. >> are you or are you not committee all of lois lerner's emails? >> yes we will do that. >> not true. they say lois lerner's hard drive crashed. when did he know? when did he tell congress it happened. lead investigator going "on the record." and he just did it again. >> phony scandals. >> phony scandal? really? congresswoman michele bachmann is outraged and ready to respond. plus, they are the ones who were targeted and they are ready to fire back. three tea party leaders standing by for one hour investigation into the irs scandal. next week the house ways and means investigation. good evening, sir. >> good evening, greta. thanks for having me on. >> and tonight, we have a letter that has just gone out to the chairman of the ways and means from the commissioner of the internal revenue service. it says they are going to get you emails by the end of next week. >> well, great, we heard that last month in may commissioner koskinen told the ways and means committee we would have all the emails from lois lerner without any hesitation, without any delay.

lerner. the irs has or will be producing 24,000 e-mails that have been recovered from the carried before her computer crashed. they recovered these e-mails from other irs employees. that is on top of more than 43,000 e-mails involving ms. lerner after april 2011 that have already been produced. there is absolutely no evidence, absolutely no evidence to show that ms. lerner's computer crash was anything more than equipment failure. at the time of the incident in june 2011, irs computer experts reviewed the issue and inform lois lerner that, and i quote, unfortunately, the news is not good. the sectors on the hard drive were bad which made your data unrecoverable, and quote. -- end of quote. was your computer crash a conspiracy? no. was the internal revenue service's system for backing up the system entirely underfunded and wholly deficient? clearly, yes. in fact, congress has cut the irs budget for operations, which includes what it spends on computers and other information technology every ye

lerner. we confirm backup tapes from 2011 no longer existed because they have been recycled pursuant to the irs normal policy. we searched e-mail from other custodians. from mid-march to late april the irs review team concentrate on loading her review all the main e-mail from ms. lerner's accounts and then repeating the entire process for quality control and to ensure that no new e-mails from ms. lerner were missing. during this time into men also were identified and reviewing lerner e-mails to and from 82 other custodians. by mid-may as result of these efforts, the irs identify the 24,000 lerner e-mails between january 1 and april 2011. as the search for a production of lerner e-mails was concluding i asked those working on this matter to determine whether computer systems of the other 80 to custodians had experienced any similar difficulties, especially in light of the aged equipment the irs has been increasingly using as result of its budget provisions. after the irs report on ms. lerner's

lerner. the irs has or will be producing 24,000 e-mails that have been recovered from the carried before her computer crashed. they recovered these e-mails from other irs employees. that is on top of more than 43,000 e-mails involving ms. lerner after april 2011 that have already been produced. there is absolutely no evidence, absolutely no evidence to show that ms. lerner's computer crash was anything more than equipment failure. at the time of the incident in june 2011, irs computer experts reviewed the issue and inform lois lerner that, and i quote, unfortunately, the news is not good. the sectors on the hard drive were bad which made your data unrecoverable, and quote. -- end of quote. was your computer crash a conspiracy? no. was the internal revenue service's system for backing up the system entirely underfunded and wholly deficient? clearly, yes. in fact, congress has cut the irs budget for operations, which includes what it spends on computers and other information technology every ye

lerner sought help from the i.t. staff at the irs and they went to great lengths to recover her data, but at the end of the process, they could not do so. mr. koskinen also testified last week that the irs took extraordinary steps, the extraordinary step of sending ms. lerner's hard drive to experts in the forensic lab at the irs criminal investigation division, but even they could not recover her data. the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. on august 5th, 2011, ms. lerner received an e-mail with the bad news. and it said this, and i quote. unfortunately, the news is not good. it was bad, which made your data unrecoverable. i'm very sorry. everyone involved tried their best, end of quote. if anyone wants the actual evidence of what happened in this case, now we have it. i ask unanimous consent of all these e-mails from july 19th, july 20th, august 1st and august 5th be entered into the record. >> without objection, any lois lerner e-mails any member wants to be placed in the record, be placed in the r

lerner's computer. and the crash of a computer and, therefore, the lack of our ability to be able to get all of the e-mails. this is, for about a year and half now and i have read in a test and before you came and that i know you read your testimony to us it appears that the first time you were made aware that there was actually a crashed computer was when you saw the date dissipation of e-mail was uneven. and i isn't that correctly that that is the first time at unit about the crashed computer was when you determine after all these files were given and went back to look at them, you did a limited search and you said there is something wrong here because there is an unevenness division. was that the first time you were made aware that there was a crashed computer? >> that's the first time i was aware. that pattern cause people to do an investigation and they found that had been a crashed so i wasn't told to separate issues. i was told i was a pattern problem and i.t. have determined that had been a comp

