XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: pelosi@mail.house.gov   
      
   In a stunning revelation, the president of the conservative   
   watchdog group Judicial Watch told Fox News that Justice   
   Department attorneys have intimated that Lois Lerner's "lost"   
   emails likely exist in back-up computers.   
      
   Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the news came during a   
   Friday phone call with Department of Justice attorneys   
   representing the IRS in Judicial Watch's FOIA lawsuit against   
   the IRS.   
      
   Fitton said DOJ attorneys told him the federal government backs   
   up all computer records to ensure the continuity of government   
   in event of a catastrophe. They told him that retrieving the   
   emails from Lerner, a former IRS official, would be "too   
   onerous" - a legal burden that can exempt an agency from   
   complying with FOIA requests.   
      
   However, an administration official told Fox News Monday night,   
   “ There was no new back-up system described last week to   
   Judicial Watch. Government lawyers who spoke to Judicial Watch   
   simply referred to the same email retention policy that   
   Commissioner (John) Koskinen had described  in his Congressional   
   testimony.”   
      
   Earlier, in describing the phone conversation, Fitton told Fox   
   News,"So everything we've been hearing about scratched hard   
   drives about missing emails of Lois Lerner, other IRS officials,   
   other officials in the Obama administration, it's all been a   
   pack of malarkey.   
      
   "They could get these records but they don't want to, and they   
   haven’t told anyone about it until we were able to get it out of   
   them on Friday."   
      
   Lerner was the IRS’s exempt organizations director during the   
   period of 2009 to mid-2011 -- when applications for tax-exempt   
   status from Tea Party groups and other conservative   
   organizations were held up for extra scrutiny.   
      
   Investigators have been deeply skeptical that Lerner’s emails   
   were truly gone. Law requires government emails be backed up.   
   Also, data from crashed hard drives can often be recovered, and   
   all emails have a recipient or a sender.   
      
   "Somebody in Lois Lerner's position has an executive assistant   
   who has access to her email just as though she did," said Morgan   
   Wright, a computer forensics expert. "So whatever email comes   
   into Lois Lerner’s box goes into her administrator’s box as   
   well.”   
      
   Administration and IRS officials have repeatedly said Lerner's   
   lost emails no longer exist. In congressional testimony on July   
   20, IRS Commissioner Koskinen said, "The actual hard drive after   
   it was determined that it was dysfunctional... was recycled and   
   destroyed in the normal process."   
      
   In previous sworn declarations, attorneys for the IRS have made   
   no mention of back-up computers where Lerner’s emails could   
   exist.   
      
   http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/25/doj-attorneys-   
   intimate-lost-lerner-emails-likely-exist-in-back-up-   
   computers/?intcmp=obinsite   
      
       
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)