ways and means committee disclosed there were accept or eight total crashes and now we learn from mr. cain, that there may be as many as 20. think about this. the irs has identified 83 custodians of documents and information. they identified these people associated with this targeting of conservative groups and now almost a fourth of them may have had hard drive crashes. unbelievable. fourth, we were told the irs found out in april of 2014, that miss learner's e-mails were lost. but then we learned from mr. cain the irs knew on february 4th, 2014, about miss learner's hard drive crash and that it found out just days later that the hard droouf had been recycled and its confents were unrecoverable. that's why we continue to have hearings. that's why we have mr. koskin back for the third time in a month. we want straight answers. we convened this hearing because today, over a month after the ris told congress they lost miss learner's e-mails there are

still unanswered questioned. why did they delay for several months notifying congress, the justice department, and the american people about the problems with miss learner's e-mail. the deputy attorney general told us that she learned from press accounts in the media. one of the highest profile investigations in years and the justice department has to learn about critical evidence by the central player in this investigation. they learn about that in news accounts, not directly from the internal revenue service. that's why last week, deputy attorney general cole said he would have liked to have known about the e-mails earlier and announced that the justice department was investigation why the commissioner failed to disclose the missing e-mails in a timely manner. let me reiterate. james cole, deputy attorney general, united states department of justice, said last week in that same chair to this

same committee, that they're investigating why the internal revenue service delayed months in telling the congress, the american people and most importantly, the fbi and the justice department, about the loss of louis learner's e-mails. rather than the irs coming to congress and informing us what it knew when it knew it the irs waited four months. they only came forward to finally acknowledge the missing e-mails when it had no choice. and it disclosed the news the only way it knows how. by burying the information on page 7 of enclosure 3 in a friday afternoon letter to the senate. information obtained by the committee in the last few days provides more questions than answers about the missing e-mails but this isn't information the irs is offering umm willingly. its taken almost a month for the irs to start coming clean and subpoenas to get people to talk. mr. cain we tried weeks to get mr. cain the come and talk and we had to subpoena him to get him to come for the deposition last thursday. the american people have this

information only because the committee has been asking questions and that's why the commissioner is here today. the individual hand-picked by the president to clean up this agency and that's why here here today to answer the questions. until we clear up all the facts and statements about louis learner's emaims, we'll continue to press for the truth. with that, i yield to the ranking member of the subcommittee, mr. cart wright. >> thank you, mr. koskin for coming today. we schedule these things on these little dohickies and it asks you, do you want to make this a recurring entry. when i see this, i want to say "yes" at this point. at this point, i am concerned that committee republicans are no longer using these hearings for the purpose of investigating what happened to the groups that were the subject of the

inspector general's may 14th, 2013, report. this seems to be something different. and i want to say, we all ought to agree that the point of this committee, the oversight and government reform committee, is not publicly to harass federal agency heads, mr. koskin. it is to conduct responsible oversight of the legitimate critical issues within our jurisdiction. i believe that these repeated hearings that we're seeing they'd are both an abuse of north and a dereliction of this committee's duty. i think they're in a taxpayer-funded footrace over who can make the first headlines about louis learner's lost e-mails and we heard about the request for a timeline and we ought to look at that timeline because it was june 16th,

shortly after chairman camp of ways and means announced that he would be holding a hearing with you, commissioner koskin, on june 24th, that chairman isa of this committee, issued a unilateral subpoena compelling the commissioner to testify before this committee on june 23rd. in response, chairman camp moved his hearing up to june 20th. so it's something like a children's fairytale that we're looking at here. and in addition, chairman isa is no longer allowing staff from the ways and means committee to participate in the oversight committee interviews. chairman's isa refusal to hold joint interviews is resulting in wasted taxpayer money as irs employees like you, mr. koskin, are now being subjected to multiple duplicative interviews. and i want to address the republican claims that the alleged targeting of conservative groups is this government-wide conspiracy initiated after the citizens

united decision involving the president, the irs, the conspiracy including the department of justice and other federal agencies. this kochl has obtained no evidence linking these accusations to what we all know now were inappropriate criteria used by irs employees in cincinnati. some of my colleagues on the other side have chosen to overlook the funneling of dark money into the political system of the united states. republicans have demanded accountability from the irs but have not demanded the same from corporations who influence our national elections. in january 2010, the u.s. supreme court in a 5-4 decision on citizen's united allowed for-profit corporations, unions and nonprofit groups, to raise unlimited funds and register for tax-exempt status under the 501

c 4 election. and then the irs became flooded for requests for this. this is exclusively meant fosh organizations whoets primary activity is social welfare defined in the tax code as making charitable to a community. while they are not barred from participating in political campaigns it is stated plainly and clearly, that political participation must be an insubstantial amount of the group's overall activity. accounting for less than 50% of expenditures. the irs's job is to make sure these groups were following the rules so they were not taking tax breaks meant only for groups attributing to the community, not hiding the influence of the select few individuals have on our nation's electoral politics. as i said before in previous hearings, this is about groups doing everything they can do to hide where they get their money. obscure the true intentions and

have undue influence on the political system tax-free. anonymous money in politics is something we don't need in this country. something that disrupts the democratic process and something that has to be changed. i commend chairman leahy and senator udall and a joint resolution proposing a amendment to the u.s. constitution which would negate the damaging effects of citizen united. i have cosponsored the house companion to that bill introduced by my friend, ted do you have deuche of florida. >> members have seven days to submit written statements to the committee. we're pleased to have the honorable john koskin and commissioner of the internal revenue service. you know how it works. please stand and race your right hand. [ sworn ]

let the record show the gentleman answered in the affirmative and now your opening statement and then we'll get right to questions. >> chairman jordan and ranking member cartwright and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. with your permission i'll provide a brief introductory statement and a are submit a paperwork for the record. i appreciate working around my travel schedule. in attempting to set the original hearing date my understanding was you were interested in an overview of irs interactions with the department of justice so i'll touch briefly on that subject which is covered more detail in my prepared statement. in general terms the irs regularly and routinely interacts where the department many the investigation and prosecution of criminal and civil tax matters and other financial fraud. our criminal investigation division investigates and develops cases and recommends

them to the department's tax division for prosecution. these cases represent a variety of tax issues, refund fraud, abusive tax shelters, return of payer fraud and international noncompliance. this is a good illustration of what our koshd nated efforts can accomplish. recent examples include the guilty pleas by credit swiss and bp. routine interactions between the irs and doj vochs the office of chief council which reviews all criminal tax cases developed by our criminal investigation division before those cases are recommended for prosecution. when the department of justice's tax division litigates a civil party the irs chief council tomorrows are involved collaborating on the arguments and positions taken. i'll turn to an update of the effort that the irs made to cooperate with the investigation into the use of inappropriate criteria to evaluate the applications for tax exempt

status under sections 501 c 4, the revenue code. these include four investigations by congress. one by the department of justice and one by the inspector general. added to that has been the recent new investigation by the inspector general of circumstances surrounding the crash of louis learner's hard drive three years ago. to date, we've now produced more than 960,000 pages of unredacted documents to the tax-writing committees and more than 700,000 pages of redacted documents to the house oversight and government reform committee. in addition, at the request of the over sight committee and other committees, the irs has been working on the identification and production of louis learner e-mails. as part of the document production the tax-writing committees have received 67,000 e-mails we found involving minutes learner and weir continuing to provide redacted versions to the oversight committee which to date has received more than 54,000 e-mails. we're working to provide these

documents as quickly as we can. and, in the course of collecting and producing the e-mails the irs determined that her hard drive crash increased 2011. at the time, ms. learner asked the i.t. professionals at the irs to restore her hard drive but they were unable to do so. nonetheless, if irs has or will produce 24,000 louis learner e-mails from the period between 2009 reason 2011, largely from the files of other individuals. the irs provided information about the hard drive crash to all six investigating entities and a public report was released in june. i would note our june report to the extent that it focused on ms. learner's hard drive crash wraus based in part of e-mails we already provided to the congressional committees, the inspector general and the department of justice, some e-mails were produced as long ago as last fall. provided in the normal course of production related to the search terms greed upon previously.

all six investigators have had initial information about the hard drive crash since last fall. also, additional e-mailsbility ms. learner's hard drive crash were produced this spring to investigators prior to the release of our report. i also want to point out that consistent with a bipartisan congressional request, the inspector general is noted is proceeding with its own investigation regarding the crash of ms. learner's hard drive. the ig as noted earlier asked the irs not to do anything that would interview with its investigation and we're honoring that request to the extent possible. in addition, on july 18 we are responded to a resent court inquiry with detailed information regarding the crash of ms. learner's hard drive. this information is consistent with what was previously provided in the six investigations and provided the oversight committee and other investigating entities with a copy. during last week's hearing with doj there was a question as to what information the irs gave to the department about the crash.