lerner's e-mails were lost forever? >> no. >> thank you very much. >> we go to the gentlemen from florida now. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have known the commissioner for many years and i know him to be a good public servant. i am a little bit baffled. i note, john, that i think you are in a position at the end of the parade with the broom and shovel here and in a difficult situation. let me, if i can, take people back to the history of this and to you commissioner. this targeted began sometime in march or april of 2010. in june of 2010, chairman issa alerted irs and made an inquiry. in february of 2011, lois lerner sent an e-mail saying the tea party is a very dangerous matter. then, the chairman of the committee with jurisdiction in june of 2011, june 3rd, dave camp, who you spent time with recently sent a letter to the irs that it looks like the heat really started to come on at that point. now an entire administration and one of the biggest scandals in government was during watergate when 18 minutes of tape was lo

lerner's computer from that. period 2009 to 2013. 67,00 0 have a total of lerner emails. and identify the possibility of an issue because the date distribution of the e-mail was uneven. it was not clear whether lerner e-mails were overlooked or had issues involved. irs information technology professionals identify documents that she had experienced a computer failure. e-mails had earlier been provided last fall to this committee. in march 2014, the irs focused on rejecting materials and processing the rest of her e-mails for production. as we reviewed additional e-mails, not limited by search terms, relevance, subject matter, all of her e-mails, the irs review came to learn additional facts regarding ms. lerner's computer crash, which occurred before these investigations opened or the i.g.'s report. we learned in 2011 the irs technology division had tried using multiple processes at ms. lerner's request to recover information stored on her hard drive. a series of e-mails available after offer e-mails were loaded recounts the sequence of events in 2011. toront-line manager

lerner experienced computer failure. in mid march the irs focused on lerner e-mail for production. the data was determined to be unrecoverable. mid-march you knew it was not recoverable and late march you came before the committee and didn't tell us her computer failed and you cannot recover remails. fine. your testimony was i was not sure we lost them all. i asked you when did you learn and you had in april. i want to focus on when you officially learned according to your definition. you can't remember who told you this information? >> i don't remember. >> was it in person? e-mail? >> i don't recall. i don't get e-mails on the subject so i am sure in person. >> this has been a major news story and you don't remember who came up to you they lost the e-mails? >> i remember being told. >> but you don't remember who? you would think that would be significant enough to remember how it happened. you might even remember where you are standing. >> i am running an agency with 90,000 people. we are in the middle of filing season. >> you find out in april sometime. what did you do then? >> i

lois lerner for murder at the irs division. this committee and the senate finance committee has now received more than 770,000 pages of 100 active materials. we will submit another today and you have additional lois lerner e-mails. you already have more than 25,000 e-mails from his lois lerner computer account and more than 5,000 e-mails from other custodians accounts for which ms. lois lerner was an author or recipient. the irs expects as noted earlier in the conversation to complete the production of the remaining e-mails. we have from the e-mail account from the period january 2009 through may of 2013. in addition as it is noted you have 24,000 e-mails from other custodians accounts during the period that the hard drive was crashed for a total of 67,000 e-mails.

lerner's emails for production. as we reviewed additional emails, the irs review team learned additional facts regarding ms. lerner's computer crash in mid 2011, which occurred long before these congressional investigations opened or when the review began. during this review, we learned that as noted in 2011, the irs information technology division had tried using multiple processes at ms. lerner's request. to recover the information stored on her computer's hard drive. a series of emails available after all of ms. lerner's email was loaded this spring recounts the sequence of events in 2011. front line mcmanager and it reported on july 20th, 2011, and i quote, i checked with the technician and he still has your drive. he wanted to exhaust all avenues to recover the data before sending it to the hard drive cemetery. unfortunately, after receiving assistance from several highly skilled technicians, including hp experts, he still cannot recover the data, unquote. ms. lerner was told by email on august 1st, 20011, as a

lois lerner targeted a sitting republican united states senator stunning new email evidence shows lerner referred senator chuck grassley of iowa to the irs for extra scrutiny. fox news chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel is live on capitol hill with the latest. mike? >> it is a bizarre story where invitations were issued by an organization to senator grassley and to lois lerner but apparently the ini have stations were swamped until lois lerner received senator grassley's. this group looks like they are offering to pay for mrs. grassley, his wife's travel, and that may be inappropriate so she referred it to some of her colleagues and said we should give it closer scrutiny. republicans say out of all the thousands of emails they are looking for, they have this email, imagine what her instincts were in other cases because her first instinct in this case was to go after a sitting republican united states senator democrat say the system worked. her colleagues talked her down and didn't go any further with it bottom line they have gone through all the emails that they have. still l

