Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140628

Accused of perjury before this committee. Only that he said that he was aware of lerners emails were overlooked, missing or had other technical issues. There was no evidence at that time to know whether they had been overlooked. Missing or any other issues. I did not say that. I said at the time we had no idea whether any of those applied. Thats why we were investigating. Thats what i was told in april when they came back with the findings that they reviewed at all. I never said at the time that we had any idea whether any of that is true. Thats the cinconsistency tht were talking about. If you know that you have a difference in the numbers what numbers . We dont know the numbers yet, mr. Chairman. The commissioner knew that there was a problem but didnt know the details. We were never told there was a problem. So he should talk before he knows the details. When every person up on the desk including the Ranking Member wants to know if you are going to get all or a concern. What is your response to that . You said were going to find them all. Were you lying when you said we are going to find them all . Absolutely not. Thank you. We now go to mr. Turner. Mr. Koskinen, youre touted as a man of integrity. Ive even heard you say it about yourself on television. Im going to ask you to use that integrity that help me understand a few things that have become confusing to me. You said you want to restore confidence to the agency. I have no question to question that. I have no basis to think that that isnt your goal. You have to understand that this decision of missing emails goes right to the heart of confident and to the issue of your ability to do that with your integrity. Lets start first with some general concept of ethics back to your integrity. Now, you agree as commissioner, that you cant both be the manager of the agency, the investigator of the agency, judge, jury, prosecutor of matters that are being undertaken under and by the agency . Right . Theres inherent conflict and bias in those positions you cant fill all of those, correct. Im not sure i understand that question. Im accountable for its activities. Im in charge of their activities. So you believe you can testify under oath that no crime has been committed by lois lerner. I can testify ive seen no evidence. I understand. That is the question thats been bantered back and forth here. I can tell you that i have no evidence that lois lerner has committed a crime but i dont have the agency and i certainly dont have the ability to go to the fbi and others and have them take things from you that can give that. Just because you havent seen all the evidence doesnt mean that you have the ability to just blanketly say no crime was committed. I didnt say no crime. I said ive seen no evidence. Thats the distinction because you cant testify here under oath that no crime has been committed. Im asking you, do you have the ability to say no crime has been committed. Im the ability to say ive seen no evidence of any crime. Of course but you k to the say what i asked you that no crime has been committed. Lets go to ms. Lerner, she invoked the fifth because she wanted to assert those rights albeit she did it incorrectly because she had fear of prosecution. Fear of criminal prosecution. You cant testify today that lois lerner has no need for a fear of criminal prosecution because you cant testify that she didnt commit a crime. Here i am concerned about since you are a man placed before us with integrity. If in the process of these emails being destroyed there were those in your agency that knew that it there was a possibility that a crime was committed. Than they committed a crime. Because destruction of evidence of a crime is in fact, a crime. You cant testify today that no one that there was no crime committed in the destruction of her emails. You can only say you have no evidence of a crime having been committed in the destruction of these emails. I have no evidence whether she beat or dog or children. I have no evident of a whole series of things. Right thats why its so important getting to what jim jordan said about a special prosecutor. If you are truly a man of integrity and you know the difference between you dont have any evidence versus you know no crime has been committed. You have to understand that the whole integrity of your agency is at risk. You possibly have pex at the irs who were committing crimes and not being held accountable of the the only way you can know that is by picking up the phone, call the fbi and ask them to come in and do an investigation on the disappearance of these emails. My question is will you call in the fbi to ask them about the disappearance of these emails possibly being a crime. They are not a criminal investigating agency. They are actually capable of doing criminal investigations as well as civil. Will you call the nfbi becaue the integrity of your agency is absolutely at state. We have lois lerner invoeking te fifth in front of the committee indicating shes fearful of criminal prosecution. Now that these emails are missing maybe someone not of integrity committed a crime in destroying them. You should call the fbi and call for a special prosecutor. I cannot inter into lois lerners mind. I asked you to pick up the phone and call the fbi not enter lois learns mind. Than that is an issue of your personal integrity because the integrity of this agency is at stake. I reject the suggestion that my integrity depends upon my calling the fbi. The Inspector General will issue a report. We will all get the benefit of that report and then we can determine what the appropriate action. I have always believed what happened in your agency is a crime. I believe that there were others involved. I believe the emails are missing are the ones that would probably give us an ability to establish that and i believe somebody undertook a criminal act in the destruction. I believe since you cant tell me im wrong as the commissioner of that agency, you should call the fbi. Thats interesting. No facts are behind them. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman from massachusetts. Thank you for being here tonight. I dont think ive seen a display of this kind of disrespect the whole time ive been in congress. Its unfortunate that will the gentleman yield. No, i will not suspend either i will continue to ask questions. Ri wont suspend. Please stop the clock. The time is suspended. I would caution all members not to characterize the intent or the character of your fellow members here on the desk but its fair game to question the integrity of the witness . With all due respect, the rules of the house do excuse me. The rules of the house speak to questioning the integrity of members. I would caution all of us that while the chair has asked the testimony earlier as whether it was a truth or the whole truth, that in fact, to question the motives the witness should be done only on evidence but to question the motives of your fellow member is in fact within the rules of the house and action for which the floor can take down words. Mr. Chairman yes, of course. Thank you. You talk about the rules of the committee the gentleman will start his parliamentary inquiry. Has the chairman violated the rules of the committee . Please state your point of parliamentary inquiry. Has the chairman violated his own rules in the thats a question. Do you have a question of proval . He will state is t as a point of order. Just let him ask the question. State of inquiry. It not we will go on. The gentleman may continue. I think the understanding here is the rules of the house say that members should conduct themself in a way that reflects credibility upon the house. I think people watching this hearing can decide whether or not thats been followed. Look, i think what youre trying to tell people in one point is the Inspector Generals responsibility to review this matter and file a report. In that report, he is to make recommendations as to what action should be done or upon reviewing that report you might make recommendations such as decide to bring in the fbi or somebody else. Is that correct. Thats correct. As far as shooting the name we might first be trying to gather some information and go from there. Correct. Have you testified tonight to anything that was not discussed at last fridays hearing . Im sorry what . Have you discussed tonight with this committee any matter pertinent to this subject that was not discussed last friday . Thus far, no. So just to get it right, you were scheduled to testify in front of chairman Camps Committee tomorrow on the 24th. Is that correct. Thats correct. Have they been in touch with you or your staff before scheduling that date. Yes. They actually asked whether i would be available on the morning on tuesday and i was not. We agreed to testify in the afternoon. So you agreed to testify voluntarily. Ive always agreed to testify voluntarily over the course of 20 years. So after you agreed to testify voluntarily before chairman camp. You received a unilateral subpoena from chairman issa. And is that subpoena compelled you to come here tonight. Correct. Did mr. Issa ever call you and ask you to come voluntarily . No. Did any of his staff ever ask you to come voluntarily . No. Did he ever explain to you why it was so urgent to come here 7 00 monday night when you were already scheduled to come here the following day . No. I wont ask to you speculate but i think some might speculate that either people dont think that mr. Camp could do the job which i would sort of think suspect. Hes been known to be a pretty good member or that theres some kind of competition going on but when chairman camp heard that issa had subpoenaed you tonight. You were all of a sudden of a hearing in Camps Committee the following friday. Correct. Staff asked if i would be available on friday. They had to get the approval of the agreement of the minority since i understand theres a seven day rule. I told them that i could make myself available on friday. Now how long did you testify on friday . Total length of the hearing was 4 1 2 hours with a recess for 45 minutes in the middle. I would think that having testified all of that time to the subject matter that tonights hearing might be somewhat redundant and so far it has been, is that correct. It has similarities to friday. In looking at this, i think the only thing that might be different is now i understand that chairman issa has invited a ms. Jennifer oconnor to testify testimony. Do you know ms. Oconnor. I do not. Do you know whether she worked for the irs from may to november of 2013 . I do understand she did. Now she left in november of last year, is that right. Thats my understanding. And that would have been well before there was any discovery of ms. Lerners emails gone missing, is that correct. Thats correct. Do you know where ms. Oconnor works now . My understanding is she works at the white house. So i think some would speculate that they have now trumped Champs Committee in getting action. I think its unfortunate that you had to be subjected to this after having gone through it last friday. I