we provided all investigating entities with the same information in our june report which we released to the public. doj did not receive any additional information. since releasing our june report we've continued to cooperate with the investigations. since mid june we have produced the oversight committee, more than 100,000 pages of documents and made witnesses available for interviews with congressional staff and five interviews have already occurred. three briefings for congressional staff including one for the oversight committee and is noted, i testified at four hearings including the one today. this concludes my statement and i would be happy to take your questions. >> thank you, gentleman. i'll turn to the vice chair of the committee. >> thank you with mr. chairman. good morning, commissioner. mr. koskin, are you aware that you currently are under investigation by the justice department regarding your role in determining when to produce louis learner's e-mailtion? >> i'm not aware of an

investigation. i did see the deputy attorney general's statement last week before this committee that he was interested in -- would be interested in why we had not provided him information in april as opposed to june. be i have not received any notice of an investigation. >> he told us it was something that the justice department would look into and he said that it was information that they did, which they had at the time you discovered it. let me ask you this. the committee interviewed irs deputy associate chief council thomas cain and he testified that senior irs officials including catherine duval, who is counselor to the commissioner, realized that louis learner's e-mails were missing and there was a hard drive crash on february 4th, 2014. and that by mid february, they realized that the e-mails would not be recoverable off that hard drive. yet you testified in front of this committee on march 26th, 2014, and after being asked

numerous times whether you had produced all of louis learner's e-mails consistent with the subpoena you said you would. so if the senior irs officials knew in med february that the e-mails could not be recovered off the hard drive, why did you tell this committee that you would produce them? >> because i testified before, when i testified at previous hearings. or in march, i said we would provide all louis learner e-mails. since then, i did not mean to imply if they didn't exist we would somehow magically provide them. we've provided you all the louis learner e-mails that we have. with regard to when the officials at the irs knew the impact of the hard drive crash as i testified several times in the 11 hours of hearings since june 13th, what i was advised and knew in february was that when you took the e-mails that had already been provided to this committee and other investigators and looking at them by search terms look at them by date it was clear that there were fewer enails in the

up through 2011 and then subsequently and then there was also, i was told, a problem with miss learner's computer. not described in any greater detail than that. i was advised near the end of february, that we were now reviewing all of our production capacity the make sure nothing had been done in the production capacity that would have explained or caused the lost of any e-mails. that process went forward but at the same time i would remind everybody we were focused primarily on the request for this committee and finance committee and the ways and means committee to provide complete production of all documents we had related to the determination process and we did that in and in mid march provided to the tax-writing committees a letter saying we had now produced all the documents we had with regard to the termination process. >> let me -- i appreciate that. we even asked mr. cole if someone responds to discovery kwerts and say they'll produce all of them they can't just do that and represent that and

know, gee, we can't produce all of them. once they figure that out they have to come immediately and tell the opposing party and in this case, the congressional investigation so it's not the same. and yet you guys sat on the information for several months and that caused this investigation on our end to be obstructed. let me ask youbility the backup tapes. the irs told us that backup tapes from 2011 no longer exist. yet mr. cain testifies in terms of the interview with the committee, backup tapes may, in fact, exist. can you now under oath definitively state that the relevant backup staps that committee has sought do not, in fact, exist? >> >> what mr. cain said the information we provided was accurate to the best of everyone's knowledge. since then he said that the inspector general -- >> reason you said, with all due

respect, on june 20th, 2014, to the ways and means committee, that we, meaning the irs, confirmed that backup tapes from 2011 no longer existed because they had been recycled pursuant to the irs' normal policy so that was a definitive statement and now we're getting information from mr. kwan that the irs isn't exactly sure that that is, in fact, true? >> what mr. cain reported was information that the inspector general has started to review tapes to see if there's additional information on them. mr. cain said, therefore, there may be backup tapes that were recycled but may be recoverable. we have no information -- i have no information of what the inspector general is doing with those tapes and in fact, the inspector general advised us he was reviewing the tapes and asked us not to do any further investigation. no further conversations and i understand he asked this committee as well, not to make the existence of their review of

those tapes public but at this point i have no information whether there's anything ussable on those tapes. >> can you confirm to the committee today, we've been told, obviously, about learner's hard drive failure and ways and means has identified as many as seven or eight additional individuals who are relevant to the investigation whose hard drives also crashed during the period. now based on testimony from mr. cain, it could be as many as 18 or 19 different hard drives that have crashed. that would be relevant. so can you definitively state to this committee the number of hard drives from relevant -- >> i can tell you what i know at this time, in the first six months of 2011, over 300 hard drive crashes occurred and over 5,000 reports of hardware problems. the first six months of this year, over 2,000 hard drives have crashed. >> that's your whole agency. we're talking about people who

happen to be relative in a relatively small universe of people and the number of hard drive crashes seem to be getting higher the more that we investigate. >> and in may, i asked our people once we knew that there was an issue with miss learner's kraesh i asked for what the industry standards were for hardware crashes and advised that 3 to 5% of hard drives crash and i asked how many of those 83 had hard drive crashes? we reported on the monday, june 16th, to the ways and means committeend our staff interview that we knew there were probably 6 or 7. >> the next morning, the ways and means committee released what turned out to be an ever erroneous e-mail. it turned out with further investigation it appears no e-mails from ms. flax were lost because the hard drive in the

crash was not her computer. >> i need to -- the number of hard drive crashes. i understand you mentioned the ways and means press release and numerous statements that you've made before congress and i've read you other statements but the numbers. where do we stand on the number of hard drives? >> where we stand is there have thereafter ig was kwersd to do an investigation and the ig asked us not to do any further interview or veblgttion so we have not pursued further what the additional implications are. how many hard drives crashed because the inspector general is investigating that very issue. i cannot give you a definitive answer either to how much custodians had crashes and if they did how many of them lost e-mails. >> mr. cain put the upper limit at 20 so there seems is to be a contradiction. my time is up. mr. chairman, thank you for indulging me and i yield back. >> thank you. >> commissioner thank you for

testifying before the committee today and for the third time in a month. when you testified on june 23rd, 2014, and july 9th, 2014, you told us that the ig was investigating circumstances of miss learner's computer crash. on june 11th, 2014, you wrote to the committee reiterating that the ig is conduct an investigations into the loss of miss learner's e-mails and that as you previous testified, you would honor the inspector general george's request to prioritize his investigation. has tin specter general expressed concern to you about the release of nonpublic information about an ongoing ig investigation? snee when the inspector general first talked to me and asked me

not to do any further investigation or witness interviews ourselves, he explained to me they were concerned they didn't want to muddy the waters and wanted to have their ability to talk to witnesses and then go back and talk to them again without anyone having conversations in between time. so they were very concerned that witnesses they were interviewing in the investigation be allowed to proceed what if inspector general only. >> do you know when that was? that you had those conversations? >> the conversation was shortly after they were asked by the finance committee and congress to make the investigates. i can't remember which the date was in mid june. >> the ig has expressed similar concerns to our committee. for example, on july 2nd, 2014, committee staff held a conference call with the inspector general in which the ig described the investigation to louis learner's hard drive as, quote, very active, open and

ongoing. end of quote. asked your committee to refrain from publicly disclosing the nonpublic information regarding this ongoing investigation. is the ig's investigate into this matter still active and ongoing to your knowledge? >> to my knowledge, it's still active and ongoing. >> would the ranking member yield for a question? >> sure. >> were jooert staff members present at. >> -- majority staff members present at the meeting where the inspector genre layed that information? >> yes. >> our staff said they were not. and inspector general called our council yesterday and he happened to be in my office with mr. meadows and said that they had talked to you but did not express any of the comments you made in your opening statement or frankly, any of the comments you're making in your line of questioning now. so i just a wanted that on the record. the gentleman is recognized. >> well, why don't we have me

here next week under oath since we're having all these irs hearings and hear what he has to say because we can go back and forth on the. i want to be very clear as to what was -- he said and so when you talk about he said-she said, it's hard. the ig expressed similar concerns again, to this committee. it's your understanding that the ig investigation is still ongoing? >> it is, as far as i know. >> so in spite of the inspector general's request on july 21st, chairman isa issued a press release stating that biassed on the interview of irs deputy associate general council thomas cain, quote, new developments, end quote, have created uncertainty regarding the existence of backup tapes. commissioner, it your practice

to release nonpublic information about an ongoing ig investigation. >> no. >> why not? >> because we made a commitment to the ig we would honor his priority and we would not do anything that would interview with thinks investigation. he can taub to anybody they wanted. they can look at any evidence they wanted. we are would note have a ongoing discussion with any of the witnesses we were talking to because we didn't want to interview. >> okay, the press release and the statements from mr. kwan and other witnesses that undermine the partisan narrative. mr. cain told the committee this he was aware of a, quote, potential issue, end of quote, regarding the backup tapes. but he did not know any additional details. when asked whether he had seen any evidence that any irs employee intentionally destroyed documents or e-mails to avoid

their diggs closure, mr. kab said, and i quote, i have not seen anything to that effect. end of quote. have you seen any evidence of obstruction by irs employees? >> i have not. >> yesterday, the committee staff interviewed irs national director for legislative affairs. leonard ousler. he told committee staff that based on the information available at the time, yourself june 13th, 2014, letter, to the senate, financing -- stating that backup tapes from 2011 had been recycled was accurate. is that right? >> i don't know what he said but i understand from the press release about mr. cain that he said the information we had and provided on june 13th were accurate and that's what everybody knew at the time. >> he also told us that earlier this month, he was made aware of

an issue with a backup tape but he didn't know if the backup tape from -- was from 2011 or mislabeled. he said even if the unrecycled backup tapes exist from 2011, the irs does not know whether they contain e-mails from ms. learner not previously produced to the committee. sitting here today, do you know any additional details regarding the backup tape issue and the ig is currently looking at? >> no. all i know is what mr. cain said and that's at this point nobody had any information as to what was on the tapes and whether they were rmt. >> until the i -- >> relevant. >> until they determine this issue, are you in a position to correct your ee eer -- your er

eyes statements? >> we'll honor his investigation and i look forward to it and we'll see what his facts are and what he determined. it happened three years ago and we'll respond accordingly. >> and you were asked earlier about the computer crashes and you said that you were not aware of the folks who may have some relevance to this investigation, with regard to -- concerning their crashes? would you normally have that kind of information? >> normally if things had proceeded as they -- when i asked in may for answers to this question, that is, how much custodians have hard drive cash crashes, i asked for a review of how many crashed and what the implications were. we had not completed that review when we provided that june report. basically, we had that morning the following monday, our i.t.