lerner's e-mails. we know from 2010 e-mail correspondents we found at the department of justice that ms. lerner sent over 1.1 million pages of a data base to assist the possible prosecution of those same groups that were targeted and that that information included 6103 personal identifiable information including donors. i am hoping the archivist whose loss and destruction would and should have been reported in 2011. the hearing today continues the committee's oversight efforts of the irs targeting to get to basic answers for the american people. the committee will continue to aggressively search for answers about how and why the irs allowed to be destroyed lois lerner's e-mails. this information is critical to the committee's investigation of the irs targeting of conservative organizations. i might add in closing, the archivist is a welcoming friend of this committee. the archives fall within our jurisdiction. we take great pride in the work that the national archives does. just last night very proudly

lerner's a computer problems in 2011. during this mid-march review, the data stored on her computer hard drive determined at the time was uprecoverable so in mid-march you knew the dauta was unrecoverab unrecoverable. you didn't tell us her computer mailed. you said we were going to give them all to you. i wasn't quite sure we lost them all even though the it professional said i lost them all. the last round i asked you, sometime in april. i want to focus on when you did officially learn according to your definition. the chairman asked you, who told you this information, you can't remember? >> no, i did not remember. >> did someone tell you in person? did they send you an e-mail. >> do not recall. i don't get e-mails on these subjects. i'm sure it was somebody in person. >> this has been a major news story in the last 13 months and i don't remember who came up to you and said, hey boss we lost lois lerner's e-mails. >> i remember being told in april. >> i do in the recall something on the front page that you would think w

what they said about lerner's details? they said lerner sent an e-mail from her desktop. there was a crash. she e-mailed. we have evidence she did complain she had a crash. they said the irs said in a letter to the congress, e-mails are -- they go to servers. they are not just on your desktop. they go to the servers but then the servers rewrite every six months. we couldn't get the e-mails off of her fried laptop or desktop and the server had rewritten. why is that not plausible? >> it is not just lois lerner. it is the other six. >> i get that. stick with lerner right now. explain to me what is not plausible. >> she is a high-ranking official. these e-mails exist, not just in her inbox. they exist on backup tapes. >> that's the server, right? >> there is the server. once it operates for a while, it does a backup of itself. those tapes are then archived somewhere. the irs commissioner said in testimony during march, the congressman asked him, he said they exist but it will take years to get there. >> let me stop you there. that's a different kind of evidence. when the com

lois lerner targeted a sitting republican united states senator stunning new email evidence shows lerner referred senator chuck grassley of iowa to the irs for extra scrutiny. fox news chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel is live on capitol hill with the latest. mike? >> it is a bizarre story where invitations were issued by an organization to senator grassley and to lois lerner but apparently the ini have stations were swamped until lois lerner received senator grassley's. this group looks like they are offering to pay for mrs. grassley, his wife's travel, and that ma

what it does reflect is lois lerner's mind itset. if she's willing to go after a united states senator she was certainly willing to go after patriots united in wa tum ka, alabama. >> that's right. that raises more questions, collin, about this lost two years of e-mails. what have we learned this week that's new in terms of why these were lost or what obligations the irs had to make sure they weren't lost? >> yeah. first of all, just on the timing, real quick, we know in june 2011, when gop senators started doesing about it, all of a sudden also in june 2011 is when lois lerner's computer crashed. that's awfully odd. we now know, what's really interesting there's this group called z-street, a pro-israel group. in 2009 they applied for nonexempt status. >> a nonprofit. >> exactlyexactly. when it was decline dlaied they filed a lawsuit in 2010, august 2010, on viewpoint discrimination. now, once they filed that lawsuit, the irs should have been retaining all e-mails, all documents, anything related to viewpoint discrimination under what

