d-usa wrote:
Everybody is getting sued and arrested by the Republicans!

 whembly wrote:

She's held in contempt... I wished they would've done this ages ago.

WASHINGTON—A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Internal Revenue Service to explain how it lost two years’ worth of a former official’s emails, and tapped a magistrate judge to find out whether the documents can be obtained from other sources.

At a hearing in a conservative group’s lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan gave the IRS until Aug. 10 to provide a sworn declaration explaining how the email loss occurred. The IRS previously has said that the emails were lost because the top agency official’s computer crashed in 2011, and backup tapes were routinely reused after six months.

Emails from the time show that the now-retired official, Lois Lerner, asked IRS technicians to restore her hard drive, but they were unable to do so, agency officials have said.

Ms. Lerner has become a focus of congressional investigations into the agency’s treatment of conservative groups that applied to operate as tax-exempt organizations. An inspector general reported last year that the IRS targeted tea-party groups for long delays and intrusive questions. Republican lawmakers also believe that Ms. Lerner tried to influence the agency to take action against larger conservative groups, including Crossroads GPS. Democrats say the controversy has been exaggerated, and liberal groups were drawn into the net as well.

Judge Sullivan also said he would assign federal magistrate John Facciola to explore ways of obtaining the IRS records from other sources.

The orders came in a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a watchdog group that has been seeking IRS records related to the targeting controversy under the Freedom of Information Act.

The judge also asked about the ongoing Treasury Inspector General probe into the lost emails, which Judicial Watch senior attorney Ramona Cotca said in court that the group had never heard of and later told reporters that the Justice Department did not inform them of.

Judge Emmet Sullivan gave the government 30 days, until Aug. 10, to file a declaration signed by “appropriate” IRS officials under oath — sworn to be the truth under penalty of perjury — addressing the lost emails. The judge said the declaration, which should also include ways to recover the emails, will help inform the court about whether there is a need for limited discovery as requested by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch.

A second federal judge has now ordered the IRS to explain under oath how the agency lost emails from former division director Lois Lerner, the woman at the heart of the Tea Party targeting scandal.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton told Obama administration lawyers on Friday he wants to see an affidavit explaining what happened with Lerner's hard drive. The IRS claims her computer suffered a crash in 2011 that wiped her email records at the time clean.

But at a hearing examining a lawsuit against the IRS by conservative group True the Vote, Walton said he wants to know what happened to Lerner's hard drive, which allegedly was recycled. He asked for an affidavit from those involved in handling the crashed drive.

The order is another boost for those questioning the agency's claims that many Lerner emails from that time period are not recoverable.

A day earlier, in a separate case brought by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan gave the tax agency 30 days to file a declaration by an "appropriate official" to address the computer issues involving Lerner.

In that case, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton alleged there "has been a cover-up that has been going on."

After the True the Vote hearing, group counsel Cleta Mitchell accused the IRS of playing a "shell game," by arguing that the plaintiffs could not prove any emails were lost.

True the Vote brought its case to court after facing multiple inquiries and extra scrutiny from the IRS, the FBI and other federal agencies.

True the Vote is now seeking a motion to speed up discovery and "preserve and prevent further destruction" of IRS emails and missing documents.

The group also wants a forensic expert to investigate how the emails were lost and examine whether the data is recoverable.

"The fact that the IRS is statutorily required to preserve these records yet nevertheless publicly claimed that they have been 'lost' appears to evidence bad faith," Mitchell wrote in a letter last month to the tax-collecting agency.

Lerner, who has since retired, headed the IRS unit that reviews applications for tax-exempt status, at the time when the agency was accused of subjecting conservative groups to additional scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman took things a step further on Friday, filing a resolution directing the House sergeant-at-arms to arrest Lerner on charges of contempt of Congress.

 d-usa wrote:
So two judges are going "that stuff you said, sign it. Kthanks"?

What an escalation of punitive actions...

 Jihadin wrote:
Saying it for Congressional records and putting your name on a official document before a Federal Court Judge are two different monsters.

 Jihadin wrote:
Contempt of Congress varies from your understanding of contempt of court....neither fall under nor report to the executive branch. The IRS does. The executive branch has limited power to protect any level of it's minions from either. You can't possibly believe that either Congress or the Court would allow a contempt of their proceedings to go unpunished...especially under the 4 Circuit....yes, we all know that they have has a more liberal shift under the current administration, but we also know they are swinging back to the middle. And the judicial branch is and will always be the "tie breaker" between their sibling branches. No court...not even the 9th Circuit...would allow such a heinous disrespect for their authority to stand... and that disrespect is the prolonged assertion that no wrong was done. We would not be here arguing this, at this time, if wrong was not committed. The court's role is to see at what level the wrong was ordered. And given the salaries of lowly IRS examiners, it is highly unlikely that they chose to endanger themselves and their families willingly in such a systemic manner. The AFGE didn't get together and say "Hey! You know what sounds like an awesome Friday team building practice? raking some organizations over the coals in a manner that could get us all put in prison. GROOVY!"