hope members will reflect the credibility of the house from here on in at least if it hasnt been done so far. I think the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman from tennessee, mr. Dunk an. Thank you very much. First mr. Chairman, let me thank you for pursuing this investigation in the way you have. In a free country no group of individuals should be targeted for their political beliefs. Certainly almost everyone who has looked closely feels that this happened in this situation. Although on march 26th when he was here before us said there had been no targeting just ib inappropriate criteria the Washington Post of course is the possibly the main defender of the federal bureaucracy and their fact checker said that he should be given three pinocchios for that testimony and in their class fibbing a three pinocchio is three pin yolk yoes under what they call whoppers. I dont know what his opinion is on that but i will say this. All over the country people are saying that theres a double standard being applied here. They are saying that theres one standard for everybody else and one standard for the irs. I can tell you that ive been following politics and government ever since i was in high school. I can tell you that i believe that theres more anger and recentment and disgust toward the federal government today than any time in my lifetime because everybody seems to feel today that weve ended up of a government of by and for the bureaucrats instead of for the people. He was given a chance on friday to apologize on behalf of the irs and he didnt do so but i can tell you that i think the people of this country deserve an apology that a different standard has been applied by the irs than individuals who were having problems on their taxes. It seems that every time the federal government screws up which is often they always fall back on one of two uses either under funded or their technology is outofdate. Of course thats what weve heard today but i can tell you the people of this country are sick and tired of the arrogance within the federal government. This hearing and others that will follow about this, i think, will help assure that this does not happen again so i commend you for it mr. Chairman and i yield back the balance of my time. Would the gentleman yield. Yes, sir. I thank the gentleman. Id like to go through the question one more time commissioner. When you testify that in fact you knew there was this problem when you were here last time but you didnt know that in fact emails were lost, is that correct. Correct. But you knew there was a problem. A sequence or numbering problem, is that correct. Correct. Did you take any steps to find out what that sequence or numbering problem went. People tell you when theres a problem in my experience. You say well, tell me about the problem. What does it mean . Did you do that . No, i asked me to be kept updated. There were 200 people working on this issue. They let me know. So theres two 00 people working on the problems of delivering emails. It took this long to find out there was missing emails. Its almost a year. From the time that anybody figured out there was a problem it took about two months. Nobody knew there was a problem last year. But you flew was an inconsistency when you came before us. Yes. I knew that a problem had been identified and that it was under investigation. Why is it you did not answer when you were canned a dozen times on both sides of the aisle will you deliver we can find lois lerners emails but you knew there was some kind of problem, you had been briefed on that. Right but at the time nobody understood the ramifications. Was it part of the production process. They ran the process again. They searched all the files to make sure that the production process itself hadnt caused emails to be lost. At the time i testified we didnt know whether or not emails were missing or not. Right but were you aware that there had been a crash in lois lerners computer years before. No. Were the people reporting to you knew that . They knew of an issue with her computer in late february. Thank you. We now go to the gentleman from mass chachusetts mr. Stephen ly. Thank you mr. Chairman. While the irs is not held in high repute these days, neither is United States congress. I want to thank you for your willingness to testify. I would like to refocus on the evidence here. Im a little bit surprised by the chronology lay out here where you were originally invited by mr. Camp in the ways and Means Committee and it seems like when mr. Issa found out about that, you were unilaterally subpoenaed here to testify before you were going to testify tomorrow at that other hearing and then mr. Camp jux ps jumps in front of him and now i have a billboard and video clip up there earlier great showmanship. Im worried i will come in here tomorrow and there will be a 16 piece orchestra to cap off the show. Thats not the way it is supposed to happen. Thats not the way it is supposed to go down. There are some serious issues to get to but all of this sh showmanship is clouding. I think were doing a disservice to the people we represent. I would like to focus on the evident. Going back to the heart of this issue, we did have a situation where there was evidence and admission on the part of the irs that they were using search terms such as tea party, patriots, 9 12 project, in terms of be on the look out for they also were looking for any issues in an application that included Government Spending or Government Debt or taxes. They were also looking for statements in the case file criticizing how the country was fun. When the irs goes after sift zens of the United States because of this criteria that is evidence of their state of mind. Thats not all they look for. They also look for any search terms progressives or these emerged groups which were also very progressive groups are 501 c applications. They also went off b successor organizations to acorn because they were highly progressive. So it was wide spread not just going after conservative groups but its going after american citizens who have serious political views. That is evidence. Thats hard evidence, would you agree . Exactly. Right. Okay. So when these emails go missing for 27 months on lois lerners account, you realize how that just feeds into the suspicion that theres something going on here. I understand that. Thats why i think its important to understand we were able to find 24,000 emails in that period. I know what you found. I appreciate that. I think you went at it legitately and honestly. Let me ask you, when mr. Russell, the ig for the irs looked at it, he was looking at the search term issue for us. Did he look at the other issue of the missing emails . Did he do any of that or was that known to him . It with a not known to anyone at that time. So we didnt look at that. Pardon. We didnt look at that. The ig to my understanding didnt look at that. He is starting an investigation now. Okay. I think thats something we might want to revisit than do you think it would be worth while to have the Inspector General go back and look at the way these emails went missing. I also known that theres some allegations unfounded allegations about six other employees about their emails going missing. He should look at it. He is looking at it. I inspect when they complete that investigation, they will provide a report to the public, us, this chit ee and other investigators. My time has expired. I yield back. The gentleman said it was unfounded. Are there other drives that led to other dee emails not being available to your knowledge. We had noted last week as i said in my testimony in may that i said could we leak at the other 82 kucustodians where tha would affect this. That was part of what i hoped to complete. At this point we would have provided you other information. To this day there might be other because there was a crash. We just learned about that last monday. Just to followup on that. Of course. Im trying to remember her name, nicole flax. There was a story last week that her emails were missing. Have we made any progress on trying to figure out her emails. I think it was cleared that there was one or two is there any evidence that it is missing. There is no evidence. Theed title is did the irs target progressives. Mr. Koskinen, theres a lot of discussion and youve been through multiple hearings related to this lower is learis targeting of conservative groups. Do you understand what the fuss and furry is this week . Do you understand why many folks are really upset about this . I understand. I haven having been around washington a long time. Youve had a long career. One of the reasons weve taken it seriously is that if theres been a hard drive crash and deappeared. It aseems that she was working very hard to retrieve the emails, not lose them. But you had the ability to share with the American People in real time what you are find snirks because my judgment was what we should do is produce all of the information when we had it not dribble it out. Even if that meant along the wait people are questioning how you answered congressional inquiries. Well, i know you have. No, i understand that. But for me this is really not about you. Its not about anybody up here. Its not about the hearing. Its about the American People. Your agency sends fear up the spines of every american when you contract them. If theres one receipt missing, a Small Business person goes searches far and wide for that one last receipt. Yet, we have evidence that and youve testified that lois lerners hard drive crashed and that erases january, 2009 to april 2011. Just the time period that congress is most concerned about with the targeting of conservative and Tea Party Groups. So look, i understand. You can answer very reasonably but when you see that type of thing happen, it almost defied anyones sense of capacity that that could happen. Congress is very interested in what happened in april of 2011 until may of 2013. Weve produced all of those or in the process of prodicing all of those not lost. 43,000 unlost low his lerner emails. I think whats important is in the period that we found the 24,000, what are the emails that she sent outside the agency that would not be reflected in anybodys right. How are they going to magically come forward. They are going to come forward because the white house and treasury have provided this committee and other committee so that means she didnt email outside the white house or treasure. But the point about this. Im sorry. That was what i thought i was big issue is whether in fact this was all part of her conspearing it is but its not the question im asking you sir. Ive been very respectful of your time in give youi an opportunity to answer. The reason im asking you this is so youre able to convey to the American People, running the irs, a very frightening agency for my constituents at home that you get it. That you understand why the American People look at this and say, this is so far beyond my ability to reason. An agency that has more than nearly 2 billion it budget lets a hard drive crash. It just seems absolutely ridiculous and beyond comprehension