The Insiders: More IRS smidgens show up. ‘Perfect.’

The Insiders: More IRS smidgens show up. ‘Perfect.’


By Ed Rogers July 11

Anyone paying attention to the Internal Revenue Service scandal has been waiting for the next smidgen to drop. Well, two more hit pretty hard this week. At the president’s next encounter with the media, I will scream collusion if no one asks him for his exact definition of a “smidgen,” and if he thinks he has seen a smidgen of corruption yet. At this point, only the most gullible or culpable can continue to claim there is no compelling evidence in this case. Given the delays, lies and stonewalling, there is no viable argument against a special prosecutor.


In a stunning revelation this week, it was disclosed that former IRS official Lois Lerner told colleagues, “we need to be cautious about what we say in emails” and then proceeded to ask the IRS IT department, in an e-mail, “if [instant messaging] conversations were also searchable.”  When she was told they were not, she e-mailed back, “Perfect.” This is a smoking gun e-mail in that it makes plain she had a cover-up in mind. There is no other plausible explanation.

Who knows how many of her colleagues and allies are breathing a sigh of relief upon learning that their e-mails to Lerner were destroyed and their instant messages not recorded? I think Lerner must have a sizable silent cheering section in Washington; people who are rooting for her to hang tough in pleading the Fifth and hoping that she does not go wobbly on them. I’ll bet her government retirement check is one check that never gets lost in the mail or delayed.

It gets even better. In another disclosure, Lerner’s attorney said that previous emphatic statements he had made declaring that Lerner did not print hard copies of her e-mails were not lies, just a “misunderstanding.” In this case, it is obvious what happened. When Team Lerner discovered that not keeping hard copies of some e-mails – which are considered government records – would in itself violate the law, it changed its story. It’s as simple as that.


The coordination among the Democrats and Lerner is remarkably brazen, even by today’s standards. While she lies low taking the Fifth, her mouthpieces in the Democratic caucus recite talking points that only she could approve. For example, during House oversight hearings on the scandal, Democrats seem to recite with great precision what Lerner did or did not do, what she knew and when she knew it. So while she hides the truth, protects her gang and stays clear of a perjury charge or worse, elected members of the Democratic party declare her innocence and tell her self-serving story.

Anyway, as long as Lerner stays cool and the Obama Department of Justice has her back, the administration obviously thinks it can run out the clock on this scandal. But these revelations are definitely meaningful smidgens. At what point does a flock of smidgens become irrefutable evidence that deserves an independent examination?

Thanks to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and other GOP leaders who refuse to shrug and quit, the Democrats’ denials, excuses and alibis are getting harder to make. After all, in Washington being guilty is still a bothersome disadvantage.

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Stephen F. Hayes

July 21, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 42




The facts are simple. The IRS systematically targeted conservative and Tea Party groups after their activism proved decisive in the 2010 midterm elections—Obama’s famous “shellacking.” The effects of this targeting were widespread. Some Tea Party groups were neutered in the months before the 2012 presidential election.

Few of the explanations or justifications of this targeting provided by IRS leaders and Obama administration officials have held up. IRS officials at first denied that any targeting had taken place. That was false. They later claimed that the targeting had involved only low-level employees in the Cincinnati office. That was false. They argued that conservative groups weren’t singled out, that progressive groups were subject to the same level of scrutiny. That was false. They argued that the IRS has complied with all requests for information from Congress. That was false.

Three years ago, on June 3, 2011, Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, wrote to the IRS requesting all information—including emails and other communication—related to the alleged targeting of conservative groups. Ten days later, Lois Lerner, the woman at the center of the targeting, reported to the IT team at the IRS that her hard drive had crashed. IRS leaders, questioned repeatedly about Lerner’s emails in subsequent congressional hearings, made no mention of the hard drive crash. Earlier this summer, IRS director John Koskinen disclosed that thousands of Lerner emails—including many of those sent to executive branch agencies—were missing because of the alleged computer problems. From her first appearance before a congressional committee, back in May 2013, Lerner has exercised her right against self-incrimination and refused to testify.

Last week brought a significant new revelation: an email in which Lerner seeks advice about keeping information from Congress. On April 9, 2013, Lerner emailed Marcia Hooke, an information technology specialist at the IRS, with an inquiry about an internal IRS message system known as OCS—Office Communications Service.

Lerner writes:

I had a question today about OCS. I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails—so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails. Someone asked if OCS conversations were also searchable—I don’t know but told them I would get back to them. Do you know?

Hooke responds that OCS conversations are not automatically saved, but adds the obvious disclaimer that the communicating parties may save them on their own. For that reason, it’s possible that they could turn up in a search. But the answer to the original question? No, they’re not saved.

Lerner responds: “Perfect.”

The exchange raises several questions:

• Why would Lerner “caution folks about email” and urge them “to be cautious about what we say in emails” if she and her colleagues had done nothing wrong?

• What was in these OCS communications that Lerner wanted to keep from Congress?

• Why would a senior IRS bureaucrat think it appropriate to withhold any information from lawmakers elected to provide oversight of agencies like the IRS?

• Why was Lerner concerned that Congress would see these internal IRS communications?

There’s actually an answer to that last question: She knew that the IRS scandal was about to explode.

At the time Lerner sent the email, IRS officials had recently learned that the Treasury inspector general would be issuing a report the following month criticizing the agency for its targeting of conservative groups. And Lerner’s email came just before she planted a question in the audience at an American Bar Association conference on May 10 in an effort to get out in front of the controversy.

These facts lead to one conclusion: Lois Lerner and other top IRS officials were desperate to keep information on the targeting of conservative groups from Congress.

It’s crucial to understand why. And that will require a special prosecutor.

Congressional Democrats have repeatedly called for an end to the investigations on Capitol Hill. The Justice Department investigation—using that word loosely—is being run by an Obama contributor. And Barack Obama, who once worried that such targeting was a subversion of our democracy, has since pronounced, in the face of a steady accumulation of evidence to the contrary, that there is not a “smidgen of corruption” to the IRS targeting.

That, too, is false.



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Judge Sullivan also wants to hear from the IRS

In the post immediately below, Scott reports that Judge Reggie Walton “wants to hear from the IRS.” Specifically, he wants the IRS to testify under oath about discovery issues pertaining to the destruction of evidence.

Judge Walton isn’t the only veteran District Court Judge here in Washington DC who wants to hear from the IRS about this matter. Yesterday, Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, ordered the IRS to explain in writing and under oath how some of Lois Lerner’s emails went missing, and to detail any potential methods for recovering them. Judge Sullivan gave the Internal Revenue Service one month — until Aug. 10 — to file its report.

This order came in a suit by Judicial Watch. It is seeking a wide range of documents from the IRS, including Lois Lerner’s emails, as part of a Freedom of Information Act request

Judicial Watch had asked that the court compel IRS officials to testify about the lost emails. Judge Sullivan didn’t grant that request, opting instead for a written report. However, in addition to the written report under oath, he ordered that the IRS work with Judge John Facciola, a federal magistrate judge and an expert in electronic discovery, to find out how many of Lerner’s emails can be found through other methods.

Although Judicial Watch didn’t get all of the discovery methods it requested, Judge Sullivan’s ruling is still a win. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton described the ruling as “a victory for public accountability.” He added: “These extraordinary court rulings are key steps in unraveling the Obama IRS’s ongoing cover up of its abuses against critics of this administration.”