people had been advised, i had not, that we knew there were six or seven custodians that had had hard drive yashs. is that information was provided to the ways and means committee. we have not pursued or been age to pursue whether there are 6, 12 or 15 because once we started we agreed we are wouldn't pursue any of those issues until they completed their investigation. >> the last question, when the doj. was here the other day and you were asked about this a bit earlier, they talked about the fact that they had not gotten information about the crash back in april. they got it in june like everybody else. why is that? >> in april we determined that, in fact, there had been a hard drive crash and some e-mails may have been lost. our next step was to in fact,

investigate how many e-mails we had and could we find and our plan and proposal was that we would pull all of that information together including information by custodians and make a public presentation to the committees, including a description of why it takes us so long in our archaic system to provide these documents. we provided in june of 2014 and did that before the complete production of louis learner e-mails which is when we originally intended because the senate committee asked us for an update on both the determination process documents as well as the other investigation. other searches we were doing. we gave them that and noted that we had found nothing beyond what we had noted in our march letter with regard to the determination process which was the subject of the investigation when they started. but we had not completed at the time, the review of the custodians nor had we completed until the end of june, the production of the texeira

writers of all of louis learner's e-mails and were proving towards producing the redacted version to this kwom. so our plan was when we pulled it all together we could explain the process, the difficulties and what we learned about the louis learner e-mails and what we had learned about others and what we had been able to determine. as i noted we were able to recover 24,000 louis learner e-mails. we thought it was important information for people to have rather than saying, there's a problem with her computer and we're now investigating how many e-mails there were which would have triggered hearings six weeks earlier but we wouldn't have known nearly as much as we now know but we don't know everything we want to know because we've stopped asking people about it while the ig is doing their investigation. we fully support that. i have confidence, they are independent of us and appointed by a different administration. he has 15 people working on it according to the feelings they made last friday and we told

them and i told them, whatever he needs, documents or whatever people he wants to find, he can have access to and we'll stay out of the way so we've gone out of our way not to talk to anyone, who potentially he mite want to interview about what happened three years ago when the hard drive crashed. >> russell george told you he didn't want this committee and congress to interview the same wpss he was interviewing? >> he told me he didn't want us interviewing any witnesses. >> that's not the same as congress. >> why did you make it so difficult? why did we have to subpoena mr. cain? >> ig in our discussions said he didn't want us to do anything that would cause any of our employees to be interviewed before he had a chance. >> fwrooisor the record, the inr general did not tell you it would hinder his investigation if congress interviewed the same people? >> he told fuss we started to provide names let alone witnesses, it would interfere with the investigation.

>> that's not my question. >> i testified two weeks ago and said we were trying to cooperate with the ig and as i recall the chairman said understood that which is why you don't release full entrance scripts. >> you conveyed that the inspector general said he doesn't want this committee interviewing the witnesses he was interviewing and he did not say that to you. >> that's all i need. the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. >> thank with you, mr. chairman. mr. commissioner, i want to go back to one thing that the gentleman from maryland just asked you and make sure i heard you correctly. if you know that the testimony that you've given to congress is not correct you're not going to correct that until we get a final report from the ig? did i hear that correctly? >> i thought what you said. >> no. what i said was the testimony i've given in the past was accurate as of the time with what i knew. i testified as to what i knew. right now the question is, do i know anything morebility backup tapes and the answer is, i don't, other than the ig is investigating whether there are

backup tapes and whether they are, in fact, recoverable. >> so if you find during the course of of your normal business what you told congress is incorrect you'll come immediately to us and let us know, is that correct. >> i'm happy to. in fact, the kmarm with regard to -- >> within 24 hours of you finding you've given us incorrect testimony, you'll come to us and let us know. >> if i know it's incorrect. the committee has many questions, chairman isa was nice and he said when her lawyer talked about this, he sent me a letter. here's what he said. here's what you said. i took a pen and corrected it. >> i thought you said you were going to wait until the ig you a report. >> i won't know until the ig investigation is complete but the answer is in terms of how many custodians have -- >> you won't know what they found until they come back. are you saying that you're not talking to mr. cain or anybody? you're not talking to anybody in

the irs about any of this? >> i am not talking to fwhoany potential witnesses for the inspector general about what happened three years ago. >> so when you read the reports about mr. cayne did you report to him and say this doesn't jief u with what i know? >> no. mr. kab is going to be interviewed about what he knows -- >> did you talk to somebody who stalked to him? >> no, i read the release that the committee put out. >> did you put out the committee that talked about a skrashed hard drive. i saw that this morning. it was put out last night, i understand. >> does that concern you that it was scratched and not crashed? would that concern you? it concerns me. does it concern you? >> i don't know -- >> if that's accurate. >> if it's accurate, as i say, i don't know the gentleman and i don't know what he said. >> if it's accurate would that concern you? that was it was scratched?

let me tell you why it concerns me and this is an hp laptop. to get to the hard drive, it is no easy task. you've got multiple screws that have to be taken to get to it. then once you get to that, you actually have a hard drive inside with seven more screws that have to be taken off to get to the hard drive in order for it to be scratched. would that concern you that if it were, indeed, scratched. >> there may be some other mo o'ive. >> -- some other motive. >> would it concern you, yes or no? >> i wouldn't know whether to be concerned or not. as i understand from the press release -- >> it concerns me and i'm going to ask my staff and see how long it would take to get to that hard drive to make -- if, indeed, it were scratched. >> i'm assume there's a lot of

way hard drives get scratched. i'm sure the ig will look into that and i'm sure he talked to that witness or would liked to have talked to him. >> i hope so. earlier you said you had 2,000 hard drive crash this is year? >> yae. >> is that correct? >> yes. >> so let let me ask you about numbers and you know i'm a numbers guy and i did the numbers reel quickly. if you look at yourself entire body of some 84,000 to 90,000 irs employees, depending on where i year, but let's take that. that's a 2.2% fail you'ure rate >> correct. >> in the people truly involved in this, in that speer of 80 people, if indeed we had 16 to 18 hard drive crashes, why would the hard drive crash of that group of people be ten times greater than what you have throughout the agency? can you explain that? what would be the probability of

that happensing. >> i have no information to know if that's the number. >> let's take the number you do know. seven, that's what you testified. that still would be four times greater than you're overall average. can you explain that? >> i don't know what the details were. i do know when i asked for the industry statistics, once you get beyond the warranty period the failure rate goes -- >> but louis learner's laptop was i new laptop. it was not an old one and actually, the probability of her hard drive failing at the time, was at the lowest according to industry standards, wraus at the lowest possible time. >> but it dissurprise you her hard drive failed? but it does surprise you that her hard drive failed? >> yes. from the industry it's 2 to 5% depending on the computers will regularly -- >> so out of this circle, if you have ten times that amount, would you say that's an anomaly.

>> if you had ten times a month? that would be an anomaly. >> i'm giving you the numbers so that would be an anomaly. >> if you stipulate you have ten times as many as the industry average that would be an anomaly. >> thank you i yield back. >> gentleman from pennsylvania. >> thank you. mr. koskin, the first question you got in your testimony today was something to the effect of -- my colleague asked whether you remember aware that you were under investigation by the department of justice. this is a very public hearing. a very, very public hearing. we invite members of the press to come to these hearings and these hearings are televised and i think it's important that we don't lead the public down the wrong path on what the truth is here. mr. koskin, have you ever received a target letter from

the department of justice to say that you're under investigation? >> no. >> have you -- has anyone, anyone, told you verbally, that you've under investigation by the department of justice? >> no. >> has anyone, anyone, said to you, verbally, anything that would hint to you that you're under investigation by the department of justice? >> no. >> okay. has anyone, anyone, said anything to you to hint to you that you might be the target of a justice department investigation sometime in the future? >> no. >> thank you for that. another thing that you've been trying to get out and you're continually interrupted in your answers. comments about industry statistics about computer failures. i want to give you a chance now to make full sentences. >> in may, when i was advised we

had this frontal boundary and were proceeding to find how many learner e-mails we could have i asked what the industry standards were for hard drive yashs and i was told it was 2 to 3, sometimes 5% within the warranty period. if you have older computer which have a lot of our employees had it goes to 10 to 15%. i asked to do a review of a all of the 82 other custodians to determine what, if any of them had hard drive crashes and if they had them whether its caused loss of e-mails. we have over 2,000 crashes already this year. all of those didn't result in loss of e-mails. you can lose e-mails without your hard drive crashinging. so at the time we were starting down that road to complete our review of what were the situations with regard to the production of documents. that's has somed from coming to closure because the ig himself was looking at all of that. >> thank you. >> mr. koskin, on jaun 20th, you

testified before the ways and means committee, that even after discovers miss learner's 2011 hard drive crash, quote, you said, the irs took multiple steps over the past months to assess the situation and produce as much e-mail as possible for which miss learner was an author or recipient. during the time and into may, we were also identifying and reviewing learner e-mails to and from 82 other custodians. by mid may, as a result of these efforts the irs had identified the 24,000 learner e-mails between january 1 and april 2011. u commissioner, why did the irs take these steps to recover miss learner's e-mails. >> an attempt on our part to produce as many louis learner e-mails from her account or other accounts as possible in response to the request of this committee and the ways and means committee to produce all of

louis learner as e-mails so we were trying to make sure there were no e-mails anywhere in the system to or from louis learner we had not located and had not provided. >> all right. so despite the hard drive crash, the irs has still produced 24,000-plus additional e-mails for miss learner, is that right? >> that's correct. >> witnesses told this committee that in february of 2014, irs employees discovered that there were fewer of louis learner's e-mails from january 2009 to april of 2011, than there were for other periods. and upon this discovery, irs officials immediately took steps to determine the reasons for this discrepancy and whether they could locate additional e-mails from ms. learner during that time period. the question is -- why didn't you inform us about the discrepancy in miss learner as e-mails when you testified before this committee in march?