So...continuing to deny there was an issue, not explaining what went wrong or creating a fall person would not be the best path...especially for " same person that is already on all the congressional records saying the exact same thing." No matter what that person's personal political leanings, they would be ignorant to continue on the same path...it leads to ruin.

 d-usa wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:
Contempt of Congress varies from your understanding of contempt of court....neither fall under nor report to the executive branch. The IRS does. The executive branch has limited power to protect any level of it's minions from either. You can't possibly believe that either Congress or the Court would allow a contempt of their proceedings to go unpunished...especially under the 4 Circuit....yes, we all know that they have has a more liberal shift under the current administration, but we also know they are swinging back to the middle. And the judicial branch is and will always be the "tie breaker" between their sibling branches. No court...not even the 9th Circuit...would allow such a heinous disrespect for their authority to stand... and that disrespect is the prolonged assertion that no wrong was done. We would not be here arguing this, at this time, if wrong was not committed. The court's role is to see at what level the wrong was ordered. And given the salaries of lowly IRS examiners, it is highly unlikely that they chose to endanger themselves and their families willingly in such a systemic manner. The AFGE didn't get together and say "Hey! You know what sounds like an awesome Friday team building practice? raking some organizations over the coals in a manner that could get us all put in prison. GROOVY!"

The only way they get contempt of court is if they don't fill out the letter. Which they will do.

The court will decide if a wrong was commited. Which will go something like that:

Court: "IRS, please explain under oath what happened"
IRS: "The hard drive crashed, we did not have any backup copies, we got what he could from other users and provided that to congress."
Court: "Okay. Congress, what evidence do you have that a wrong was committed."
Congress: "We don't have a single shred of evidence. But come on, we all know this is bs."
Court: "To bad that 'we all know it's bs' is not actual evidence. Case dismissed."

So...continuing to deny there was an issue, not explaining what went wrong or creating a fall person would not be the best path...especially for " same person that is already on all the congressional records saying the exact same thing." No matter what that person's personal political leanings, they would be ignorant to continue on the same path...it leads to ruin.

They explained what went wrong. The hard drive crashed, they had no other backups, they got what they could from other people who had personal copies. Sorry.

If anybody had any solid evidence to the contrary they would have come forward by now.

 whembly wrote:
D... the next phase would be for someone from the IRS' IT department, under oath, to describe how their email system is architected.

If it's anywhere close to industry standards... then, they're likely lying through their teeth.

 Jihadin wrote:

Okay

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
D... the next phase would be for someone from the IRS' IT department, under oath, to describe how their email system is architected.

If it's anywhere close to industry standards... then, they're likely lying through their teeth.

Not a single human being on the entire continent is aware of how the IRS email system is architected? Not a single person on the entire continent hates the IRS enough to let the cat out of the bag? Not a single person on the entire continent is able to produce a single piece of paper that shows that the IRS has already lied?

People hate the IRS. People hate Democrats. People hate Obama. But not a single person anywhere who knows how the system is actually setup has come forward saying "I know how the system works, everything they are saying is bs".

If there is any evidence, we would have already seen it. But we have not.

Knowing that they are full of gak means nothing in any court unless you can prove it. Which we covered multiple times already.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:

Okay

Don't get me wrong, I'm convinced that the IRS folks are full of crap and lying through their teeth.

I just realize that there is nothing that will hold up in any court to hold them accountable once you get past reasonable doubt and plausible deniability.

 d-usa wrote:

 whembly wrote:
D... the next phase would be for someone from the IRS' IT department, under oath, to describe how their email system is architected.

If it's anywhere close to industry standards... then, they're likely lying through their teeth.

Not a single human being on the entire continent is aware of how the IRS email system is architected?

Not a single person on the entire continent hates the IRS enough to let the cat out of the bag?

Not a single person on the entire continent is able to produce a single piece of paper that shows that the IRS has already lied?

People hate the IRS.

People hate Democrats.

People hate Obama.

But not a single person anywhere who knows how the system is actually setup has come forward saying "I know how the system works, everything they are saying is bs".

If there is any evidence, we would have already seen it. But we have not.

Knowing that they are full of gak means nothing in any court unless you can prove it. Which we covered multiple times already.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:

Okay

Don't get me wrong, I'm convinced that the IRS folks are full of crap and lying through their teeth.

I just realize that there is nothing that will hold up in any court to hold them accountable once you get past reasonable doubt and plausible deniability.

 whembly wrote:

A federal judge, however, can level contempt charges that can keep uncooperative witnesses in jail, sometimes indefinitely, and perjury in federal court will be a lot more difficult for the DoJ to ignore than perjured testimony before Congress.

 whembly wrote:
Because they want to keep their job?

 dogma wrote:

 whembly wrote:

A federal judge, however, can level contempt charges that can keep uncooperative witnesses in jail, sometimes indefinitely, and perjury in federal court will be a lot more difficult for the DoJ to ignore than perjured testimony before Congress.

This ruling is different as, per the article, the judge is requesting an affidavit from the people who handled Lerner's hard drive when it crashed; as opposed to a signed statement from "appropriate" IRS officials.

In the latter case the IRS will issue a signed statement putting up the same argument they've been making the entire time.

In the former case the court cannot do anything without a subpoena, and the employees being subpoenaed would be well within their rights (and minds) to plead the 5th.

 Jihadin wrote:

An Affidavit is sworn before a Notary Officer

Written Declaration under Oath is sworn before a Federal Govt agent under penalty of perjury under 18 USC 1001, 18 USC 1621

 dogma wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:

An Affidavit is sworn before a Notary Officer

Written Declaration under Oath is sworn before a Federal Govt agent under penalty of perjury under 18 USC 1001, 18 USC 1621

Doesn't change the fact that a subpoena is required. Absent that, the relevant people can just say "No".

 Jihadin wrote:

 dogma wrote:

 Jihadin wrote:

An Affidavit is sworn before a Notary Officer

Written Declaration under Oath is sworn before a Federal Govt agent under penalty of perjury under 18 USC 1001, 18 USC 1621

Doesn't change the fact that a subpoena is required. Absent that, the relevant people can just say "No".

Okay

 whembly wrote:
If it's anywhere close to industry standards... then, they're likely lying through their teeth.