What will it take for the networks to start covering the IRS scandal again? How about the central figure emonstrating her personal bias against conservatives? On Wednesday CNSNews.com reported the following bombshell: “A newly discovered email exchange from Lois Lerner’s official IRS email account ‘directly demonstrates Ms. Lerner’s deep animus towards conservatives, which she refers to as ‘---holes,’ House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday.”
Will the venomous language Lerner used be enough to get the networks to notice the IRS targeting scandal again? If recent history is any guide, probably not.
As the MRC documented on Monday the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have refused to report on the latest IRS imbroglio revelations.
More Crashed Hard Drives at the IRS Reported
On July 21 The Blaze reported the following:
A senior Obama administration official has told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that several other IRS officials have had “computer problems” over the last few years, including some who were close to former IRS employee Lois Lerner.
The committee released a partial transcript of an interview it conducted last week with IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Tom Kane, who reported the computer problems. When asked how many others might be having this problem, Kane said it was “less than 20.”
The IRS has told the House that several more IRS workers have experienced a computer crash, including some who worked with former IRS official Lois Lerner. Among that number are a few who worked closely at the IRS division dealing with tax-exempt organizations, which Lerner headed. Lerner has since become the prime target of Republican investigators, although the GOP has been hindered by the supposed loss of her emails.
According to the committee, another IRS official who suffered computer problems is Justin Lowe, a technical adviser to the commissioner of Tax-Exempt and Government Entities.
Another is David Fish, an adviser to Lois Lerner. Andy Megosh was also named; he is a manager of Exempt Organizations Guidance.
Kane also noted that the computer of Kimberly Kitchens, an IRS agent in Cincinnati who donated to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, also crashed. Lerner originally blamed low-level officials in Cincinnati for the targeting scandal.
Network coverage: 0 stories
IRS Official Says Backup of Lois Lerner’s Emails May Not Exist
On July 21 Politico reported the following:
IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel Thomas Kane, who oversees the tax-collecting agency’s document production to Congress, told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in private testimony that he’s now unsure whether all the backup tapes with correspondence from the ex-IRS official were recycled.
“I don’t know if there is a backup tape with information on it or there isn’t,” he told investigators Thursday, according to a partial transcript released by Republicans on the committee Monday.
The IRS official suggested new information has come to light since the IRS revealed in a June 13 letter to Congress that two years of Lerner emails were lost in a 2011 computer crash. Lerner was the head of the tax-exempt division that singled out conservative groups for additional scrutiny and since has become a lightning rod for Republicans probing the matter.
Network coverage: 0 stories
Lerner Hard Drive Was Only ‘Scratched’
On July 22 NBCNews.com reported:
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee say that their investigators have learned that the hard drive belonging to former IRS official Lois Lerner was “scratched” and that data was recoverable, according to a release from the committee.
The release says that it’s unclear if the scratch was put there deliberately or accidentally. Republicans are now accusing the IRS of not being forthcoming after they said in court filings that the data on Lerner's hard drive was unrecoverable.
“It is unbelievable that we cannot get a simple, straight answer from the IRS about this hard drive,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) said in a statement, “The Committee was told no data was recoverable and the physical drive was recycled and potentially shredded. To now learn that the hard drive was only scratched, yet the IRS refused to utilize outside experts to recover the data, raises more questions about potential criminal wrong doing at the IRS.”
Network coverage: 0 stories
IRS Head Confirms Investigators Have Found Lerner’s Backup Tapes
On July 23 FoxNews.com reported the following:
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.”
Network coverage: 0 stories