>> because in march, i didn't know and we didn't know whether we had lost e-mails or not. one of the first things that was investigated in february and into march, was to review all of our production processes to see if anything in the way we had reached into this system that produced the e-mails and put them into our search motted has caused us to misplace if e-mails because it wasn't clear whatever her problems with her computer were resulted in any loss of e-mails. so the first process while we were producing the other documents regarding the determine termination process was to make sure we didn't do anything in the process to cause e-mails in that period to be lost and we determined ultimately into april and may, that nothing that we had done in the search process had caused the e-mails to be not produceable. >> all right. i thank you, mr. commissioner. i-year-old back.

>> thank you for being with us today. i know you came here before and i know we're going through a lot of detailed testimony. but the baseline is accurate. to the best of your knowledge, when you testified before that the e-mails were not available from miss learner during the period that they listen to the best of your knowledge, that they had been destroyed because they had been recycled on the tape. i'm not questioning that testimony at this particular moment. but i think has people interested is mr. cain came up here not so long ago. and he's pretty sophisticated guy. his job is to produce documents for investigations and litigation and other kinds of things and, therefore, he not only has a very detailed understanding of the process, but a deep appreciation of the

implications to do or failure to do including exposure four failure to do things and a very sophisticated understanding of how to answer questions with respect to this, appreciating that when he's under oath, anything that he says would put him in a particular position of which if it is known to be wrong, expose him to further scrutiny. we'll put it that way. so i'm curious as to whooi he would come and testify that the -- why he would come and testify and -- this is his words -- i don't know if there's a backup tape with information on there or there isn't. that he was now unsure about whether there was some backup tapes from the period of time that may not have been erased. using his direct testimony, there is an issue as to whether or not there is -- that all of

the backup recovery tapes were destroyed on the sixth month retention schedule. i don't know whether they are or aren't but it's an issue that's being looked other. what do we know about this issue? and why would he have made that statement? >> what we know about that or what i know about that issue is that i was advised by the inspector general that they had taken the tapes and they were reviewing those tapes to see if they had been totally recycled or whether they were not recycled and usable. i was advised about that because the inspector general, again, wanted us not to do any -- he somebody knew the ig had them. he didn't want us to, in fact, do anything to investigate further. what the tapes were, who found them and what they did with them. i said that was fine. and at this point, according to -- i haven't talked to mr. cain about this but according to his testimony what he said and what he knows is, as you say he's been involved in it, the inspector general is looking at

some tapes. i don't know how many and which ones, to see whether in fact, any of them turned out not to be recyclable or any of them have information that's them had information that was recoverable. at this time as mr. kane's testimony states, it's not clear whether they do or don't. >> whether substantially there's information when he gave you that identification that there was, as you said, it was believed that they had all been produced but now maybe some of them have been found. weren't you concerned about what procedure they used to potentially come up with new tapes? >> when the inspector general advised me of that, i was interested as to why they were looking at tapes that we were advised had been recycled. but i didn't cross examine the inspector general about it. i afreed with him that they would do the investigation. we wouldn't do anything to interfere with that. i wouldn't and none of our people would talk to anybody about it. i can't tell you how they found them, what they are, and as mr. kane said, whether there's anything on them or not.

at this point, we're supporting the inspector general -- >> did you have any idea about what the issue is that he referred to because that was the very specific thing. there is an issue as to whether all of the backup tapes had actually been recycled. >> yes, and the issue as i just said, is that he obviously is aware of what the inspector general advised me, which is the inspector general has taken some tapes -- i don't know which ones -- and is reviewing those to see if they have been recycled, if there's information on them that can be found or used. that's all i know and i assume that's all he knows. beyond that, i haven't talked to anybody about this because, again, our position with the inspector general is -- >> just one follow-up question. why are these not available from a third party vendor who, in the event of a cyberattack would protect us against destruction of all records which would put

our government in a remarkably perilous situation, so we take steps to assure that essential documents are preserved by having them in third party data storage situations. why were the documents that are relevant to this period, particularly the documents relevant to the 2009, 2011 area, why were they not backed up and available today? >> that's a very good and important question. as i have testified earlier, there's been no loss of any information and no action taken since this investigation started with regard to any information and production of documents. we have frozen and saved and backed up all e-mails from six months before the start of the investigation forward. what we're talking about is what happened three years ago. and three years ago the process was to use backup tapes for basically disaster recovery purposes and recycle them every six months. that was the protocol and process that had gone on for

some years. and, in fact, it used to be they only kept them for one month and it was increased to six months. that was the process three years ago. whatever e-mails were lost three years ago were not lost, they were lost then. nothing has been lost as far as i know since this investigation started. we have gone out of our way to protection all of the data and all of the documents. >> thank you. i have other questions, but my time has expired. thank you. >> you're an attorney and you talked about these documents having been missed, but at the period of june 29th, 2011, lois lerner is informed that some of the activities she's been associated with may have been involved with discriminatory practices. you're a yale lawyer. and you understand the situation in which there is a potential

for litigation. and the requirements that when there's potential for litigation that there is a record consistent with the recordkeeping responsibilities to retain the documents relevant to that. this occurred before the period we are looking at. if you were informed that somebody is holding your agency or you in particular as having potentially engaged in discriminatory practices, would you preserve the documents from that era? >> we have -- any time there's an investigation, any time there's an inquiry, we have litigation document hold policies and procedures. as i say, we've done our bev to protect every document for the last year and a half, almost two years now. and any time anyone raises a serious question about production of evidence, we go out of our way to protect it.

i don't know what the circumstances were three years ago. >> this was knowledge that it was discriminatory practices and she was informed that she was central to the potential that there were complaints about discriminatory practices on the part of the irs. would that be the kind of document that you would preserve? in anticipation of potential litigation? >> again, our protocol is if there's going to be an investigation, if there's a serious issue raised, we protect and preserve documents. as i've testified one of the things i asked earlier in this investigation is we need to have an e-mail system of record so that it would be easier to protect official records, preserve them and be much easier to search them. we should not have to spend $18 million answering straightforward questions about the documents. but that's the system we have. the constraints on the budget has been significant over the past few years.

going forward, we're looking, again, is there a way to get out of the late 20th century and into the early 21st century. we should have an e-mail system that's more searchable and a system of record. >> thank you. >> i think his question cuts right to the chase. she was on notice that there was a problem, and suddenly her computer crashes, but it's worse than that. the irs identified 82 custodians of information relevant to the investigation. now we know from mr. kane's testimony last week, up to 20 may have had computer hard drive crashes. so this is way beyond the 3% to 5% that the commissioner keeps citing. this is approaching 25% of the relevant people that they have identified have had computer problems and may not be able to get us the documents we need. i appreciate the gentleman's questioning. i'll recognize the gentle lady from illinois for her time. >> thank you, mr. chair. good morning, commissioner. on july 7th, 2014, you testified that since you were confirmed in

december of 2013, the irs has quote, probably provided 300,000 to 400,000 documents to congress. to date, how many pages of documents has the irs produced to congress in furtherance of the ongoing investigation about the irs' review of tax-exempt application? >> as i testified earlier, we produced 960,000 pages of tax writing committees redacted documents we produced 700,000 pages to this committee. >> i would imagine amassing a document production of this magnitude takes an extraordinary amount of time and money, as you talked about the money. >> yes, it's been a significant distraction. we spent, at last count, $18 million responding. we continue to produce documents. we hope shortly to be able to complete the production of redacted lois lerner e-mails to this committee, but in an area of declining resources, most of

it is done in our office of chief counsel. there are 500 fewer people than there were four years ago. so that's been a significant strain on our chief counsel's office. >> and how many employees have been involved in this process, and how many hours have been logged in to comply with all of these requests? to comply with congress? >> we have had over 250 employees at various times involved. over 120,000 hours devoted to it and we continue to work on the production of those documents. >> i understand that current agency staff, many of whom have other job responsibilities, have been tasked with complying with congressional document requests. is that correct? >> that's correct. our i.t. department has been asked for information. we have witnesses that are being interviewed as we go. as i have noted, the entire issue about the c-4 investigation and operations involves about 800 employees in the entire exempt organization.