is that this would happen in such a convenient context. And yet we have lois lerner who is supposed to be searching desperately to make sure we recover her hard drive to incriminate here. We dont know though because its been recycled. I thank the gentleman. What date did we learn that you could not get all of her emails . I learned that in april. I dont recall when. You dont know the day, midapril . April. Well mr. Chairman we know. Ill yield back the time. Would the gentleman yield . Yeah, id be happy to. You only know within a month. Could you provide the committee with some evidence from the candlend thkand calender that who let you know who would be briefed. I have no idea. Who briefed you . I dont recall know. I have addressed all of the people doing the work. I have talked to people as it goes along. So your testimony is you dont remember the name of the person that told you sometime in april all i know is by sometime in april i was aware that a. , that there had been email lost, that we were reconstituting emails by other custodians. I do not remember who i was told by and whom. I dont remember is an answer. We now go to the gentleman from virginia mr. Connolly. Thank you mr. Chair hmachair i ask that an article by the New York Times be entered into the record at this time . . Would the gentleman state the date of that article, please. Yes. July 4th, 2013. So somebody disputes my april 7th, 2014 with a july 2013 article . Mr. Chairman, he kind of lays down a pretty good case but i this it should be in the record just i certainly think its fine tore somebody to determine almost a year ahead of a report that the report is invalid. With that objection, so ordered. I thank the chair for his courtesy. Mr. Koskinen, from your testimony, the irs does not permit all of its 90,000 employees to store all of their emails in their active inboxes, is that correct. Thats correct. Because we do not have the server capacity to absorb all of those emails. Why dont you have the server capacity to absorb all the emails. Because the expense. What would be the cost. The estimate made when the irs asked expanding its system was it would cost somewhere between 10 and 30 million. That was an estimate two years ago. Okay. Irs employees instead move their emails when they want to store into archive files on their hard drives, is that correct. Thats correct. Would one alternative by the cloud. Theres no way that emails at the irs go into the cloud at this time. Why . Because were very sensitive to security of taxpayer information so thus far the irs has not moved any information to the cloud although i understand the it is continuing to look at this issue. Hard drives crash in older computers. Experts say you should replace computers every three to four years, is that correct. That is the industry standard. How often does the irs meet that standard. Sometimes it takes as long as five to seven years. So part of the problem be were dealing with an ageing set of pcs in the irs because we havent invested in new equipment. Theres no doubt about it. We have thousands of employees who are still running windows xp. Were trying to run windows 7. Sthurely this concern we hav up here with hard drives crashing and emails not being properly archived or stored, all kinds of other problems, given the sensitivity of the data the irs possesses, surely the congress has provided an investment portfolio, a set of resources to you to quickly update your computer technology, your Information Technology in the irs. Is that correct . We have provided significant amounts of money but significantly less than we need. Has your budget gone up or down in the last . Budget has gone regularly every four years. How much does your budget decline. 850 million as the number of taxpayer goes up by 7 million. Your budget has gone down 800 million in real dollars. Yes. Nom ninal dollar not include for inflation. Thats the real number. Thats amazing given our concern that we wouldnt be providing you with resources to try to turn this around and make sure this kind of thing doesnt happen again. The house mark for this years upcoming fiscal year 15 cuts us by another 350 million in one fiscal year. Yes. Well, surely that will change in light of our deep and profound concern for what happened to lois lerners hard drive. We have high hopes. Well surely youve been called to these midnight sessions to try to see what help you need, right . Youve been asked . Have you been skpeen subpoenae voluntarily requested before any committee of the house of representatives to testify what your needs are or what a 350 million cut on top of an 850 million cut what do to your agency. We have provided updated committee to the house and Senate Appropriators about the affect of a 350 million cut. For what purposes does gentleman seek recognition. Id like entered into the record without objection if i may the reason Magazine Article from the weekend of june 21 is that the irs had a contract with email back up service from vendor sonasoft starting in 2005. Id like to also put on the record the motto of them from an email we have which said if the irs uses sonasof prod usuct to k up their services why wouldnt you use them to protect their services. Their third article said so sonasoft has a 6 year relationship with the irs came to an abrupt close at the end of the fiscal year of 2011 as congressional investigators began to look at the scandal. It will all be placed into the record. Mr. Koskinen i want to go to your testimony. Irs in february of 2014 identified documents indicating ms. Lerners a computer problems in 2011. During this midmarch review, the data stored on her computer hard drive determined at the time was uprecoverable so in midmarch you knew the dauta was unrecoverab unrecoverable. You didnt tell us her computer mailed. You said we were going to give them all to you. I wasnt quite sure we lost them all even though the it professional said i lost them all. The last round i asked you, sometime in april. I want to focus on when you did officially learn according to your definition. The chairman asked you, who told you this information, you cant remember . No, i did not remember. Did someone tell you in person . Did they send you an email. Do not recall. I dont get emails on these subjects. Im sure it was somebody in person. This has been a major news story in the last 13 months and i dont remember who came up to you and said, hey boss we lost lois lerners emails. I remember being told in april. I do in the recall something on the front page that you would think would be significant enou enough. Remember im running an agency with 90,000 people. And this has been the Biggest Issue front of your agency for the last year. We are in the middle of filing season. What did you do then after you were told. I didnt do anything. I was advised they were reconstituting the emails. Who did you tell. Did you tell the white house. Piolitico recorded you told the white house. I dont think so. Did you tell treasury. I didnt tell them. Did you talk to anybody about this. Not outside the agency. When did you tell congress. We produced the republican report ten days ago. So you knew in april and you waited two months to tell the body that was looking into this why. Why did you wait so long. You cant give her all of the emails you lost some. Can i give you an snaens jie want you to tell us why you didnt tell us you lost the emails. Thats what we call care. Our. Our program was to complete the production of all of her emails. But its kind of important mr. Commissioner to tell us when you lost emails for the person were focused on. Dont you think . Let me ask you a more important question. Did you tell the Justice Department . No. Why not. Theres a criminal investigation going on. Dont you think thats pertinent thing. The attorney general and the president of the United States said were going to do everything we can to get to the bottom and you havent talked to the fbi at all. Dont you think its incull bent up incumbent upon the commissioner to know the irs loses documents critical to the investigation and you dont tell the fbi. Back in april you told us just a few minute ago, did you tell the Inspector General in april had a you lost her emails. No. Here is is what i would like to know. If you wait you waited two months to tell anyone. At what point does it become obstruction of justice . Three months, four months, two weeks. . When you get that kind of critical information, we got to wait that we can spin this better, the fact that you didnt tell us and weve been after this for 13 monthsment we subpoenaed six months ago. He assured us youd get all the emails to us and then you learn you cant and you dont tell us anybody. You give us a report and on page nine of the report you say oh, boy the way we lost the emails. It starts on page five. Page five. Id like for you to tell us not send us in some 37 page document on page five on a friday afternoon for goodness sake. Its a seven page document. Seven page document on page. This is ridiculous we didnt know this when he first knew. You wouldnt tell us the computer crashed or lost them all. Were 99 sure. He waited two months before he does. Ridiculous. I thank the gentleman. For the record, the ways and Means Committee referred four criminal charges to justice against lois lerner months ago. Mr. Chairman, i implore you to enforce the rules of this committee. Rule 11 k 4 asks that you control this committee that we operate with decorum and professionalism and order. Badgering witnesses is inappropriate and shameful for this committee to conduct itself in this matter. I would improper you in the future to rely more heavily on this rule. Is the gentlelady making a motion. No. At this point i just want us to get back to basics and to run this committee as it should be run. With respect and decorum and badgering this commissioner as virtually every member on the republican side has done is shameful. Its got to stop. Im telling you one member here is going to walk out and not return. Mr. Chairman. Its the gentleladys time. Would the gentlelady yield. Would you yield. Gentlelady, please yield. Im sorry. I didnt hear you. Would the gentlelady please yield. That was better but no. Mr. Chairman, i would like n unanimous consent to put into the record of democratic record of may 6th, no evidence of white house involvement or political motivation of screening of political applicants. Absolutely so ordered. Thank you. Commissioner, why you are serving our country at this point in time is beyond me but thank you. On behalf of all of us because you are a sterling example of what we do need in this country in government and that is someone who knows exactly what they are doing. Is not going to be bullied and will state the facts as we see them. Let us start with the the beginning of this time line. Based on the emails we have obtained. Lois lerners hard drive crashed on june 13th of 2011. Is that so. Yes. June 13th, 2011, her first indication the first time she was informed by irs employees in cincinnati that they were using inappropriate search terms did not happen until after her computer crashed. Is that not true . Thats correct. What date was that . Thats a week or two o thereafter. It was june 29th, 2011. So june 13th, it crashes. June 29th, that they may be using inappropriate search terms. The spesInspector Generals aud didnt start until after june of 2011. I want to get this clear this was done before there was any Inspector General investigation. Thats correct. We also have emails from april of 2011 forward because apparently she archived materials on her hard drive but kept emails in her email account which did not go down with her hard drive. Along with my colleague to my left who was talking about the system that exists now, when you archive in the irs right now because you dont have the data ability because you dont have the 30 million invested, you actually have to print emails. It has to be determined that a email is perfect to be archived and it has to be printed. Is that correct . Thats correct. Lets move onto the hearing last friday. Some of the republican members sprung a document that you had not viewed before happened. They argued that chairman camp sent a letter to the irs ten days before the computer crashes and therefore chairman camp sent a letter on this whole issue and ten days later so think about the duration of ten days. That is the ability to panic within the irs. Reflect, plan, talk, execute and there was a crash ten days after the chairmans letter. I have a copy of the chairmans letter here. Youve probably had an opportunity to review it. June threerd, 2011. As i understand it, the question that was asked to the chairman of the ways and Means Committee to the then commissioner was whether donations to a 501 c 4 were taxable gifts and if a gift tax return should be filed. So there already is law that asserts the applicability of gift taxes to 501 c 4 donations and in his own letter says its unsettled area of tax law but has been applied in some cases. Is that not what the gist of that letter was all about. That is correct. It was about the application of the gift tax law to c 4 organizations. All right so the letter had nothing to do with the issue of 501 c 4s and inappropriate terms being used to identify certain organizations . I did not mention inappropriate terms at all as far as i recall. All right. I yield back. I thank the lady for yielding back. We now go to the gentleman from utah mr. Chafis. I apologize. Id like to ask un animous consent that the majority staff report be placed in the record. Without objection, so ordered. It is titled how politics led to the irs to target conservative tax applicants for their beliefs. I think tit will go well with te minority record. This will be some record. Mr. Commissioner, we looked at rule 11 and it turns out that was sited was the auto video in proceedings. So we will have to figure out how that applies too. Rule 11 k 4 mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman man ask i ask had a this letter of the chairman of way and means to doug of course it will be placed in the record. The gentleman from utah is recognized. I thank the chairman. My understanding is the back up of emails only lasted for 6 months is that correct. Yes. Its actually a Disaster Recovery system add it backs up for six months if the entire system goes down. So that was the rule in 2011. It was. So when she learned her computer crashed, there are emafls showing that she was going to great length to get it recovered, why didnt she go to the six month tape. Because that is a Disaster Recovery tape that has all the emails on it and it is very complicated to extract. I have not seen any emails to explain why they didnt do it. It would be difficult but i dont know. You said the irs was going to extraordinary length to give it to the recovery team. Correct. But its backed up on tape for six months, yes. And that was one the six month window. Why didnt you get them in the back up. All i know is that they are Disaster Recovery tapes and extracting it is very difficult and was not the process at the time. Did anybody try. I have no indication that they did. So you have multiple emails that she was trying to recover this. The testimony of the irs, you got a Forensic Team to try to exact this. You went to great length. You made a big point about all the efforts you were going to but they were backed up on tape and you didnt do it . As far as i know, they did not. But they did know she had three months worth of emails at that time two months from ap. That would have been fortuitous with the six month back up available. We need to explore this. Did i hear this right in the answer to mr. Lynch that when the treasury inspecton general was doing their back that they wer, when they were doing their work knew about it. When they did their review of the determination process was aware that her email had crashed and i said i do not think that they were. So the Inspector General is trying to get to the bottom of this matter and nobody informed them that her computer had crashed and that her emails were lost. Nothing from my understanding, no. Were they withholding information from the inspecton general. He has access to all i mails and records he would like. I have no indication that anybody did not provide it to him. Did they ask . I have no idea, i was not there. Do you think that would be unreasonable to ask that question . You can ask the Inspector General. On page two, he did ask the names, titles or any officers involved on whether tax organizations in 501 c 4 should be subject to rules. That was in 2011. Hes asking for all of these emails. Why wasnt it brought to the attention of the committee that all of her emails were not available back then . At that time. I have no idea i was not there at that time. May 14th, 2014 also asked for those emails didnt get a response. You have a subpoena from the u. S. Congress. I recognize you werent there but i dont understand why the irs wasnt diving into this to figure out this is august of 2013. This Committee Issues a subpoena asking for her emails. It was known before that some of her emails were gone, correct. Obviously people knew in 2011 that there had been a crash. When you came and testified on march 26th, did you know or should you have reasonably know that you did not have all of her emails. I do not know. Did you think you had all of the emails. At that point my understanding was that they were reviewing the entire process to find out where they might be. I had no idea if we had more or less. So you didnt know. At that time. All i knew is we were investigating and we were going to provide all the emails we had. Thats what were in the process of doing. Did you or did you not know if you had all the emails. I had no idea one way or the jeer other. Why did you say you can lois lerners emails. What percentage . Are we supposed to ask you what percentage. At that time i would have told you we are going to give you 100 of the emails we have and thats what were going to do. Now youre qualifying. You had reason to know for years. You had reason to know i havent been there for years. Ive been there for six, six months. This is a hot investigation. You had reason to know there was a problem. You did nothing to indicate there was a problem, correct. The gentlemans time has expired. Pardon. You may answer. I did not indicate at the time but i did not know if there was a problem. Did you or did you not think there could be a problem. The gentlemans time has expired. Commissioner you may answer that question. I have testified before. At that time i did not know the nature of the problem. All i knew is that there was a question being investigated. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the gentle lady from illinois. Thank you mr. Chairman. Commissioner, good to see you here. Thanks for coming on such short notice. Its really amazing to me that irs requires employees to print and file emails that they decide are relevant to the official record or the irs does not necessarily think that all emails are part of the official record thats relevant to the ne federal records act. I feel it is unacceptable that a Government Agency cannot produce emails requested during an investigation. Whats troubling to me is that this is not an issue with just the irs but government wivde. I am looking at a go report entitled National Archives and selected agencies need to strengthen email management dated june of 2008. That basically addresses the inadequate email preservation procedures across government. Mr. Chairman, id like to ask n unanimous consent that this report be inputted into the record. Without objection, so ordered. Thank you. Mr. Commissioner, id like to hear what steps youve taken or plan to take that you ensure Better Electronics keeping at the irs going forward. Long before this arose, i asked earlier this bring for us to take a look at an email system that was much earlier to search. I was told more recently than we had looked at creating in effect a broader based server that would allow us to preserve emails. Thats the 10 to 30 million cost. We are reviewing that. Were also going to review whether we can move for the National Records act. From a paper system to an Electronic System. Thats part of the upgrade of the email system. Thank you. On 17th, the National Arcives and record as administration sent a letter to the Information Management at the irs recording the loss of those emails. Is that correct. Thats my understanding. I have not seen the letter. Okay. What they are required to do the National Arcives and Records Administration is required to request a record of a investigation from any agency that has an unauthorized disposal of federal records. Is that correct. Thats my understanding. Is that these requests are common place along federal agencies. According, they sent 92 requests to federal agencies during the bush administration. I was not aware. Will you cooperate with their requests for the irs to further investigate this matter. Wed be delighted to do that. We cooperate with all investigations. And what steps has the irs already taken to understand the circumstances around the loss of ms. Lerners documents. I testified at some length that we reviewed all the emails of her and all emails subject to the search terms of the custodians weve been working with to reconstitute those and will provide 20,000 of those emails. Would it be accurate that when you found out that some of emails had been lost that your understanding was that the team was still trying to recover as many of those emails that had been lost from the hard drive but that they would be located in other people systems hard drives. For example if she sent it from her to another irs official, you could probably find it somewhere else, is that correct. Thats correct. If it was in the emails of the other kuft oddians collected. Thats correct. When you found out that her hard drive had crashed and it was unlikely that youd be able to roecover from the lost emails, the irs and other technical people were trying to recover all of those lost emails as possible in any of those rebesatories, correct. Repositories correct. Replace an eye to the infrastructure for is it fair to say these contributed to the current challenges that the irs . It is true. Our challenge. We are still moving people into windows seven. Almost out of time. Thank you for your continuing publicservice. I yield back. I think the gentle lady. Now go to visit woman from michigan. He said several times that her in knows be found. Am i correct . Thats correct there are some who might conjecture can you understand that . I dont know what our concerns are. And we never will. At least at this point. It is interesting that that took place. Let me ask you, have you fired anybody under staff that did not give you an of affirmation so that you would have made the statement more accurate for us about affirmation contained in emails and you could not provide to us but now we find our the people know that the bells about lost the did not tell you . I have not fired anyone and no one in my staff that i laura. No one has been fired . And theyre is no basis. Accurately incorrectly and fully answer the Oversight Committee of congress. The purpose of that hearing was to talk generally we talked at length about that. Millie agreed on. I can understand peoples concerns. We had to say last week they provided bnls. Why is so difficult to get to the bottom of this because theyre is not much. The president himself on may 15th said it is inexcusable and americans are right to be angry. I am angry. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior at any agency, especially the irs given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives. He said, i will do everything in my power to make sure that nothing like this happens again by Holding Responsible Parties accountable. Someone much more astute than i once said the ability of the power to tax is the power to destroy. We have seen that, mr. Koskinen. Before you came into your position we have seen people with First Amendment liberties being targeted by the irs, the agency with the power to destroy , and they attempt to do it. And now we cannot get answers completely. Let me go into something that you said to be back on our statistics that a hearing where you indicated that you were trying to get to the bottom of the controversy and said, congressman, just to make you comfortable, just to make you comfortable if theyre is a problem that i dont know about them that is my fall. That means a i have not created a culture where problems of the issues it raised from frontline workers and go easily and freely into the tax. These issues were raised over time. Its all about that. I note that since january 1st thousands of failed this year alone. In your professional career alma times as yours . Once. The averages three to 5 . That would mean that with 90,000 employees we would expect that we would have between two and 15 can it be understood by people then . Involved in this greatest investigation in the history of the irs that all of these people, several people and especially the one at the center of this investigation has a mysterious experience of a hard drive crash on this information, information that probably caused lois lerner to plead the fifth. I dont know if you consider probably your not, and i will tell you, it is by the mysterious crash. Alexis is mysterious where the American People. They do not understand it. Frankly, i think there are all sorts of very verification is going on stonewalling and i am disappointed. I yield back. Can i ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the oped . Without objection is so ordered. This hearing has been quite an embarrassment. For over a year now republicans have alleged that the irs was engaged in a conspiracy directed by our behalf of the white house to target this political system, but neither this committee or the and directorgeneral has identified in the evidence to back up this delegation. The whole charade, and you say that we are not allowed to ask about the motive of the members, ashley wrote the ballroom of the hearings themselves, the integrity of the hearing itself, a fact dead, the chairman has continued to conclude the outcome without allowing the information to be presented in an impartial and complete way so that the members can do our job this is a serious, but. Serious responsibility. I said before that of want to get to the bottom of things. There was wrongdoing at the irs, and we should fix it. But we cannot fix it when the House Republicans continue to establish an unfair, unsubstantiated, and unfounded allegations against what we do have to watch are the facts. You may be entitled to europe in, but not air of facts. Commissioner, have you since you have been in this position identified any evidence that iras and employees were part of a conspiracy and sexually target the president s committee. About aware of any evidence. Thank you. This is the same answer we have received no for 41 other witnesses interviewed by this committee including senior officials at the irs above the treasury department, and the department of justice. The senior Group Manager in cincinnati told us that it was his employees to first tier of with the inappropriate screening criteria in an attempt to retrieve in similar cases consistently. Is that your understanding of how the process can about . A conservative republican. In fact, none of the 41 individuals told the committee the white house directed at to was a justice, or even knew about the conduct. The is what general, russell george. Same thing that he identified no evidence of white house involvement. Developing and implementing an appropriate criteria. Thats my understanding that what i read in the newspapers had herded year. I did not myself and been a leading german that. When the Inspector General testified before though back ways and Means Committee the Inspector General was asked by Ranking Members and 11 whether he had found evidence of political motivation in the selection of the taxexempt applicants. In response the Inspector General answered, we did not, sir. Commissioner, do you have any reason to doubt the as directorgeneral findings . I do not. In addition to all of these findings, on june 18th 2014 the white house sent a letter to the ways and means chairman. This letter explained that the white house also search its records and did not identify any melt between the two from january 2009 until 2011. Ask unanimous consent to enter this letter from the white house as stated june 18th. Without objection so ordered. Allegations that the white house directed or subliminally coerced the aristarchus applicants for taxexempt status are unfounded and back up that we put these reckless accusations arrest and finally began focusing on the facts. I agree with the other side about as the public is upset. Part of the reason they are upset is the behavior of the chairman and this committee of highly politicized this issue. The gentlemans time has expired. The gentlemans time has expired theyre sick and tired in bottle. Ill think it gentlemen. Unwellness unanimous consent the article dated february 4th of this year by josh hicks be placed into record in which it shows that the bonuses paid to iris employees in fiscal year 2012 were 89 million as opposed to Million Dollars that it would take to maintain critical documents. With that we go to the gentleman from arizona. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I appreciate the gentlemans comments. I would like to sq do you understand the gravity of what america feels in regards to the iras . Through the Internal Revenue service in violation of the Constitutional Rights of citizens confidence information contained in income tax returns for purposes not authorized by law and to cause in violation of the Constitutional Rights of Citizens Income tax audits or other investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner. Are you aware that . I do recall that. Thats white serious because i mean if theres one thing i can tell you that the dark light on our history and we talk about missing data. Once again missing data nixon tapes have some similarities. Once again getting the information so another investigation that we have that takes a Judicial Watch to get information that was supposed to be given to this committee. You have not given to it so you are aware of all this right . Im not aware that Judicial Watch program. Do you read the paper . I do read the newspaper. Thats really came about with regards to benghazi on the select committee. That was the kicker because we didnt have that information until we had Judicial Watch get it for us. So lets go back to the mindset here because i am a dentist and a politician and you are an attorney right . I am an attorney but i gave up a practice years ago. Steep but the fundamentals never leave. One would hope so. You are also business man . Yes i spent 20 years in the private sector. You have a problem and you come into this forest fire im going to call it you had your eyes wide open right . And right . And then he would have lots of scrutiny. Yes i understood that this was a highprofile challenge. So you really wanted to. Your is and cross your ts. Thats has been my approach to writing ive done in 45 years. The. You also you have 9000 employees. Correct. Obviously divide and conquer the problem. What you do is you have people you trust to formulate battle plans and a consensus aperture and hold them accountable. I spend a lot of time going to the 25 offices talking to 10,000 iris employs primarily frontline workers to hear from them as well. So let me ask you a question coming into this. Were you bothered by lois lerners conduct . You have to know about it. Heres a lady that has a question and an audience. Thats kind of odd wouldnt you say . C. Is not the normal way people would behave. We are at talking about the irs and seeding a question. Thats really kind of odd. What did you take for her comments in taking the fifth of not really taking the fifth. What did you think about back . Was that kind of odd . She has her own words that i dont know her. Is that typically have the fifth amendment is taken . I am not aware fifth amendment practices practices whether that awaits them or not. Have you seen anyone else take the fifth outweigh . I dont think ive seen anyone else take the fifth. That is really odd. I have seen a number people take the fifth and i have never seen anyone take the fifth like that then thats pretty contentious. In fact my good friend trey gowdy had a problem with the way she took the fifth and i trust his interpretation of the fifth pretty well but it seems to me that if you have this management style you would know exactly the perceptive than person who told you about the problem. There were five different people who reported to me about the situation. We have a major effort going on. Once again they are reporting to you when you are asking them questions holding them responsible right . Do you all have the same task . There are four or five people who are involved regularly in this production effort. I get information from several different people see my time has expired and ive run out of time. I yield back. Cf. Think the gentleman. Now the gentleman from tennessee mr. Desjarlais. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Koskinen first hearing today. Its getting late and there has been a lot of repetition. Lets talk a little bit about revenues. We had a discussion earlier about the problem with backing up emails at the irs and it was because why . Because basically the server iras servers can only hold so much data. The reason they have not been upgraded . C. I understand the cost. See you have a number earlier that it would take to upgrade the systems. To actually turn it into an Electronic System of the broader server would be somewhere between 10 and 30 million depending on software and what you want to do with their. The chairman mentioned earlier how many bonuses were given by the irs employees in 2012. Did you know what that number was . I did not until i heard the chairman sayed. 8900 dollars just in 20 and 12 alone. He talks about how the irs has been underfunded for at least four years and if you want to extrapolate the math i would say you could have upgraded your equipment so the iris could do a better job. Do you agree click. Its about 1000 per employee. We could find a lot if we gave no pay raises and continued to shrink the organization we would have more money but thats not exactly what you design is the best way to Design Agency agency. Cd to note that a Million Dollars in bonuses were given to employees as backtaxes . That issue has come up and we have a program we are negotiating an agreement with the union because we have a commitment that every irs employee will be credited in their taxes and even if they are three to five days late they get a letter of admonishment. And knott. To hold everybody to the same standards . Not the same standards as you are she would give people bonuses for not paying taxes . Anyone who does not comply. They wont get a bonus and we have negotiated that with the union. I dont think that necessarily sets well that i think thats fine. Do you think the iris improperly targeted conservative groups . My understanding and i support the igs report that said in his report improper criteria were used. The issue has been whether that turns into targeting or not the earlier reference to the Washington Post that the report itself says improper criteria were used and we have taken all at the igs recommendations accepted them and are implementing them so our goal is its not going to happen again. During the hearing in march he never returned it referred to the iris is targeting. Do you want to revise that statement . They noted the ig had used the word targeting in my point was the ig report says improper criteria but once i did use the word targeting i have now mentioned it in this criteria again but the ig report was improper criteria. Either way my point strongly has been from the start of the American Public deserves to feel that there will not be improper criteria used in people will not be selected other than. Did anyone ever coach you to say it that way as opposed to targeting . Does it sound more palatable palatable . No one ever coach due . That is what the ig report says. No one told you not to call the irs conduct targeting . Nobody tells me what to say. I am responsible for the i say. The ig report said inappropriate criteria was used and that is why i referred to in that hearing. Youre the kind of guy that believes leadership starts at the top. I believe it starts at the top in the leaders held accountable for what happens in this agency. The irs have acted inappropriately. There are seven investigations going on. My position has been once we get somebody to write a report in particular in this case where the ig completes its review and issues a report on this issue we can decide with the appropriate next step is great to have yet another investigation starts especially while the ig is going for seems to me waste of money. Right now the irs does not look too good. Dont you think it would be better to clean up the face of the irs . When we hear from Inspector General to see if he finds there was malfeasance at all. Okay well my time has expired and i think well do People Better than what we are seeing here. I think the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman from South Carolina mr. Gowdy. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. You are an attorney. Can you explain to our fellow citizens what it means . Exfoliation of the evidence is on a party fails to preserve evidence. There is a negative inference that the jury can draw from their failure to preserve the evidence. Are you with may . If you destroy destroy documents the jury can infer that those documents werent going to be good for you. If he failed to keep documents the jury came in for those documents were not going to be good for you. You have heard the phrase exfoliation of evidence havent you . I cant recall it. Civil hearings criminal hearings. I practice law 45 years ago and never went back. Let me tell you what you would have found. When a party has a duty to preserve evidence or records and they failed to do so there is a negative inference that is drawn from their failure to preserve the evidence. Its common sense, right . If you destroy something the jury has a right to infer that whatever you destroyed would not have been good for you. Or else every litigant would destroy whatever evidence that was sent to them. Do you agree click. If you destroy the evidence that people could prove it wouldnt be good for the facts. They jury can draw negative inference and thats true if the taxpayer is being sued by the irs administratively civilly or prosecuted criminally and they fail to keep documents the jury can draw negative inference in the fact negative inference ineffective dating keep receipts or emails or documents. So if its true and it applies to the taxpayer are to apply to the irs as well. Us as a trial or is this a jury . Administrative civil or criminal if you want to go down that road im happy to go down there with you. In fact im glad you mentioned it. You have already said multiple times today that there was no evidence that you found of any criminal wrongdoing. I want you to tell me what criminal statutes you have evaluated. I have not looked at any. Talking. Talking to us as there is no criminal wrongdoing if you dont know what statute should look at. Because i have seen no evidence. How do you know what elements of the crime existed if you dont know what statutes applied . I will ask you again. I think you can rely on common sense that nothing ive seen. Instead of the criminal code you want to rely on commonsense . You can can shake your head all you want to. You have said there is no evidence of criminal wrongdoing and im asking you what criminal statutes you have preview to reach that conclusion. I have reviewed no criminal statute. You dont know the elements of the offense. I have seen no evidence of wrongdoing. Thats very different than no evidence of criminal misconduct. It seems it would be hard to argue that you have some criminal violation sees what did lois lerner main . I have no idea. What did she mean when she said we need a project that we need to be careful that it doesnt appear to be per se political . You dont think thats a violation of 1842 . I have no idea. Because you have a look at 1842. You dont have any any idea commissioner whether theres any criminal wrongdoing or not. With regard to the production of the evidence and the production of lois lerner emails i have seen no evidence of wrongdoing. If there were that would be a separate criminal what youre saying is you dont have any idea whether she engaged in criminal wrongdoing. You are just saying you didnt engage in any any with respect to the mels . I have not seen any wrongdoing with regard to the production of lois lerners emails. I want to be very clear. You disagree with the prison when he says theres not a smidgen of corruption click. There are people who have been making judgments both sid sides. Do you know what, im not one of those. Im simply saying we will never know because you didnt keep the evidence. Evidence was exfoliated and whether its negligent or where theres intentional or whether its recklessly stone we still unhappy evidence. You have the treasury email so the basic premise that this was an argument in the conspiracy driven by the white house. Sir you are wrong about that. You are repeating a talking point from our colleagues on the other side. It was jay carney who said it was too rogue agents from ohio. It was not any of us. Was that accurate . With that initial line of defense too rogue agents in ohio is that correct commissioner . Not that i know of. That is not accurate and it came from the white house. Who says there is not a smidgen of corruption. My understanding is was the president. Thats jay carney and the president inserting themselves into the irs scandal and you want to blame us for bringing the white house into its . I had a blame you at all. You just did commissioner. You just did. Oppa said was their white house has revealed there were no lois lerner emails and the treasury has given you all the emails it to the extent the argument was that lois lerner was conspiring emailing backandforth bus far havent seen it. You can be engaged in the conspiracy that doesnt involve the white house. Your time is up. The gentleman from texas. Thank you very much mr. Commissioner. There is a lot of passion on this especially on my side of the aisle. I was at home this weekend weekend and thats all anybody was talking about. The American People dont believe for a second that this was lost accidentally. A friend of mine used to work at my Computer Consulting company and is still in business. He said theres no way this could happen. You have got to do something about it. Thats the frustration that im getting from the American People. If we came back to you and said i dont have the resources to save all the records to comply with the irs tax law you all would not let me escape so i dont think you guys out to be able to escape on the resource issues. I will get back to that in second. In the Clinton Administration knew worked in the omb didnt you and part of your job was to oversee the executive branch recordkeeping and these federal records act type requirements . Did you not do that . I was actually done by the office of information and regulatory affairs. Were you involved in that when you were in the Clinton Administration . I was not involved personally but i was the director of. Are you familiar with the federal records act . It says at the head of each federal agency shall preserve records maintaining proper recommendation of the organization functions policy decisions procedures and essential transactions of the agencies along those lines. Your irs manual says the way he will do that is to print out the emails records. Who decides what is an official record . The employees are provided Background Information and they made a judgment. If you are doing something that you might believe is questionable. We have trained resource coordinators across agency to continue to oversee and encourage and make sure they comply. And responses to earlier questions you indicated in going through lois lerners emails you searched hers there were research terms. How do you use search terms on the hardcopy emails that you been required to print out from the lost hard drive . Did somebody go through her files and files as she routinely corresponded with to search the hardcopy records . Yes. Wouldnt have been easier and save money if you would have had that Electronic Forum . No doubt. You heard from the other side that theres an issue with respect to the resources. I did this on my cell phone and let me find my notes here. You guys have got a lot of people that are good at math of the irs so im going to assume you guys can figure this out. Your procedures to print a record out. Im going to let you get a Google Search and say efforts size of a word document and they say well you can get 64,782 word documents of nine pages per gigabyte. A gigabyte is a thousand gigabytes so thats 64. 