Congress will gain access to Lois Lerner’s emails
The IRS is going to turn over to Congress’ House Ways and Means Committee all of Lois Lerner’s emails during the Obama administration and a little bit earlier.
Thanks very much. But who in his/her right mind implicates him/herself in emails that never disappear and can be rather easily accessed in a situation like this?
Well, the Bridgegate people do, and I’m sure they’re not the only ones; some of the Climategate folk come to mind. But even a non-conspiratorial type like me knows that if a person is engaging in some activity that might later need covering-up, that person should not use his/her official email address to conduct that business. More likely, he/she will use that address to create a false picture of innocence, and some other method of communication will be utilized for the shady stuff.
Carrier pigeon? Courier? Word of mouth? A different email account? I seem to recall that General Petraeus, while engaged in his sexual dalliance with Paula Broadwell, created a private email account that they thought was safe but really wasn’t. But at least he understood the principle of the clandestine operation.
Of course, Petraeus was only dealing with one person, and on business that was decidedly unofficial. So it was relatively easy to set up such a thing. Lerner was trying to communicate with a much larger group of people who worked under her in her official capacity, and the things she might be asking them to do would be highly illegal and controversial. So any alternative email setup would be a way of admitting to all recipients that what was about to go down was clandestine, a highly risky and self-incriminating thing to do. I assume, however, that if Lerner had originally received the order/suggestion from a higher-up in the Obama administration, that would have been accomplished through word of mouth in a face-to-face meeting.
Those of you with experience working in government bureaucracies—an experience I don’t share, although I’ve never before had cause to lament that fact—might be able to shed more light on how this all could work. Computer experts, please chime in, too.
On Day 303 or thereabouts of the IRS scandal, one has reason to think the IRS has had mucho opportunity to review the Lerner emails now fixing to be released.
One also has reason to think nothing much untoward about Lerner or the IRS will be revealed by this release, since the IRS isn’t exactly releasing them timely or at gunpoint.
At home, Baraq=Vlad; abroad, not so much.
I want to see Holder’s emails that mention the IRS or communicate with anyone connected with the IRS. This goes much higher than Lerner or even the head of the IRS. This goes all the way to the top. This has Mega-Watergate written all over it. That’s why the cover-up and stonewalling.
The Obama administration simply cannot afford for the truth to be exposed about the IRS, Benghazi, etc. because if the whole truth got out, it would be a choice of Obama’s or the Democrat Party’s survival.
“But who in his/her right mind implicates him/herself in emails that never disappear and can be rather easily accessed in a situation like this?”
Right. I doubt they’ll find anything interesting in her emails, but there’s a small chance they might. After the targeting of Tea Party groups was arranged through face-to-face meetings and/or phone conversations, Lerner might have felt safe referring to “Project Earl Grey” or some such in emails.
I suspect it wouldn’t be hard to find reliable foot soldiers in the bureaucracy to do the dirty work, known Obama-bots who hate anything Tea Party who could be trusted to keep mum about the sordid affair.
On the technical side, I think the systems that record official emails are supposed to be “tamper-resistant,” so it would probably be difficult for the IRS to delete any incriminating emails from the database–but, as usual, not impossible. I’d be curious to hear more about this if there are any IT folks out there who know the details of such systems.
GB…
Even a child can see that the ONLY authority that could’ve gotten this ball rolling is the Oval Office.
It was that obvious way back in the Watergate daze.
As far back as October 1972 it was transparent that “Nixon’s the one.”
I must say that I go with “Howard Dean’s the fink,” which has been advanced by G. Gordon Liddy.
It took Liddy years before it popped in his brain: Dean HAD to be ‘Forrest Gump.’ The break-in occurred at a site that was generally impossible to see. Indeed, after inspection, Liddy came to the conclusion that no-one at the Watergate could’ve seen the break-in. (!)
Dean exposed his ‘own’ crew.
As for “Fast and Loose” … an administration spokesman went to the microphone and announced EVERY aspect of the program as being at the DIRECTION of the President — with the sole exception of the gun running code name.
ALL of these initiatives spooled up at the same time… within a few weeks of each other… and within months of Barry taking his throne.
&&&
And then there’s the curious fact: Barry took the US Census inside the White House. He did that practically from Month One. It was one of his first official acts. 2012 was the result.
Like any despot, he was too important to be voted out… so he rigged everything. His Chicago days informed him that the way to do so was to add a pinch here and a theft there. With the US Census in his lap, he could game the entire polity! Because of the Electoral College vote, he knew that the only votes that mattered were sprinkled around the nation — and that crafty fiddles there would carry the day.
One could see that in real time as the Florida vote kept being re-jiggered as the night wore on. The Miami tabulation kept being stuffed to over balance the pan-handle. Since the MSM would buy it, the nation bought it. It still does.
In this digital age, a tyrant does not need Kamps, a Gulag — or even Killing Fields. Vote corruption will do nicely.
http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/07/suffocating-pressure-former-center-for-american-progress-writer-describes-white-house-censorship/#ixzz2vJi9rlzI
^^^ Economic and professional coercion will top up the manipulations.