only a portion of them working on this. we have 89,000 other hard working, dedicated employees working on matters of importance to the government and to taxpayers. >> the individuals working on this, they have had to put their i would imagine current workload aside? >> yes. particularly the lawyers, it's a problem for us because they have obligations to represent the agency in tax cases. they have an obligation to continue to work with treasury on the development of rules and regulations and procedures, so it is a constraint. >> thomas kane, the irs deputy associate chief counsel was interviewed by committee staff on july 17th, 2014. he said that the irs currently exists, quote, with an increased workload and reduced staff from where we were several years ago. we have taken these people from their day jobs. they have no replacements for them because there are no replacements. so we have pulled together people from all parts of the

organization to contribute to the project, again, on a full-time basis, but there is no one to backfill the work that continues to exist and pile up. and that is particularly critical when you're dealing with people in the field that ordinarily trying cases at deadlines. that type of staffing commitment and resource commitment has been a drain on the entire office of the chief counsel. commissioner, would you agree with mr. kane's assessment of the investigation's impact on your agency's workload? >> i would. >> also, he was asked about the impact that chairman issa's subpoena for his testimony had on the morale of his team. he said that his employees have been working tirelessly to help the irs comply with congress who were, quote, visibly impacted in a very negative way. commissioner, i would like to give you an opportunity to address any concerns you may have about the impact the various congressional

investigations are having on your agency's morale and ability to perform its core functions. >> as mr. kane apparently noted, we have a large number of people who have day jobs who have been in part or totally devoted to this who have been trying to be responsive. when they then are subject to depositions and recorded interviews it sends -- these are all career people -- it has an effect on morale because they thought they were actually doing what they were asked to do. they were trying to provide information. most of them had never had a deposition of theirs taken. they haven't spent six, eight hours under cross-examination. so for everybody else who is working on this project, they are now looking over their shoulder wondering, am i going to get called up next and all they've been doing is producing documents. >> okay. thank you. thank you for your time. >> sitting here listening to

some questions that the chairman asked you, and i'm convinced that you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. this is what i'm talking about. the ig, appointed by a republican, asked you not to engage in -- i don't want to take words out of your mouth, but what did the ig ask you not to do? >> not to do any further investigations or interviews or discussions with witness -- with employees about anything having to do with hard drive crash, any other hard drive crashes while they did their investigation. >> and then the chairman went on to say that he didn't tell you that this committee was under

the same restrictions. that's accurate, right? he didn't tell you -- the ig didn't say to you, the committee -- what i'm telling you about your restrictions does not have anything to do with the committee. do you understand my question? >> yes. >> i'm going back to what the chairman said because i'm trying to figure out, how do you obey the law and obey the wishes of the ig? >> no, the question was, and i answered it, was that the ig didn't tell me that he was telling the committee -- giving any instruction to the committee. the only conversation i had with the committee was when he told me about the existence of the backup case and asked us not to do any further questioning about that. he said he had provided that information to the investigative committee and asked them to treat it confidentially while his investigation was going on.

>> so if something came up now where we contacted you and said we want to meet with experts in the irs because we think that this committee thinks that person has something relevant to our investigation, is there any way that you would treat that differently now than you would have if you'd never had the conversation with the ig? do you know what i'm saying? >> actually, we have tried to be responsive as best we can to the wide range of requests we have. we have six investigations and a number of requests coming in and requests for interviews. we have tried with more success in some areas than others to try to figure out what the priorities are so we can do it in the right order, which is that my hearing in march we agreed the next priority after we completed the determination issue was to provide all the

lois lerner e-mails we had. we had a long discussion back and forth, committed that would be our next priority. we're getting close to completing that. >> i guess what i'm getting at is that you wouldn't -- i assume you wouldn't have a discussion with based upon what the ig told you, you wouldn't have a discussion with an employee of the irs now because the ig told you not to? >> that's correct. so when we've had witnesses coming to testify, and give depositions here in ways & means, we've got talked to them beforehand. they've simply come up. we don't feel that we want to do anything that would interfere with the ig's investigation or this committee's investigation. so people have come up, to the extent they've been interviewed, they've done that on their own without any conversations with me. >> the gentle lady asked about morale at the irs. the irs is kind of a tough position because nobody seems to like the irs.

on the other hand if you don't get revenue, you got a problem. we have a problem as a nation. but when you think about the reduction in employees, and based upon what mr. kane said that the gentle lady just read, it seems like something has to give. i'm just curious as to what's giving. you follow what i'm saying? in other words, if you have based upon what mr. kane said, you're pulling people from different areas to do certain things. you said some of them have to -- have court responsibilities and deadlines. the point is something has got to give. something. >> right. >> and can you tell us what we're losing? >> well what has to give is obviously we have 10,000 fewer employees than we had 4 years ago. we have 500 fewer in the office of chief counsel. so what happens is people either have to spend a lot longer working.

at some point you run out of things you can do. we have done our best and taking people around the agency, particularly around chief counsel, and put them on the production effort. to do that means that work they would have done otherwise doesn't get done because we have no capacity to add more people or hire more people. we're only replacing 1 in every 5 people who leave the agency. we continue to shrink rather than expand. so we haven't complained about it. we simply produced documents as fast as we can. we've explained our biggest problem and obstacle is we have this arcane, archaic system to search each hard drive to pull out data to get into a search machine, which we'd like to change going forward. it does mean in the office of chief counsel you put them under more stress. it makes it more difficult for the other ongoing day jobs they have. my concern more importantly is over the course of certainly the

3 1/2 years i have left, we'll have other issues. and as we ask people to do productions and just respond to congressional inquiries, if they become subjects of depositions and cross-examinations, it's going to be harder to get people to decide they want to leave their day job and help us respond to congress. that's our only broader concern but, again, we think it's appropriate and we're happy to cooperate with the committee as best we can. >> thank you. >> i'll just make one point. the witness testified that they don't talk about this issue and prepare and discuss and prep for it. that's just not accurate. we interviewed mr. orsler yesterday. he told us specifically that when steve came and briefed the ways & means committee, there was prep sessions done for him to get ready to come in front of august. to portray it like you aren't talking about this as you bring people before congress is not accurate. regarding the morale issue, if the irs would have been willing to let tom kane come and be interviewed, we wouldn't have

had to issue the subpoena. one thing that impacts morale is when you get a subpoena. but that's your cause. you caused the subpoena. we didn't. we tried for weeks to get mr. kane to come and be interviewed. you guys said no, can't do it. we had to issue the subpoena and got all kinds of information that contradicts testimony you've given in front of congress. so that's the issue. we're talking about morale, you could have helped morale. of the very employees you represent, if you'd let him be interviewed by us. >> mr. chairman -- >> yep. >> we actually agree, subpoenas sound different, but when they come for an interview, it's still under oath and it's still a transcribed interview and looks just like a deposition. that's, for people who have never done it before, a concern. they get nervous. >> and my point is by you making it so we had to subpoena that that only adds to the anxiety of the employee. so that's your creation on your employees, not ours. >> that's why we're delighted to work out with you a schedule where there won't be subpoenas but people -- >> we appreciate that. but it took a subpoena to get that rolling. the gentleman from south carolina is recognized.

oh, i'm sorry. >> wait a minute. i just asked you for one -- because we have a tendency to ask questions and not let him answers. i just want to understand this. i think it's to the benefit of the entire committee. why did mr. kane have to be subpoenaed? why is that? >> because we tried -- >> i didn't ask you. >> i didn't know who you were asking. >> i'm asking him. >> that's fine. >> thank you. >> we were in the process of discussing the production of witnesses. as i say, we're concerned about interfering with the ig's investigation. while we were doing that, as the chairman said, then mr. kane got a subpoena, which did, "a" allow him to appear without any further adieu and didn't allow us to basically have a conversation about setting up a production schedule of witnesses. so the chairman is right. we were in the process of trying to do this, but i would say we take some responsibility for the fact you had to do a subpoena.

i would agree with you. >> you take all of it. we asked -- mr. kane told during his deposition, because he had to be subpoenaed, he told committee staff that he wasn't even notified by you, mr. koskinen, or whoever, that we requested an interview. he didn't even know that. all he knew is he got the subpoena. you didn't even tell him we were trying to interview him. that's what he told us in the deposition last thursday. so it's not -- it's all on you. you're the reason we had to subpoena the individual to get his testimony. >> he eventually came voluntarily, is that right? >> yeah. >> all right. >> after he hired private counsel after he was sent the subpoena. the gentleman from south carolina is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's good to see you again, commissioner. i want to read a quote to you of june of 2014. i want you to tell me if you okay? "we confirm the backup tapes from 2011 no longer existed because they had been recycled

pursuant to the irs normal policy." do you know who said that? >> sounds like me. >> it is you. can you tell us what "we" is in the quote? >> the "we" is the irs. i tend to take responsibility for the agency and talk about it. i was advised that people had talked to everyone in the agency to ensure that during the course of several months of looking for -- >> so we is the royal we, speaking on behalf of the entire irs. how about the word confirmed? what does the word confirmed mean to you? that you confirmed the backup tapes no longer exist? >> when i read that, i asked the question and was told -- >> by whom? >> i don't remember. we had four or five people who were working on the report. and was told, i gather mr. kane said in his testimony that that was accurate as of june 13th. >> what does confirmed mean to you.

>> that somebody went back and looked and made sure that in fact, all -- any backup tapes that had existed had been recycled. >> are you still confirmed? >> at this point i have no basis for not being confirmed. i do understand the ig advised me that they were looking at tapes. i have not been advised as to whether any of those tapes -- >> confirmed is a pretty strong word, commissioner. are you still confirmed that no backup tapes exist? >> well, at this point, i know the ig is looking, he hasn't found anything. >> i'm glad you mentioned the ig. i find this confounding, i find this vexing that once the ig is involved, nobody else can do anything. that is not supported by the law. can there be a criminal investigation while there's an ig investigation? >> there can be all sorts of investigations. >> then there can be a congressional investigation while there's an ongoing ig investigation, also, correct? >> of course. >> there can be an irs

investigation. if there were sexual harassment, or discrimination in the workplace, are you telling this committee that you would wait until the ig investigated it before you would stop some insidious practice? >> we could take whatever action is necessary. >> precisely. you would not wait until an ig concluded his or her investigation. >> can i answer that question? >> sure. >> our policy, and i have been -- my understanding when i chaired the counsel of inspector general across the government if the ig starts an investigation, the agency will not themselves run a competing investigation to try to get there first. basically the ig advises us what the investigations are. when they advise us about those investigations, we allow them to proceed. >> let me give you possibly an alternative view, commissioner, which is that people cite ongoing ig investigations when it suits them to not cooperate, and they don't cite ongoing ig investigations when it doesn't suit them. >> that's not my policy.

