Lois Lerner Was Super Concerned Over Lost Private Documents

Her official emails? Not so much

(Fox News) Computer experts and Republican lawmakers are poking holes in IRS claims that the agency did all it could to retrieve embattled ex-official Lois Lerner’s allegedly “lost” emails, which the agency blames on a 2011 hard-drive crash. (snip)

But Lerner’s communications with the agency’s IT team referred to her desire to retrieve “lost personal files” — not lost emails.

And that detail is “very suspicious,” according to David Kennedy, chief executive of information security firm TrustedSec. Kennedy said that when government computers crash, email recovery should be a priority. But in Lerner’s communication with the IT team, “There is no talk about the recovery of the emails,” Kennedy said, adding, “It didn’t seem like they really wanted to recover the data.”

It’s possible that the emails shared with lawmakers and attached to a June 13, 2014, letter to leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are just a snapshot of Lerner’s communications with the IT team. But they indicate Lerner’s acute level of concern for what she referred to as her personal files.

The first email, from June 13, 2011, is a brief notification from one of Lerner’s colleagues in the Exempt Organizations division to other IRS staff that Lerner’s hard drive had crashed, with information on how to reach her. The next set of emails starts on July 19, 2011, and shows Lerner reaching out to IT staffers for their help in retrieving “lost personal files.”

“There were some documents in the files that are irreplaceable,” she wrote.

One has to wonder why she was storing such irreplaceable personal documents on a Government computer, apparently not backing them up to her own personal computer. Then, lots of people do stupid things with the computer supplied by their employer. I know of a person who had the title of Vice President for a big, big corporation who was terminated from a job in which he/she was making at least a couple hundred grand yearly because he/she was accessing pornography sites with the company provided laptop. Not through the corporate servers when logged in, mind you, but, it is company property, and accessing certain materials using the property at any time was a fireable offense. You would think he/she could have afforded a personal laptop.

Anyhow, one has to wonder if Ms. Lerner was using the computer for personal benefit in accordance with IRS policy. Regardless, she didn’t seem particularly concerned with her official documents and correspondence. But, then, she was yet another Obama official who was using non-government email for official correspondence.

Meanwhile

Two Texas Republicans are proposing a $1 million reward to anyone who recover former IRS employee Lois Lerner’s lost emails.

Reps. Bill Flores and Louie Gohmert proposed the Identify and Recover Sent Emails Act, or the IRS Act. In addition to the big $1 million bounty, the bill would offer $500,000 to anyone with information that can be used to prosecute officials involved in destroying the emails.

Even better, the reward money would come out of the IRS budget.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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