>> lois lerner among others. the fact of the matter is they were concerned about the citizens united decision and the political pressure being brought to bear on all these service employees and they were trying to, quote, do something. we just learned because the investigation has been allowed to continue that lois lerner sent the data, a database of 12,000 citizens organizations to the fbi for possible criminal investigation. >> i got 30 seconds left. one last question for cleta. i'm sorry. where does the scandal go from here? how do you think the missing e-mails should be handled, and how do we get to the bottom of if there was anyone above and beyond lois lerner who is responsible for targeting these groups? >> we have to be able to look at e-mails outside of the irs. that's one thing the irs commissioner has not been forthcoming about. we're going to be meeting and conferring with lawyers for the justice department for the irs and lois lerner this week. i doubt we'll get very far. we'll ask the court to order

i dealt with lois lerner among others. and the fact of the matter is they were concerned about the citizens united decision and the political pressure that was being brought to bear on all of the civil service employees and they were trying to do something. we learned because the investigation is allowed to continue, we learned in the last two months lois lerner sent a database of 12,000 citizens organizations to the fbi for possible criminal recommendation. >> 30 seconds left. i have one last question for cleta. where does the scandal go from here? how do you think the missing e-mails should be handled? and how do we get to the bottom of if there was anyone above and beyond lois lerner who was responsible for targeting these groups? >> we have to be able to look at e-mails outside of the irs. that's one thick the commissioner has not been forthcoming with. we'll be meeting with justice department lawyers for the irs and lois lerner and i doubt we'll get far. we'll ask the court to order independent frezic investigation an

martha: lois lerner took the fifth. it doesn't look good in terms of what information they are willing to share. new allegations are creating more trouble for the embattled veterans administration. an independent investigator says the va put patients at risk by dismissing reports by whistleblowers including claims of dirty medical equipment and neglecting patients. bill: another fox news alert. in nigeria dozens of young women and boys said to be abducted from their villages this weekend. joining others held by months by the islamic extremist group boko haram. >> reporter: this is believed to be the work of boko haram, the militant group seeking to establish a hard-line islamic state in nigeria. the focus is the northeastern corner of that country. that's where the latest abductions tack place. 60 women and girls and 31 boys. they repeatedly tear righted the northeast region of nigeria with this campaign of kidnappings and murders. man the series of attacks that took place this weekend they apparently killed dozen of vi

if lois lerner were not guilty of anything. if there was no targeting which she by the way did admit there was targeting. she had a question planted at a bar association convention for her to be asked about it so she could admit and get it out there publicly. they were targeting so we know that but if there was nothing out there, why do we not have lois lerner coming forward to give us the information. why are we being stalled by every one of the commissioners? we just continue to be put off, lied to, and it's time that a special prosecutor would be named. we have obviously passed a house resolution it was bipartisan, 226 democrats joined us. this is a not a partisan issue. why people trust their government again. >> why do you think eric holder has not appointed a special prosecutor? >> i think that's a very good question. if he thought that a special prosecutor or that an investigation was necessary, for what happened in new jersey with chris christie and an employee of his that had traffic slowed on a bridge, why would you n

but what it does reflect is lois lerner's mind-set. if she is willing to go after a united states senator, she was certainly willing to go after patriots united in alabama. that's what was at stake. >> that's right. and that raises even more questions, colin, about this lost two years of e-mails. what have we learned this week that's new in terms of why these were lost or what obligations the irs had to make sure they weren't lost. >> yeah. first of all, just on the timing real quick, paul, we know that in june 2011, that's when gop senators started asking about it. and then all of a sudden also in june 2011, that's when lois lerner's computer crashed. that's awful low odd. what's really interesting, there is a group called z-street, a pro israel group and in 2009 applied for tax exempt status. >> a nonprofit. >> right. and when it was delayed, ultimately filed a lawsuit in 2010, august 2010 on viewpoint discrimination. now, once they filed that lawsuit, the irs should have been retaining all e-mails, all documents, anything related to

lerner's were unavailable. >> okay. so you thought it was presumably premature at that point, given the opportunity offer all the context you wanted to. premature to notify this committee or anyone else of your knowledge, personal knowledge? >> might approach was we needed to know, a., what this meant, what they been the result and bill dudley with e-mail if anyone failed and what e-mails we could find which were not available. we gave a fulsome report that would be more productive and, in fact, that's been my normal -- >> and others have spoken to the fulsome nest of that report so i won't get into that. we've invoke the federal record-keeping act. you can result in voted on at least one occasion, federal records act that requires agencies to store and preserve certain documents are applied to the irs change its document retention policy in may of 2013, the same month lois lerner announced this targeting initiative? >> irs, i wasn't about my understanding they changed their document retention policy in may in response

lerner finds that the monitor is blue and the computer is kaput. her attorney says relevant hard drives were not deliberately destroyed and lawmakers creating suspicion are just doing so, because it's an election year. >> she was as upset as anyone else about the loss of the e-mails and the other documents which are on there, which were quite important to her. but the trust is this is one of those things that happened. at the time she did everything she could to retrieve it. she reported it right away, and that's the story. >> rurp forth lerner's lawyers says he doesn't think his client will be prosecuted for any wrongdoing and she's just trying to put all this behind her, but lawmakers are say not so fast. there's a new push to think outside the box no new ways to scour cyberspace to find files the irs says are gone for good. >> you bring in the geeks who know hoses it works, bring them in for a deposition, i think we'll get a different answer. bring in the good people at microsoft. i doubt they built a product that made billions over the fact sud