>> you can certainly understand how a cynic might view it that way, right? because there's nothing about an ongoing ig investigation to keep you from doing your job. just like there's nothing about an ongoing ig investigation that keeps the department of justice from a criminal investigation. or a committee of congress from a criminal investigation. there's nothing talismanic about an ig investigation. >> this particular case as a general matter, my policy has been if the ig is doing an investigation wherever i am, we won't interfere with that investigation. we want it to be independent. >> words have consequences, mr. koskinen. nobody is asking you to interfere. you can have a dual investigation without interfering, can't you? >> i think it's very difficult. >> so you are saying if there was an allegation of sexual harassment or racial discrimination within the irs, you would not look into that until the ig had completed his or her investigation? is that what you're telling me?

>> i am not telling you that. i'm telling you as a general matter, that's not what the ig would be investigating. as a general matter, those claims would come to personnel, they would be immediately investigated by our legal department. >> the ig doesn't have criminal jurisdiction, jurisdiction over legislative policy. the ig doesn't have jurisdiction over appropriations. all three of those are very important areas. so those should be ongoing even while an ig is doing the investigation. correct? >> the ig does do criminal investigations. >> no, sir, they refer to an entity that actually has power to indict, which does not include the ig. >> they actually -- my understanding, like our criminal -- >> you should go -- it might be the same people who gave you the understanding that you were confirmed that the tapes don't exist. so my advice is to be very careful who you take your advice from. i'm going to say this in conclusion, mr. koskinen, i really could not believe the colloquy you had with one of our colleagues about the morale at the irs. it takes a lot to stun me but that stunned me. here's a piece of advice i will

give. if the folks like lois lerner and others would have spent more time working on the backlog, more time working on their case load and less time targeting groups and less time trying to overturn supreme court decisions they didn't agree with, maybe morale would be better. and maybe their backlogs would be lessened. >> would the gentleman yield? >> i'd be thrilled to. >> commissioner, i want to maybe summarize what the gentleman was asking you with a question. do you have full faith and trust that your ig is doing a thorough investigation at the same level as would be done if you were doing it as the commissioner? >> i do. i said earlier, i have a lot of confidence in the inspector general. they have far more capacity in some of these areas. they have 15 people working on this. i'm very comfortable and confident that they are doing a thorough job, and i have told them we'll do whatever -- >> so at least as to your own

investigation, you consider the ig's investigation to be your investigation? >> i do not. we do not control the ig. he's very independent. he's doing an independent investigation of all of this. i am satisfied that when he gets done, we will have an independent review and investigation of what went on. >> thank you. >> gentleman from virginia. >> will the gentleman from virginia yield for one follow-up question? >> get time added --? the gentleman -- but if you'll yield, i'll allow some generous time. i've been very generous. >> i thank the chair. i want to follow up on the gentleman from south carolina's point. what you're just saying is that your belief is that it is wrong for you to do an investigation at the same time as an ig is doing an investigation. is that correct? >> as a general matter, if we were doing an investigation, it would interfere with -- >> so you're saying your

predecessors who did exactly that in 2012 were wrong? because when the ig started it, they did their own -- under sworn testimony, they did their own investigation. so what they did was not right. >> everybody has their own policy. i don't know what they did or didn't do. >> in your opinion, that would not be right? >> the ig -- >> i just want to show the hypocritical point there that it's not consistent with what irs has already done. >> my point only was it's consistent with how i have behaved in the past and how i will behave in the future. my view is ig is an important independent source of investigations. whenever the ig is doing an investigation, i think it's important to cooperate with it and not interfere with it. >> i thank the gentleman from virginia for yielding. i ask unanimous consent that all his time be restored. >> i thank my friend from north carolina and the chairman. welcome back, mr. koskinen. >> always a pleasure to be here. >> i can tell. must be a thrill and the

highlight of your week. i guess we're going to do this as long as we're in session. by the way, just sort of a side bar, i wish my friend from south carolina was still here because his concern for morale at the irs is really touching. and gosh, if we were really that serious about it maybe we wouldn't have slashed $800-something million from your budget in the last 4 years and recommended another $350 million this year. but that's a different matter. >> actually, you actually recommended another billion on top of the $350 million. so at this point we're a billion under water. >> yep. but the morale, we'll keep on flogging people until the morale is approved. that seems to be the philosophy of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle. already. i'm glad we're talking about the ig because i'm amazed that jay

russell george, would have thought it wise or prudent to completely omit from the may 14th final audit report any mention of a critical, and i think astonishing analysis that was conducted by head of investigations the weeks leading up to the release of the may 14th report. mr. chairman, without objection, i would like to enter into the record the conclusion of the deputy inspector general for inspections, which was sent in a may 3rd, 2013 e-mail to the principal deputy, ig michael phillips, acting deputy for audi, michael mckinney, mike mccarthy, for exempt organizations, and two employees whose names have been fully redakr redacted. it's just a one pager. this astounding e-mail concluded after obtaining and reviewing 5,500 irs e-mails from identified staff members of the

exempt organizations, division in cincinnati, that in addition to there being no e-mail directing staff to target tea party or other political organizations and no conspiracy or effort to hide e-mails about the director, and i quote, review of these e-mails revealed there was a lot of discussion on how to process the tea party and other political applications. there was a be on the lookout list specifically naming those groups. however, the e-mails indicated the organizations needed to be pulled because the irs employees were not sure how to process them. not because they wanted to stall the application. there was no indication, i'm still quoting, that pulling these selected applications was politically motivated. there were unclear processing directions and the group wanted guidance in processing the

applications, so they pulled them. this is, he says, a very important nuance, unquote. would you agree with that finding, mr. koskinen? >> sounds right to me. >> have you any idea why the inspector general would not include such a critical finding after all of the press compliantly giving the headline to my friends on the other side of the aisle every single time. tea party targeted. here's a critical piece of information, maybe even a smoking gun if we're looking for exoneration, from the head of investigations. why would that not be included in the may 14th final audit report? >> i have no idea. >> is it worthy of your time to ask that question, respecting the independence, of course, of the two offices? >> i would not ask the ig that question. he's done his report. he's done his investigation.

when they do investigations, they have any number of them going on. when they do the report, we agree most of the times. we sometimes disagree with process. we do that in the orderly request of responding to their report. >> mr. koskinen, here you are for the third time in front of this committee and probably not your last. and your reputation and that of your organization has been called into question with a charge that has unfortunately not been critically examined as often as i'd like by the media. despite our efforts on this side of the aisle. here is the head of investigations in your organization that says otherwise that directly challenges the propounded thought that only tea party and conservative groups are challenged and it was deliberate and it was targeted. he says otherwise, and it

doesn't put it in his final audit report. by the way, an inspector general who has been questioned by a number of us up here, and we have formally requested an investigation of his conduct before the counsel of ig. so he's under a cloud, himself. i heard my friend, the chairman, mr. jordan, question other employees of the irs because of their political giving. well, mr. george was a republican staff member on this committee. he's given political contributions to republican candidates. he's a bush appointee. he met solely with the republican side of the aisle in getting ready for his audit. that raises serious questions if sauce for the goose, it's sauce for the gander. about his independence. but this is a critical piece of information, it seems to me, and i can't imagine you could be

copesetic with its elimination from an audit report that's a critical audit report for your organization and, indeed, for your leadership. >> well, it's an interesting piece of information that obviously is useful for people to review. as i have said, he's i do have confidence in mr. george that he's independent. he is actually the treasury department for irs. and we have supported in the past. i think he is doing an independent review of all of this and i look forward to his response and findings about what happened with regard to the hard drive crash. >> well, how about his response to why he didn't include this important visit from his hold of investigations in the final audit report of may 14th? >> that's a question that i'm probably not going to ask him. >> i yield back, mr. chairman. >> i would just ask the gentleman.

which way do we want it? do we want it to say this committee can't get access to witnesses because there's an ongoing inspector generals investigation? the same time, we're waiting for the inspector general to do his work and the same time the work he did before where he identified the targeted group. seems to me he can't have it both ways. >> mr. chairman, there are a number of us who have been consistent in raising questions about the professionalism of mr. george. we have both filed a formal complaint. i'd be glad to share it with the chairman. >> with all due respect, then we should be advocating we get access to the witnesses. >> actually maybe a new inspector general is the answer. >> relative to the idea it was just mismanagement, 80% of the applicants in the backlog were filed by conservative groups, less than 7% by the liberal group. the "usa today" reported not

approve a single tax exempt application by a tea party group from february 2010 to may 2012. during the same time, they approved dozens of liberal and progressive groups. if it was mismanagement, it was mismanagement in a targeted way because none of the treatment to conservative groups was given to -- the same way to progressive groups. >> mr. chairman, i have a memo saying targeted is actually not accurate. i also have materials that were presented to irs. for training. that have elephants and donkeys. they have tea party. they have patriots. they have progressive. >> 298 cases in the irs backlog. only three had the word progressive. none used the word occupied. no progressive group was denied c-4 status. hundreds of tea party conservative groups were. some still waiting. some still waiting. just for the record.

