The IRS Scandal Is not about Emails, It's about the First Amendment

The nation's archivist, David Ferreiro, told Congress Tuesday during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing that the Internal Revenue Service did not follow the law when it failed to report the loss of records belonging to a senior IRS executive, Lois Letnet. When Lerner's computer crashed, resulting in the loss of records that are sought in investigations into the agency targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, the agency tried unsuccessfully to recover the records. On Tuesday, Ferriero would not say that the IRS broke the law. He would only say that the agency didn't "follow" the law. He explained that federal agencies have the duty of "preventing the unauthorized disposition of federal records, including their unlawful or accidental destruction, deletion, alteration, or removal from federal custody," he said. "When an agency becomes aware of an incident of unauthorized destruction, they must report the incident to us." The National Archives and Records Administration did not learn about the lost records until earlier this month, Ferriero said. ~~~~~ Republicans have raised serious questions about the timing of the hard drive crash, suggesting key records - emails that might have shown if there was White House involvement in the harassment tactics - sought in the investigation have conveniently gone missing. But in a rare evening hearing before the same committee Monday, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said that he has seen no evidence anyone committed a crime when the agency lost emails that might shed light on the targeting of tea party and other political groups before the 2010 and 2012 elections. At the Monday night hearing, committee chairman Darrell Issa subpoenaed White House counsel Jennifer O'Connor to testify about her time at the IRS from May to November 2013. While at the IRS, O'Connor helped the agency gather documents related to the congressional investigation. On Tuesday, Issa called O'Connor a "hostile witness." O"Connor answered, "I am definitely not hostile." Later in the hearing, Issa said he consulted with another member who is a former prosecutor and the proper term to describe O'Connor is a "non-cooperative witness." House Speaker John Boehner said on Tuesday that the Obama administration is not helping Congress get to the truth over the IRS close scrutiny of conservative groups and the agency's recent revelation that it lost emails related to that probe. "The've not only not fully cooperated, they haven't done a damn thing to help us get to the truth of what really happened," Boehner said. "Lois Lerner refuses to tell us the truth, and then all of sudden, 'Oh my goodness, we lose two years' worth emails.' Listen, I grew up in a bar, this doesn't pass the straight face test." ~~~~~ The Oversight Committee is investigating the handling of applications from tea party and other political groups. In May, the House voted to hold Lois Lerner, who was head of the IRS group responsible for the tax-exempt status applications, in contempt of Congress. Congressional investigators want Lerner's emails to see if there is evidence that anyone outside the IRS was involved. Koskinen said there was no evidence that Lerner intentionally destroyed the emails. To the contrary, he said the IRS went to great lengths trying to retrieve lost documents on Lerner's computer, even sending it to the agency's forensic lab. The IRS backs up emails on computer tapes, but at the period in question, the tapes were recycled every six months, Koskinen said. He said Lerner's hard drive was recycled and presumably destroyed, an admission which visibly shocked everyone in the hearing room. Some Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 period were later recovered because she had copied other IRS employees. Overall, the IRS said it is producing a total of 67,000 emails to and from Lerner, covering the period from 2009 to 2013, but not emails from Lerner thzt went outside the IRS. Koskinen also said that the IRS inspector general is investigating the lost emails. ~~~~~ White House spokesman Josh Earnest said today that the White House is fully cooperating in the investigation : "Our commitment to cooperating with legitimate congressional oversight and in some cases illegitimate congressional oversight is pretty well documented," Earnest said. Asked if the House Oversight and Government Reform committee investigation was "illegitimate," Earnest said, "I'm saying that there are legitimate questions that can be raised about the partisan motivation of some of those who are conducting oversight in this circumstance." ~~~~~ Dear readers, I suppose on the surface the House investigation of the IRS scandal may seem like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped. The 2012 presidential election wil not be re-done, so determining the extent to which Romney's victory was prevented by illegal executive branch actions is not going to change the election result. But, Americans are rightly and extremely angry about what the IRS did - not because any one candidate won or lost, although a Romney victory would have made a huge difference in the path America has traveled since Obama's 2012 victory. Americans are angry because the IRS knows just about everything about just about everybody. That is a situation already unlike any other in American government and it is tolerated because until the IRS started to harass the political opponents of the sitting President - Mr. Obama - the IRS was politically neutral and independent of the White House to a very great degree. The IRS harassment of conservative political groups who were simply trying to get approval to use the same tax status that liberal political groups were using without being harassed by the IRS changed everything. Americans are no longer tolerant of the IRS intrusion into every corner of their lives - because down the road, they may become targets for IRS harassment themselves. That is not American constitutional government. It is a big step toward Star Chamber secret courts that crush political opponents. It will, unless halted now, lead to the suppression of First Amendment rights and eliminate the free flow of political ideas. It will choke off the one thing that has made America the envy of much of the world - the free circulation of ideas in a political dialogue that leads to the election of candidates in an unbiased and untainted process. The IRS threatens this cornerstone of America's greatness. If you don't believe that, find a video of IRS Commissioner Koskinen when his believability was challenged by Paul Ryan. The smirk on his face speaks volumes. Now is the time to act. No governmental agency has the right or mandate to destroy America. Not John Koskinen. Not the IRS. Not the White House. Not Barack Obama.