packaged in a way they are comfortable with.
An incredible story, creates a black space that is looking to be filled. It can be filled with facts, or we can make up something to fill it, but one way or another, our brains don't buy incredible. We don't accept it.
I managed a forensics function in EDS and understand what can be sucked out of a computer after it is dead, crashed, erased, even sabotaged. A woman who erased all the financial records she could find, found out that we could not only show that they could be recovered, but that we could prove she erased them. She was surprised and confessed. Plenty of others followed her. It is really, really hard to get rid of this type of data, even when you know what is there and how to do it. Computers are just not very good at cooperating, when somebody tries to get rid of things.
IRS is not trying. It isn't just an oversight, or a lack of initiative on their part; they are not trying or they could recover those e-mails. They may not want to; they may be told not to; they may just not have the expertise in-house. Whatever it is, they are not trying. Furthermore, not trying is not a good excuse.
I'm astounded that the press is not all over this. Somebody knows where those e-mails are. Somebody knows what is in them. Somebody knows that floating a story like this is tantamount to suicide for any agency that does it. It is only arrogance that allows it to happen. I worked in IRS for awhile, years ago, and the people there are not like that. Somebody will turn this and the press people who get there first will have an interesting story worth telling. No amount of political manipulation will stop it. Those things are available, and they will be found. Amazon books:
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