>> well, i guess you and i could argue that all day, mr. chairman, and we need to get on this with hearing. and allow mr. koskinen to get back to his job. >> mr. koskinen, why june 13th? why that date? let me ask you this. why not february 2nd when you first learned there was a big gap and a bunch of e-mails that looked like they were missing? why not february 4th? when as mr. kane testified, and mr. koskinen, you know tom kane. >> i do know mr. kane. >> is mr. kane a solid lawyer, professional, good employee at the internal revenue service? >> certainly is. >> so why not february 4th when mr. kane, who testified just last thursday, said they knew her hard drive had crashed. why not tell us, look, we may have a problem. why not come and disclose that to someone on february 4th? how about this? how about mid-february when mr.

kane said last thursday that we know, we knew then in mid-february that the data on her computer was unrecoverable. why didn't you tell us in mid-february? how about march 26th? why not on march 26th when you were in front of this committee and everyone on both sides of the aisle asked you about lois lerner's e-mails and you assured us you would produce all her e-mails. yet you knew according to mr. kane's toaestimony, good professional employee, lawyer at the irs, you knew that mid-february her e-mails were unrecoverable. >> be careful note that's what mr. kane knew, that's not what i knew. >> well, that's a problem, too. that's something you should have known. mr. kane is a high ranking official in charge of documents. a lawyer. and you didn't know? >> i did not know. >> do you know kate duval? >> pardon? >> do you know a person named

kate duval? >> kate duval i do know. >> what is kate duval's responsibilities -- what's her title at the internal revenue service? >> she's counselor to the commissioner. >> she's counselor to you? >> yes. >> she's your lawyer? >> yes. >> she knew in mid-february. according to mr. kane's testimony. she didn't tell you? >> i have testified at some length at a couple hearings and i'm happy to stand by that testimony if you want to go over it again. basically what i've told you is in mid to late february i knew that we had taken the lois lerner e-mails that had been produced and instead of looking at them from -- >> not the point. tom kane said they were unrecoverable. he said he told kate duval. did she tell you they were unrecoverable? >> she did not tell me they were unrecoverable. >> that's a problem. why not -- why not tell us april 4th when miss duval briefs this committee, both republicans and

democrats staff members and the briefing was about how we would deal with how the irs was going to deal with committee requests for concerns about the lost, or excuse me, producing lois lerner's e-mails. why didn't you tell us april 4th? miss duval could have told the committee at that time. >> i have testified at some length in the past that and earlier today -- >> here's the question key question. let me jump in here a second. why not mid-april when you knew? in fact, let's put up the slide. this was a question we had earlier in one of our hearings. why not when you knew? what date did you learn you could not get all of he e-mail? i learned that in april. why not april? >> as i testified then, and i've testified on numerous occasions, my judgment was "a," we needed to find out what e-mails we did have. we needed to put it together in a full report which we did. and -- >> why not any time in april? someone at the irs told someone at treasury, who then told

someone at the white house. according to press reports. so if it was good enough to pass on the treasury in the white house, why not tell us some time in april? >> because i thought that at that point we did not have the full information as to what was involved, how many e-mails. >> you learned in april they were unrecoverable. your chief lawyer in charge of document production knew in mid-february they were unrecoverable. kate duval knew in mid-february they were unrecoverable and you wait until june 13th. why june 13th? >> first of all, i would note all the e-mails that would determine she had a hard drive clash or not, what she tried to do, e-mails provided to this committee and the tax writers knew as early as the fall she had had a hard drive crash. the materials were produced. the materials about the e-mail chain about her trying to restore her hard drive were produced to the tax writers in april and this me in may. there was no secret that we were hiding. we were processing -- >> no, no, you were given e-mails but didn't tell us there were e-mails you couldn't give us.

that's my question. why didn't you tell us you had -- irs had destroyed e-mails that belonged to lois lerner? why didn't you tell us that? >> it's not clear -- first of all, e-mails from mislerner may or may not have been lost. they were not destroyed by a conscious effort by the -- >> when backup tapes are destroyed, they're recycled. some point they're destroyed. why didn't you tell us you could not produce those e-mails, that they were lost in april? >> this hearing is noted to be an update on what we're doing. i have given you at least two different occasions t s -- >> okay. answer the question. why june 13th? why not june 12th? why not may 10? if you couldn't do it in april, why did you have to wait to more months? >> we're going to be here a long time if you want to repeat all the questions i answered in the 11 1/2 hours of hearing. >> you know what i think? >> let me answer this question. i've answered it before. aisle happy to answer it again. it is in the testimony i've given before that you all have read very closely. we were producing lois lerner

e-ma e-mails. our strategy and thoughts were, and i thought the most efficient way to proceed was to complete i production so we would know how many lois lerner e-mails we had from her account, how many e-mails we were able to retrieve from other accounts so you'd have a full idea what the universe was. i had hoped we'd find out how many other problems we had with custodians and produce all that as a report to the committees and a public report that would explain what our e-mail process is, why it's so applicante comp what we determined about lois lerner e-mails and crashes and it would be a full report. june 13th was a friday. i should have known friday the 13th was going to be an interesting day. we had an asked by the finance committee, considering trying to come to closure on their report, whether we would give them an update on our march letter in which we advised the tax writing committees that we completed the production of all of the information we had about the determination process which was the start of the investigation. that's what the ig was focused

on as you've just discussed. we said we would do that. they then called and we were going forward. we didn't know when. they then called and said they would like that report no later than that friday because day were going to have a meeting the following week. we pulled the document together at that point. we had not completed, as i noted earlier, the review of how many custodians were involved with hard drive crashes and what the impact were. we had no idea if you lost the hard drove, one of the custodians, in fact, one of the hard drive crashes was in february of this year, not very we relevant. we produced the document and shared it with everybody on friday june 13th to meet a request from the finance committee which was having a meeting the next week and wanted to consider whether they had enough information -- >> your testimony is the senate finance committee drove the timing of when you disclosed that you had lost lois pz lerner e-mails. >> yes. >> i think it's something different. i just do.

obviously you're going to disagree. but i think you were never going to tell us. you got to remember what happened here. judicial watch does an foia request. they learn on april 18th of this year the irs and department of justice had been working on possible ways to bring false claims action against tea party groups. and there was an e-mail from that foia request, mr. pilger, a lawyer, and miss lerner had an exchange in 2013 after a the senate hearing. we saw that e-mail. we said you know what, we're going to talk to mr. pilger, the raur at the justice department, who was meeting with ms. lerner just days before. so on may 6th we interview mr. pilger, and we learn, in mr. pilger's opening statement in that deposition, we learn this.

he said, turning -- i'm reading straight from mr. pilger's statement. "turning to my contacts with miss lerner in the fall of 2010." shocked us. we didn't know they were meeting clear back in 2010. that the justice department was meeting with the irs in the fall of 2010. clear back in 2010, that the justice department was meeting with the irs clear back in 2010. in the fall of 2010, at the direction of the chief of the public integrity section, jack smith, i contacted the internal revenue service. when i contacted them, they directed me to lois lerner. who met once at the public integrity section office with some of hr staff, my chief, jack smith, other personnel from my section, and the fbi. so now we learn in 2010 the justice department, with the fbi is meeting with lois lerner. and so we said, you know what? we better subpoena documents from the justice department. and we said to the justice department, we want any communications with lois lerner that you had. and we get this slide.

we get this e-mail. put this up if we can. we get this communication. from lois lerner and richard pilger. now, mr. koskinen, did you give us this -- did you give us this e-mail? do you know? >> i don't know. >> i can tell you, you didn't. we got it from the justice department. and after we got this from the justice department, we contacted you all on june 9th, and we said hey, how's come we didn't get this e-mail from you? there's no 6103 issue with this e-mail, so we were concerned. this is an e-mail from clear back in 2010. so we contacted you, mr. koskinen in the letter and said we're wondering why the irs hasn't sent us this e-mail from four years ago. and then suddenly, four days later, you tell the finance committee, the congress, more importantly, the american people, you know what?

we lost lois lerner e-mails. we've lost a bunch, from that time period. my theory is this, mr. koskinen, you guys weren't ever going to tell us until we caught you. we caught you because of the judicial watch did a foia request. they found out there was this collaboration going on between the justice depart and the irs. we took that e-mail, interviewed mr. pilger. mr. pilger told us he met with lois lerner in 20 110. we then subpoenaed justice. they complied. we contacted you and said, why didn't you give it to us, and then you knew you were caught. you didn't tell us this, but we knew, we didn't give it to you because we don't got it. now we have to tell the whole world we lost them. and what better time to do it than friday june 13th, saying we're complying with some senate concern. send in a letter, put it on page seven of the third addendum, and say, you know what? we may have a problem with lois lerner e-mails. >> good.

