IRS Head John Koskinen Now Says... They've Found Some of those Old Email Back Up Tapes?

I wonder if these tapes will feature any "artifacts" which result in the loss of information.

If I'm reading this right, they haven't found the Lois Lerner backup tapes per se. What they've found is some old backup tapes, covering the time period of Lerner's "lost emails," which they thought they'd recycled.

They "recycle," or "destroy," I think is the better word, the tapes every six months. But I guess they didn't destroy these.

Or something.

They do not know however if these particular backup tapes contain anything relating to Lerner.*

But they're checking. They're checkin', real hard.

The head of the IRS confirmed Wednesday that investigators looking into missing emails from ex-agency official Lois Lerner have found and are reviewing "backup tapes" -- despite earlier IRS claims that the tapes had been recycled.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, testifying before a House oversight subcommittee, stressed that he does not know "how they found them" or "whether there's anything on them or not." But he said the inspector general's office advised him the investigators are reviewing tapes to see if they contain any "recoverable" material.

The revelation is significant because the IRS claimed, when the agency first told Congress about the missing emails, that backup tapes "no longer exist because they have been recycled."

It is unclear whether the tapes in IG custody contain any Lerner emails, but Koskinen said investigators are now checking.

Thanks to Tami.

* Other readers interpret this differently. They think the tapes are the "Lois Lerner backup tapes" (well, Lois Lerner, and everyone else at the IRS), and the IRS is saying they'll review the tapes to see if there are discoverable emails -- that is, emails they've decided were requested by Congress.

Of course, in adversarial situations, a party has a strong incentive to say "Having reviewed this material, I find nothing discoverable that I have to turn over to you."

They could also claim, conceivably, that communications with White House staff aren't "discoverable" as they would be covered by executive privilege.

I don't even want to think about this.

posted by Ace at 02:50 PM

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