Thursday, November 06, 2014

WHERE ARE THE DAMNED HANDCUFFS?

That's the question posed by Karl Denninger:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) admitted to the court that it failed to search any of the IRS standard computer systems for the “missing” emails of Lois Lerner and other IRS officials. The admission appears in an IRS legal brief opposing the Judicial Watch request that a federal court judge allow discovery into how “lost and/or destroyed” IRS records relating to the targeting of conservative groups may be retrieved. The IRS is fighting Judicial Watch’s efforts to force testimony and document production about the IRS’ loss of records in Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation about the IRS targeting of Tea Party and other opponents of President Obama(Judicial Watch v. IRS (No. 1:13-cv-1559)). The lawsuit is before U.S. District Court Judge Emmett G. Sullivan.

The law requires that an FOIA search encompass all "reasonably retrievable" records, from which the party served can then argue for exemptions from disclosure.

It does not permit the target to choose not to look at its pleasure.

The foundation of any legitimate government is the Rule of Law.  

We have lost that in this country, and until it is restored no progress will be made on any of the other issues that face us.

It's that simple, whether you're conservative, liberal or otherwise.


Amy Miller points to some relevant and maddening context.

The IRS admitted to Judge Sullivan that the agency failed to “submit declarations about any of the foregoing items because it had no reason to believe that they were sources from which to recover information lost as a result of Lerner’s hard drive failure.” [Emphasis added] Department of Justice attorneys for the IRS had previously told Judicial Watch that Lois Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The Obama administration attorneys said that this back-up system would be too onerous to search. In the October federal court filing, the IRS does not deny that the government-wide back-up system exists, and acknowledges to the court that 760 other email “servers” have been discovered but had not been searched.

The IRS also refuses to disclose the names of the IRS officials who may have information about the IRS scandal, citing unspecified threats. The IRS says it pulled documents about the scandal from various employees into a “Congressional database” and that it has only searched this one “database” for missing records. Incredibly, the IRS has not searched any of the IRS’s regular computer systems for any missing records and admits that it has only searched a “database” that it knows does not contain the missing records being sought by the court, Judicial Watch, and Congress.

In other words, multiple agencies of the Obama bureaucracy have thumbed their collective noses at the law and federal judges.

The rule of law means absolutely nothing to the Left, and it's high time they were held to account.


Hat tip: BadBlue.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the Republicans were elected to "get along with" the Democrats then "the people" would have voted for more Democrats. While I think people do not want a full blood bath they do want accountability, and Little Mitch had better come to Jesus and get with the program or the two party system will be called "Republicans" and "Conservatives". The Democrats have forsaken their own mercy and must be treated accordingly, let it be deemed so.

TheFineReport.com said...

The handcuffs? Up John Boehner's ass, is where they are. And that's where they'll stay.

Let's get going on job #2: Take back the GOP from the failures hogging its leadership positions.

Or not. Just get used to the idea of giving back the Senate to the democRATs in 2016. Because that will be the legacy of Squeaker Boehner and that other Milquetoast douche, McConnell.