>> that's what i think. i think all kinds of people logically going through this would say that's what prompted these guys. four days after they get a letter from this committee saying, why didn't you send us these e-mails? you decide, well, we better come clean. plus, you already told us you knew clear back in april that you lost them. so you wait two months, and then you say, well, we better do it june 13th, just 4 days after they figured out justice and the irs were working together in 2010. and they got an e-mail that indicates that, and we can't produce it. >> when you find any direct evidence to support that assertion, i'd be happy to see it. if you think that this organization in four days could produce that report, you don't understand how larger organizations function. you can ask anybody who worked on that report. there's a whole series of people. that report was under production for a long time. >> i'm not saying it wasn't. i'm saying, though, including the statement we lost lois lerner e-mails was put in that

report. >> it was put in that report and it was in that report -- >> one thing i've learned in these investigations, it's always important to look at the timeline. >> look a the timeline. >> look at the timeline. you knew in april. you didn't tell us until june 13th. what happened between april when you knew and june 13? one key event was the foia request from judicial watch, finding this collaboration between the irs and the justice department, us getting that e-mail because we subpoenaed the justice department. they give it to us, it's in the relevant timeframe, 2010 to 2012 when you lost lois lerner e-mails and suddenly you say, they got us. we got to come clean. >> mr. chairman. >> can i respond? that's a fairly serious charge. there were a whole set of seen wror staff people in the committee who will -- and if you find any evidence to anybody that worked on that report in terms of the timing of it, the fact that we were otherwise not going to deliver it, i will not be only surprised, i will be astounded because there is no such

evidence. and it seems to me, i've been very patient about all this. before you make that kind of charge and claim, you better have better evidence than a single e-mail dated june the 9th. >> we have other e-mails. >> if you'll yield for one moment. i know the chairman. a lot has been said about what thomas kane has said. well, last week, thomas kane told our staffs that the irs always intended to alert us about ms. lerner's lost e-mails, so, you know, i any you have all these theories. unfortunately, our committee has been one where we put out these headlines, and then we go chasing facts that in many instances never exist. i'm just saying, include everything when you're asking the question. >> great point. all i'm saying is this. they get a letter from us on june 9th where they know we now have this e-mail from the justice department that they can't produce. four days later, they tell the world, we've lost lois lerner

e-mails. when they knew that, according to plchl koskinen's testimony in questioning from me that he knew in april they couldn't get ms. lerner's e-mails. so they waited two months, and then when they decided to tell us four days after, on a friday, four days after we knew there were e-mails we were getting from justice that we weren't getting from the internal revenue service. all i'm saying is that timing is pretty suspect, particularly in light of the fact all the other things we've heard from the irs. one computer crash, seven, eight, maybe up to 20. we can confirm there were no backup tapes available. we can confirm that. there may be one available. when you look at the timeline, it looks pretty suspect. all i'm saying is i'm not sure they were going to tell us. >> chairman, will the chairman yield? mr. chairman, you've -- this has been very interesting because, one member on wyour side, the gentleman, i don't know his name, said to man was under

investigation, and i heard -- i was in that entire hearing and he never said that. by the way, the justice department never said that. then, you, mr. chairman have voiced, made some strong accusations. and when you make these kind of accusations, i would appreciate it if you would give the witness an opportunity to answer. because these are the kind of allegations that tarnish one's reputation and you, you come up with this theory, and i'm not saying your theory is, you know, your theory is what it is. but he ought to be able to answer, please. that's all i'm asking. >> appreciate the ranking member. >> as i said, i haven't seen mr. kane's testimony, but it doesn't surprise me that he would say that we had been producing this report for some time and clearly

planned on making it public. you can talk to people. we'd be happy to give you those contacts, the people we talked to at finance who, in fact, had a meeting the following week had asked us for an update that we did provide. they asked for it no later than that friday. i am confident and very confident that no one working on this report had any idea about it other than we were going to reduce it and provide all of the information to the public. i think any other assumption is not based -- >> are you willing to make those witnesses available? or are you going to make us subpoena them so they can come here under oath and testify that yes, in fact, we, from mid-april when the commissioner knew that lois lerner e-mails were lost, we were planning on telling the congress as soon as we got all of the information. they'll come and testify to that? or will they come and testify, you know what, after the june 9th letter we decided we better put in the information that we lost lois lerner e-mails. >> i don't think you'll find

anyone who will make that latter. >> are you willing to tell us who they are? >> we're happy to talk to you. >> you've already talked to system some of them, and you have others on your schedule. >> gentleman from nevada is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, i do share concerns by some of my colleagues on the other side about why the irs delayed in providing congress with notification regarding the unrecoverable e-mails. because it raises questions. i don't share in the chairman or other members' conspiracy and rush to judgment about any motives as to why there was a

delay. and i feel, again, as i've said in previous meetings, that we fail to get all the facts in order to then make a proper decision. i'm not a defender of the irs or any other federal agency. i've said from the beginning that i believe that there was wrongdoing. but the chairman and others want to conclude or make conclusions about that wrongdoing without justification or evidence to support their assertion. now mr. chairman, you just read into the record some comments by mr. pilger that i had asked to be entered into the record, the full transcripts, so i'm going to ask, again for unanimous consent that the transcribed

interview opening statements of doj officials richard pilger and jack smith be allowed to be entered into the record, particularly since you just handpicked certain statements, and i'm requesting the full transskicript be entered. will the it chairman please provide that courtesy for this to be entered into the record under unanimous consent? >> if the gentleman will yield for just a second. i read from the opening statement that -- >> that's what this is. >> if you're just asking for the opening statement, not the full questions from democrat staff, republican staff, but just the opening statement from mr. pilger and mr. smith, we'd be happy to do that. >> thank you. >> all right. >> i also want to follow up to some of the claims that have been made by my republican colleagues and give you an opportunity to respond. it has now been stated twice

today that mr. kane testified during his july 17th interview that in mid-february, 2014, the irs realized that lois lerner's e-mails would not be recoverable. i want to clarify here, becau lois lerner's e-mails would not be rekovble. it is true that mr. cane told us he had discovered that ms. learner's hard drive had crashed. however, that does not mean that mr. cain said that he thought in february, 2014, that the irs would never be able to produce those e-mails to congress. in fact, mr. cain was asked, "and as of march, 2014, you were not aware that the irs would be unable to recover all of ms. lerner's documents. and he answered, "that's

correct." you further explained that the irs was in an extensive process to find ms. lerner's e-mails from other sources at the irs. and, in fact, those efforts were successful and yielded an additional 24,000 lois lerner e-mails. is that correct? >> that is correct. >> with respect to the document productions to congress was to fully comply with those requests as expeditiously as possible. he stated with respect to fulfilling that goal, and i quote, i have tried my best and everyone that i work with have tried their best. commissioner coscan, do you share that belief that every effort was made to provide this committee and others with those e-mails that you were able to recover. >> i do.

>> and beyond the issue of failing to notify us in a timely manner, then the question becomes what can be made of why that time line was delayed. >> right. and, as i've said, first of all, all of the e-mails in question had been provided in the normal course to this committee and the other investigators. so there was no attempt to not produce information that showed that, in fact, there had been a problem with lois spszlerner's drive. in the fall productions there are e-mails from lois lerner saying she had problems with her hard drive and had lost e-mails. everybody then, appropriately, were looking at subject matter. as we were working in april and may pulling all the information together trying to determine how many e-mails wel actually had, e weren't producing e-mails as a regular matter and the previous

report had all been provided to all of the investigators. >> thank you. >> the gentleman's time is now expired. >> thank you. commissioner, i really wish we had your i.t. guys here instead because it is inherently a little hard when we're asking so many questions that are not related to your passed experience. i appreciate your volunteer to come up. hopefully, as we interview some of your i.t. professionals and others involved it will make it easier to drekt questions. but a lot has been done to talk about this. a drive this large that went so bad that not a single piece of information could be saved. you've asked us to believe that your very special experts could

not save one piece of data from this drive -- or one just like it. correct? >> that's what i was advised, yes. and that's what the e-mail strain produced and i've testified about says. >> the american people don't believe that. you realize the idea that we could recover the last 17 or 18 seconds from challenger exploding above our atmosphere falling to the sea and being left under the sea for a year that we could recover the voice from that makes people wonder why a product that simply came in and out of the office with lois lerner every day, suddenly, not one piece of data couldn't be recovered. it doesn't surprise you that the american people have a hard time believing that. >> i do understand that when our criminal investigation division, which oare experts at extractin

information say they could not recover any e-mails. it seems remote. but i understand o people saying if you kept trying -- >> do you think it's reasonable for us to check with your criminal investigation people? interview people involved to see if that passes the reality check, inspite of what the american people may think or the doubts that they may have. do you think it's fair for us to check in that. >> yes. in fact, those interviews are being scheduled, i think, in fact, some of them being gathered from the ways and me s means. >> so it's fair for us to do an interview in oorder to bring the credibility that we bring as, if you will, a doubting thomas to the process? >> yes, i've never had any concern and objection to the oversight. as i said, sent four years on the government of operations oversite.

i'm a big believer in con dwre congressional oversight. >> one of the things that was not made available early on was ocs. this chat capability within the irs' network. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and you wrote me back a letter when i asked about it. and in the letter, it said, basically, that no records were kept because it was the equivalent of visits or phone calls. do you remember that in the letter? >> yes. >> unless you can train and guarantee that no policy decisions, none of the kinds of activities we're discovering in e-mail could be done on oc zrs t

you should turn on that switch. we investigated the minimal management service. and what we discovered there was that they had systematically sign signed leases that were simply wrong. so after we deposed people repeatedly, we finally discovered that they all admitted that only the cover sheet was brought to them. that they signed or initialled and they never read the leases. so one mistake was passed through multiple signatures. but, more importantly, as we went through the process, what we discovered was at minimal management service, a now defungt and disgraced organization, they had a policy of what they call talking over the transom.

lawyers made no memos for the record. lawyers went outs of their way to have no paper trail. activities or anything by government that allow the use of something that clearly bypasses future oversights.

so i hope today that you'll recognize that your letter is not acceptable. an e-mail is a substitute for a visit. it's a substitute for a phone call. and in fact, the reason those are important is the phone call and the visit, in the old days, you would have done a memo for the record if, in fact, you wanted to do your job. that isn't being done. e-mails and these chats are extremely important. i'd like to have a second round at some time, but i would yield back at this time. >> mr. chairman, i have a point of information. yesterday, chairman informed committee members he'll be holding another hearing on this topic next wednesday.

we have the notice. at this time, they haven't sent anything out. >> this chair will now recognize the gentleman from michigan for five minutes. thank you very much, mr. chairman. if any of my constituents were not as fourth coming as the irs, there would be a presumption of guilt, they would be fine d and have their wages garnished and/or liens on their homes. when i go back to the district, i had the opportunity to talk to many