within ten days lois lerner's hard drive crashed. we know her hard drive crashed because we know this for sure because it was a ticket filed with the i.t. department. is that correct? for a repair? >> that's correct. >> could you provide us with all of the tickets filed in the month of june, 2011, at the irs for failed hard drives? >> yes. >> thank you very much. i yield back. >> would the gentleman yield? >> yes. >> i thank the gentleman. we are nearing the end but there will be -- i'll need a few more minutes to so i want to be brief but i want to be thorough. miss lerner you didn't know, you say you never met her. my understanding from the reports the hard drive that failed was on her laptop. is that correct? >> i'm not familiar. i know nicole flax's travel computer is where the hard drive failed north her office computer. i'm assuming in light of where the archives went it was her office computer where the hard drive failed. >> i want to understand from to a procedural standpoint, employees of the irs download e-mails which may i

unit headed by lois lerner and directed by lois lerner unfairly targeted and abused conservative groups for what they believed. >> so let me just say okay, so right now, you were saying this, she violated the paperwork act. she should have had this thing, if she didn't back up these things she should have backed up these things. we're a long way from the original investigation which is did this unit unfairly target conservative groups. do you have proof positive of that and what is it? >> we published the 375-page report that details how her unit headed by her e-mails from her show that in fact they were targeting conservative groups only for their beliefs. now there are other groups that were caught up by name. >> some progressive groups. >> a.c.o.r.n. already a criminal investigation was trying to reconstitute. did we pub/a report? are we continuing to go after the truth which is who all else besides lois lerner was involved in leading the charge to unfairly treat groups and of course, just the other day we got into the grassley situation where a rather obscure invitation arrives, and

lerner's e-mails, the irs determined her hard drive crashed in 2011. at the time, ms. lerner asked irs i.t. professionals to restore her hard drive, but they were unable to do so. orrin hatch has trouble the agency didn't notify congress when they first became aware of the problem. and there are others sounding off saying lawmakers should not take the agency at its word. >> first of all, this is nonsense. i mean, this is the most obtuse administration when it comes to being honest and forthright. i just don't buy this whole story that the computers crashed. >> reporter: the irs said in a statement that it has gone to great lengths to cooperate with congress, spending nearly $10 million to produce more than 750,000 documents in all, and despite the latest setback, it is still, quote, committed to working with congress. julie, back to yo elizabeth, th. leland. >>> and coming up, julie, new reaction on those missing lois lerner e-mails from our political panel. >>> plus, transit workers in a major u.s. city walking off the job. as you might imagine, stranding tens of thou

now this is when lerner's computer crashes. the interesting thing is the investigation began ten days earlier. is that a mere coincidence, and we go to september, 2011 in as welch the irs cancels their or diving program, which by the way we now know is illegal because the archivist testified this week that that was not legal and we move forward as we check in augthe 13th, darrell issa subpoenas all of lois lerner's emamps that's an important date. let's follow the rest of the time line. february of 2014, the irs knew that the subpoenaed e-mails from august the 2013, that they were gone. did they bother to tell congress which had subpoenaed the e-mails? no, they didn't tell them that. as a matter of fact, in march when the irs commissioner testified before congress he didn't mention it at all, and i'll get back to that in a second and finally in june of 2013 they revealed to congress that in fact they were unrecoverable. let's go back and look at march 26th hearing. remember, they knew in february right here, knew that the irs e

on the lois lerner deal, what's the big deal here? she received a letter, grassley had an invite, and he and his wife are allegedly going to attend, and in the end they never did? >> yeah. i think the biggest issue here is that the biggest issue here is that -- i'm on the air, guys. the biggest issue is that we have with the lois lerner e-mail as it relates to grassley, the idea that she would send that to exam for review is breathtaking. first of all, she's a tax-exempt organization head. she doesn't head up the examination division, yet she took it on her own prerogative to, basically, refer for an audit senator grassley because she didn't like what she perceived to be some meeting they were both going to attend and how it was being funded. bill: let me -- i just want to make the distinction here, jay, the examination was the word that was used in the e-mail. >> yeah. bill: is that the same as an audit, or is that -- >> exactly right. the division of the irs, bill, that does audits is the examination division. so when she said let's

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