Lois Lerner’s Blackberry destroyed by IRS
Cover-up: The IRS destroyed Lois Lerner’s Blackberry after her computer crashed and after the Congressional investigation into the harassment of conservatives had begun.
In two elusive and nebulous sworn declarations, we can glean that Ms. Lerner had two Blackberries. One was issued to her on November 12, 2009. According to a sworn declaration, this is the Blackberry that contained all the emails (both sent and received) that would have been in her “Outlook” and drafts that never were sent from her Blackberry during the relevant time.
With incredible disregard for the law and the Congressional inquiry, the IRS admits that this Blackberry “was removed or wiped clean of any sensitive or proprietary information and removed as scrap for disposal in June 2012.” This is a year after her hard drive “crash” and months after the Congressional inquiry began.
The IRS did not even attempt to retrieve that data. It cavalierly recites: “There is no record of any attempt by any IRS IT employee to recover data from any Blackberry device assigned to Lois Lerner in response to the Congressional investigations or this investigation,” according to Stephen Manning, Deputy Chief Information Officer for Strategy & Modernization.
I am once again reminded of the Watergate coverup, where Nixon’s effort to block the investigation did nothing but slow the release of evidence, turning it into a steady trickle that kept coming, again and again and again, with each revelation acting like another nail in the coffin. We are seeing this same process unfold again here.
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Cover-up: The IRS destroyed Lois Lerner’s Blackberry after her computer crashed and after the Congressional investigation into the harassment of conservatives had begun.
In two elusive and nebulous sworn declarations, we can glean that Ms. Lerner had two Blackberries. One was issued to her on November 12, 2009. According to a sworn declaration, this is the Blackberry that contained all the emails (both sent and received) that would have been in her “Outlook” and drafts that never were sent from her Blackberry during the relevant time.
With incredible disregard for the law and the Congressional inquiry, the IRS admits that this Blackberry “was removed or wiped clean of any sensitive or proprietary information and removed as scrap for disposal in June 2012.” This is a year after her hard drive “crash” and months after the Congressional inquiry began.
The IRS did not even attempt to retrieve that data. It cavalierly recites: “There is no record of any attempt by any IRS IT employee to recover data from any Blackberry device assigned to Lois Lerner in response to the Congressional investigations or this investigation,” according to Stephen Manning, Deputy Chief Information Officer for Strategy & Modernization.
I am once again reminded of the Watergate coverup, where Nixon’s effort to block the investigation did nothing but slow the release of evidence, turning it into a steady trickle that kept coming, again and again and again, with each revelation acting like another nail in the coffin. We are seeing this same process unfold again here.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Where’s Wooward and Bernstien!
Are emails even stored on a Blackberry? Cached perhaps, but stored? It should all be stored on a server with emails pulled down as needed. That server is certainly backed up. Emails are not stored on portable devices because of limited memory and because they are far too easy to lose, get dropped in a toilet, or whatever. If Louise Lerner could access all emails from her Blackberry, those had to come from a server and exposes the lie that they were ever really just stored on her laptop hard drive.
Two key differences between Watergate and Lernergate. In the former, Nixon appointed a special prosecutor and then a second after foolishly firing the first. Obama, learning from Nixon’s experience, simply refused to go that route, and arranged for partisan hacks to whitewash an “internal investigation.” Unlike Republicans in Congress who turned on Nixon, Obama need not fear Reid and Pelosi throwing him overboard. The other major difference is that Obama doesn’t have every major news outlet investigating the story and attacking him daily. Other than Fox, One America News and Internet sites, the story has largely been ignored.
Two additional differences however suggest that your differences will be cancelled. First, the alternative press today is quite effective in getting these stories out, especially to the likely voters in this coming mid-term election. Second, the timing of today’s IRS scandal is different than Watergate, as it is unfolding as we approach the mid-term elections. Watergate didn’t pick up steam until just after the 1972 election, and was finished before the 1974 election (in which the Republicans got creamed).
EVERYTHING in Washington is ‘backed-up’… EVERYTHING… If it was a Republican, you’d see the diffrence… THIS is just the libratard media trying to AGAIN bury this like catsh*t…
Blackberrys will download the email messages locally, so even unconnected, off the network you can read them. At least the first 2K or so. If the message is much longer than that, then it will get it live the first time you ask to read the post-2K part.
You can backup/restore that message database from one device to another.
So ya, this too seems like destruction of evidence, that at least from earlier cases was pending in legal holds.
I work with companies that have email under legal hold. One company ( a bank) is being forced to pay licensing for their old mail system, because they are not allowed to move the held mail to the new different email system. They have to leave it intact on the old system due to the pending cases.
But those laws only apply to the little people, it would seem. In a tyranny, it is fun to be king. Sucks to be the peons though.
This is beyond the pale. It is SO FAR beyond anything that ever happened in Watergate that the comparisons barely even apply now. I sent the story to several friends, with this comment:
I’m not even going to comment on this – as I’ve said before, you just run out of epithets & superlatives (incredible, unbelievable, atrocious, etc.) when trying to describe the outrageous lawlessness of this Evil Regime…
LOL ! ! Good question ! !