The e-mails won’t show anything. Either they have been edited by now, or an alternate email account ( no longer in existence ) was used.
–
Anyone in the IT section or with sys admin permissions could easily destroy any evidence, and leave no trace of who did it, or what was destroyed. The gov systems are set-up for zero accountability, … this reason to be precise.
–
They need to get copies of ALL of the emails from the NSA. They have them archived. Just request the “database of ruin” for Lerner.
G.B. says,
“The Obama administration simply cannot afford for the truth to be exposed about the IRS, Benghazi, etc. because if the whole truth got out, it would be a choice of Obama’s or the Democrat Party’s survival.”
Precisely. They simply cannot afford it. And Isaa cannot extract the truth from them. He has not the power to do so.
Enough Dems will stand with Baraq come what may, so even the choice between his or the Party’s survival is not a choice at all. The Party’s like Macbeth, so far in that turning around is pointless. The Dems have crossed the red line, and must be blown away at all costs for the country itself to survive. Will that happen? I do not think so.
blert, 4:01 pm — You mean John Dean (the one with the porcelain blonde wife sitting stoically behind him), yes?
Pingback:Congress will gain access to Lois Lerner’s emails | Newes.In
As a government employee (state level–I’m not a fed) communicating with outside agencies I used to use e-mail as it was faster. I still do with those I personally trust, but the rest get faxes that are copied electronically as part of my agency’s records. That’s for my protection, not theirs.
If I trust you I will speak to you in any media that is convenient; if I don’t I want a record in case things go sideways.
If it’s really important I’ll deal with you face-to-face under controlled conditions; I’ll determine the control factors.
If it’s absolutely vital that the matter be confidential, I’ll DEMAND the Cone of Silence.
“Oh, Jenk! You KNOW the Cone of Silence never works!”
“Chief, I demand the Cone of Silence….”
The IRS is already corrupted. They’ve no doubt pre-scrubbed the material. This is a ploy to embarrass Rs and take the heat off.
I have an idea. Subpoena the entire IRS. All of them. Reopen Alcatraz. Send them there. Let them off after they devise and implement a tax system that works – on them.
Problem solved.
Dead drops and encryption are generally used to secure communications between parties that don’t necessarily want strangers or even each other to know what is being said about whom.
The encryption is generally some high 128 bit generated using a few methods or a one time only passkey that can only be decoded by a single device, there are no duplicates. Since the software can be moved around on a flash drive, it doesn’t need to be installed on an OS either. Most of the more useful material will be either in old paper format, easily burned, or in flash drive format, with the hard disk reformatted, flipping 0s over 1s and 1s over zeros in a random pattern, in order to scramble the data after it has been viewed and intaken. Deletion itself, is not permanent, as the FBI has ways to order the data fragments if the hard drive isn’t scrambled or reformatted. A magnet can do the job.
For dead drops, all they need to do is mention some address or some such while meeting for lunch, but no details or orders are passed. The orders are placed at the dead drop by one agent, and another agent picks it up and carries out the orders. The authentication is in the form of knowing where the dead drop is and how to access it. In this fashion, even if you have NSA type listening devices on cellphones, it still won’t pick up dead drops. You’d need someone to figure out from merely audio what people are referring to and then have a person physically at the dead drop to switch out the data. Things that normally foreign intelligence cannot carry out. They can carry out the data analysis part, but not the man power requirement, which is usually provided by the police.
As for how competent the Leftist Regime’s spies and operatives are… well that really depends.
Gary – “Project Earl Grey”
Thanks for the laugh!
Now, it would be funny if they called it that; except we know that Obama, himself, calls them by that somewhat derogatory term – tea baggers.
It also adds to the liberal bias of the US news media in that they never referred to the IRS targeting of Tea Party groups as “TeaGate” or some such term using Gate. I guess they only reserve “ . . . Gate” for Republicans.
Such a thing can be done without direct communication. Put the wrong people in the right place, put a little pressure on them, and they will do what you want automatically.
All she needed to do was make sure that fellow travelers were working in the right positions, increase their audit quota, and then if they start auditing liberal organizations, you give them a stern look and tell them that you don’t think “that’s necessary at this time”.
You never need to directly tell them anything, and such an approach is nearly foolproof, since your actions can be seen as doing your job, while your inferiors were the ones who actually did the wrong.
What about this email? it’s been out there since 2011. See screencap.
http://weaselzippers.us/178275-lerner-email/
Now they have had as much time to “scrub” their archives as Saddam Hussein had to ship his WMD to Syria, but hey.
Beverly…
Doesn’t that e-mail strike you as the ‘old girls’ club?
The meme attached to “Gate” is evidence of the Leftist advance in the public consciousness.
It was foreign journalists who thought that “gate” after a word meant scandal- when the news of Watergate broke.
There is no difference between an American Leftist AP journalist and an Al Jazeera Leftist journalist.
Even if foreigners follow the US AP like a donkey following a carrot stick, that does not force US agencies to continue using the propaganda line.