8 million documents. I went on amazon and saw it you could buy a terabyte hard drive for 59 dollars. You can buy two of them so 120 bucks. The statistics in the industry average cost to print a page of a document is about five to 8 cents including paper and toner and wear and tear on the printer. If you do that math and multiply it out it looks to me like for every terabyte of storage you add to the email you save 21 million in printing fees not to mention the greenest of it. How come some of the mathematicians at the irs didnt realize hey all right lets say you have to buy a computer and pick it up. Lets take five grand on a backup system for email and save 21 million. 90,000 you have one of those for each employee. Each employee is not going to have millions of pages of emails and documents. You could do it on a systemwide basis. Not on our system you cant. Its not stored on Exchange Server . You cant get a backup that you see advertised on tv that captures all the email click. Thats one of the things when they looked at it was 10 to 30 million to create a server that would hold all of that. 10 million, 21 million to print youve already saved. If we are printing 21 million of stuff probably. No question you are complying with the federal records act. This of resources thing doesnt fly. I have run out of time. I had other questions but i will yield back. I thank the gentleman. Gentleman from kentucky is recognized. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Chaffetz adds why the sixmonth backup was no play to lois lerners emails. You suspected that it was too much effort. Do you have any emails indicate there was a discussion about going to the backups to get hers . There are none that i know of. Have you looked for any to see what the i. T. Staff, you mention they made an effort to retrieve the hard drive but what about the software from a servers . As far as i understand her email was in there from april on. She had that email and we were focused primarily on the hard drive which she had archived or emails. That hard drive you are saying is gone and i accept that its gone but what about you dont see any evidence of an email trail with the i. T. Department trying to go to the servers to get those emails . Not bad on the server or emails from april forward. In terms of whether they went to the back i havent seen anything about the backup tapes. Her hard drive crashed in june of 2011 and we have to emails. I will go on to another question. Was that hard drive replaced . Yes. Are you in possession of that hard drive . The Inspector General has it. Could we look at the hard drive to see if she was in the habit of deleting emails . You are welcome to ask the Inspector General for it. Wouldnt be possible because you are collecting emails from her associate so you know which email she achieved. Dues did occur to you to look on her email to see if she purposefully deleted in a . We have a look at that but as i say we have produced all of the emails emails and what was possible to take a look at that. Next question. He said theres a three to 5 chance of a hard drive will fail and you testified that last week. I advise its an industrystandard . Thats about a one in 30 chance if it were 3 but lets see chairman camp sent a letter to the irs demanding the irs explained allegations of targeting Tea Party Groups and her hard drive failed within 10 days. Do a little math here the probability of that failing in 10 days instead of the year is one in 1000. Thats not the way probability works. A lot of bad things couldve happened so maybe it was 100 or 110. At the same probability everyday. Its like when you flip a coin. You dont need to tell me about how probability works. I took a class. Its one of 1000 that would fail within 10 days. We must have taken a different probability class. I think so. Can you tell me the other hard drives that theyll do were were associates were there any others that failed in that same time. Matt . I dont know what the list looks like. If another one failed one of her associates within the same 10 days that means its a one and 1 million probability that two hard drives fail than someone dealing with this case and attend a window if theres a 3 probability . We will provide you a full report including the names and hard drives when they failed and whether a mouse were lost as a result. Notice im not questioning your integrity. I do those sort of question that judgment of a little bit of not sharing this Bad Information with us. He had suspicion in february and then in march that maybe all the emails not may not be retrievable. Theres a saying that the bad news never gets better with age and never improves with age. What i want to ask you now is are there any other anomalies in the data or in the retrieval of emails that you can think of now so we can avoid having a second hearing on this . Thats a fair question and a good question. Im not aware of any. Other than we are pursuing the other custodians. The other eight hard drives that i failed. We are still looking and i dont know if the final number will be. You understand my question. Similar to the bad news he had in february. I said i do not know of any other bad news as you pointed out. One final question. If we had a flat tax or fair tax would we be here today . Here today . I met big supporter of tax simplification and i support chairman camps attempt to move that forward and i will be as helpful as i can. I. D. Too and they give very much. We will now go to the gentleman from georgia. Thank you mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. I have three degrees ranging from a bachelors degree to a theology degree to a law degree and this has been an amazing story to sit here in front a few weeks ago relative timeframe and i asked you you know without any definition you agreed to. When you just take a step back i have a 15yearold that i love dearly. He is different than my other two children because my 15yearold has an active imagination. His active imagination can lead you on some Pretty Amazing trips and lets just think about this for just a moment. You havent agencies supposedly in cincinnati that decides on its own just to say we are going to start looking into certain files and by the way that we dont help washington and we dont let anybody else know although pretty well satisfied that was not in accordance to good policy. When the chairman of one of our committees makes an entry concerning this kind of information a hard drive fails. Two weeks later all of a sudden then cincinnati decides to tell that we have an issue trade we move forward in this progression and we have seen the fifth taken. We have had evidence come here where we see all the evidence and all the facts and again its hard to believe that it should have at least come up all that i have been oh by the way we have got a problem. It also seems hard to believe as you go through this whole story that when the Inspector General was going through this whole thing no one seems to have told him of go by the way we are missing some emails. Nobody that i knew it was dealing with Inspector General new player for emails missing. I guess if i go back to my 15yearold here at a certain point in time i have to just look at him and and i have to say cameron at a certain point in time the load you are caring in the back of the truck dont add up anymore nobody believes it. Its a bad position for you. I hate to be in your position. You have had an extensive life of Great Service to this country but what is really troubling and for the people in my district of georgia whether you figure probability or not they have a pretty good meter. The major of democrats i know in republicans i know have gotten full. This story is becoming more impossible as it goes. It crashes at a certain time. No one was told about it. Im going to take you seriously that you take responsibility for your job at the irs. Is that correct . Yes. You are the man at the top as you said before. Did you notify the archivist when you learned about the distraction of lois lerners emails . And keep them. She had hardcopy records. I dont know whether anything that was lost was an official record or not. So it would be a matter of then gist caution or prudence that you should have told archives. I tell archives if theres a disruption. Hard drive detried, is that not disruption or are we parsing terms again . Archives or record purposes are that you know of. I dont know what she knows. That is what she was supposed to do whether she did it i dont know. What you know of, but in seasons where you have lost it or been destroyed no way to get it. No way to tell if you should or should not have told the archivist, correct . So you should have told the archivist. Could i do that,is. This is a long story. The people are just looking for the truth, and there are a lot of parents and grandparents two thigh just dont understand. They dont get it because they dont they can come to a story with ther is and is the irs would basically say, we dont want the story, we dont care much were broke we just wanter records. A sad trail down a wrong road. Your service has been good but your running into a dead end and the American People are tired of it. I yield back. Now to the general, mr. Massey. We have had him already. Thank you. My order here. An interesting conversation but were done. You may say again, you never know. We now go to mr. Meadows. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you for your patience. So, let me follow up on mr. Collins line of questioning. Federal records act requires emails to be part of the record to be printed out. Is that correct . If the email is a record, it should be printed out in hard copy is the irs policy. What your definition of a record . The record is the act provides, any record of Agency Actions or policies. If you just sending emails conversing back and forth, those are not records. Conversing back and forth with regards to what . Thats not what your manual says. Policies or anything that would reveal Important Agency policies. It says specifically, emails are records when they are created or received in the transaction of agency business. Thats correct. So, if were doing an exactly, having a litigation, all of the information about that exam and that information what youre saying none of lois lerners emails are part of the agency business. She printed hard copy emails that have been provided to you. Hard copy of how many emails. I have no idea. All of them . All of her emails were not official records. Under what definition . I pulled the definition really, all i have to go by is the law. And thats what you would have to go by, and i pull the definition out of your policy book. I would assure you i have not read very many lois leadershipper emails but of the 67,000 youll have, i guarantee you a reasonable number of them are not official records. Under what definition. Under the definition na that brochure. Well, this definition says that they need to be machine readable materials. That qualifies to almost every single email. Machinereadable is what this said. In ems of id like to ask we put this in the record. Without objection, so ordered. So, if im following your manual, and there has been no wrongdoing, i think is what your testimony says, theres been no wrongdoing isnt that what you said. Ey. No wrongdoing in terms of potential lost emails. So, when someone did not notify the National Archives, was that wrongdoing . When you lost these . When you automatically said, kelly, we cant find the emails, there might be just one email in there that is a record, would that be a wrongdoing or breaking the law . If we didnt advise the archivist we lost you didnt. You didnt advise them. Because we did not have any evidence whether they were official records or not. As stated by mr. Collins, we could have called and said we lost emails and we dont know who theres records or not and we thought we would let you know. But we did not do that. Can i mitt for the record a submit for the record a letter from the National Archives expressing concern the fact there may be official record that were not without objection, so ordered. So, all of this, and not following up, is really, according to the democrats, really a money problem, and youve concurred with that. We would be in much better shape if we had an electronics record system the reason you dont is because of money. Im told two years ago when they considered trying to do that, they didnt have the funds to do that. So can well the american taxpayers, then, if they just dont have the money to comply with irs statutes, thats okay . That its okay to break the law as long as they dont have the money to comply . I dont think we have established the irs broke the law. Well, there is wrongdoing in terms of not keeping all the records according to the federal records act. All of the record would you agree some of the records are missing. I have no idea whether official record are missing or not. Your testimony today let me make sure that you do not know whether there are missing emails. You just asked about missing official records. I do know there are missing emails. Would a normal person assume there may be one record in all of those emails that are missing. We dont know how many are a reasonable person. Youre an attorney. A reasonable person. Wouldnt a reasonable person think in thousands of email there would be one official record. We dont know if thousands are missing or not i didnt ask you that. I said, a reasonable personwouldnt they agree . Are you a reasonable person . Last time i checked. Wouldnt you think there might be one record in there . Let me finish out. You say its a money issue. Are you aware that 49 million were spent on conferences during this same time period, 49 million . That was in between 2002 and 2012, 49 million, according to the report. Substantial number of those are training conferences i didnt ask you. Were you aware that 49 million yes or no. I was not aware of the number. 49 million, some of that, 3,500 a night, star trek video. Do you think you could have moved some of that 49 million to pay to make sure that the federal records were really preserved. You may answer. I dont know the details of those events and what were training and what were wasted funds, and its all three and four years ago, long before i arrived. That wasnt the gentlemans question. The gentlemans question was do you think any of the, quote, money on those conferences, including the one for making the star trek video whether or not that could have been used properly for this purpose . We needed 10 to 30 million. There was 30 million or 10 million, i dont know. If there was money waist wasted they could certainly have used it for this purpose, thats clear. I thank the gentleman. We now go to the gentleman from michigan. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Nice to see you again, commissioner. Before i forget i have two questions two lines of questioning. You said four to five people report to you regularly. Who are the can we have their napes and tight. S. I actually have 30 people who report to me regularly. Four or five who report to me in this area. Okay. Can we have their names and titles. Id be happy to provide those. Great. Do you believe theres a difference between objectivity and neutrality . Thats an interesting question. I suppose you could be objective i dont know. I think most of the both terms would imply youre not involved personally in an issue. Youre objective about it or neutral. Those synonyms. Yes. Objectivity is the ability to judge fair live despite bias, and neutrality is to have no stance regarding a particular issue. Do you think that employees at the irs have any selfinterest in who is elected as president of the United States . I think as individuals, every american has an interest in who is elected president of the United States. But you say theyre trying to be nonpartisan, the irs . The irs is nonpartisan. Doesnt mean they cant have an interest in understanding the importance of the president ial election. But theyre not supposed to have the back one part of you or another, are they . The hatch act does not prohibit irs employees on their own in their official duty. In their official duty its absolutely prohibited. So, my question is about selfinterest. Do you believe that employees at the irs can remain objective when analyzing the Tax Implications of groups of people that want them to lose their jobs . Lose their jobs . I think so. I think that theyre professionals, theyre dedicated i have no doubt in their professionalism. Im not asking you about that. Im asking about their new centrality and how it affects their objectivity do you believe any person can sustain objectivity towards someone that they perceive as the threat to their livelihood . I think they could be objective about it. Im objective about continuing to hear. This is my eighth hearing and im objective about it. I have good friends on all the commitee, even though some of these hearings are little more contentious. Come with the territory. What are they afraid of . I mean, they emails, just provide all the information. It seems to me that if it was justlets say, somebody got carried away you could have said we apologize, well never do it again, but the irs is not doing that. Is a recall the commissioner werfel and i said if people were unfairly selected thats a mistake. I have apologized to anyone who has been discriminated against and im committed that wont happen again. But, were concerned about where it comes from, because it wouldnt be this big of an issue if there was really just some loose cannon in the outfit, so to speak. Steams to me that you could have said, they made a mistake, they shouldnt have done it. We punishedded the. Let move on. They didnt do that. The people involved on the chain of command on this issue are all again. I think theres or retired . Theyre no longer with the agency. Right. Except the ones in 1600 pennsylvania avenue. Thank you very much. I yield back. The gentlemen yield . Yes. Will the gentleman yield his already usedded. Mr. Koskinen. When you learned in april from who you cant remember, when you cant remember, sometime in april you said you did not communicate with the white house or with treasury. It that accurate . Thats correct. Heres a story from last weeks politico. Says april of this year from the white House Counsel thes informed the white House Counsels office that it ped miss lerners email account contained very few emails. They were informed in april, the white House Counsel, from the treasurys chief counsel, to how did the treasury chief counsel find out. I dont know. Did you tell people in the irs dont tell anybody this stuff until we get all the information . Did you give that instruction to your folks . No. So, someone at irs told treasury chief counsel . I assume that must be what happened. We meet with the treasury regularly why didnt you tell him . I have not reporting to the treasury about this investigation. Its under its our responsibility and were taking you dont know who told them. I have no idea. Did you tell someone else to go tell treasury no. So you wouldnt have to. No. You no idea that the white house and treasury learned that learn emails were lost in april and we didnt know until june. I have not had any discussion. We would like to know who at irs told the treasury chief counsel, who told the white house chief counsel, and they knew two months before we did. So we want to know who the person tet irs did who informed them of something that is important and you didnt feel it was incumbent to tell us. Do you who who that is. I dont know. You run the agency. Why dont you send an email to although blows whoever told counsel we lost lois lerners emails, i want to know who that is so we can tell the chairman of the committee and we can question them. The gentlemans time has expired. You can question them. Of course. You didnt want to tell them. I didnt want i told you, we run the investigation. I have not talked to in the production of documents, the treasury doesnt tell me what to do i dont tell treasury what were doing. Im not talking treasury, im talk tag irs. Someone from irs told the white house. Point of order. State your point of order. The point of order is the state your point of order. The point of order is the gentleman is over his time. The rae point of order is hi wont answer the question. The point of order the chairman cut me off when im cutting awe off again. Well maintain decorum. The parliamentarian will allow anyone to make a point of order, to cite within the rules a point of order as to whether rules are being properly adhered to. Congresswoman spear did a very good job of citing a point of order, and i would ask all folks to please use the parliamentarians before the cite a point of order. We now go to the gentleman from florida, mr. Sanchez, for five minutes. Commissioner, have reviewed dave kamps letter he sent to the irs. I have not. I only saw it this afternoon briefly. This is so he writes a letter, lois lerners hard drive crashes ten days later, youre in charge of ther is and is you havent reviewed that letter . I scanned that letter. Im not doing the investigation of what happened around that letter requested that email records be preserved, and turned over to the committee, the ways and Means Committee, and according to your testimony, when her hard drive crashed they never went to the backup servers