going to come after this. i believe it was a mistake to release them and it did not serve our national interest in any way. >> thank you for being here. the committee is adjourned. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] in

>> john kerry is in egypt, part of a weeklong trip to the middle the neweting with egyptian president. secretary kerry is the highest-ranking u.s. official to meet with the egyptian president since his inauguration. they talked about the situation in iraq and the future of egypt. secretary kerry voice support for egypt and spoke of the need for the country to make economic and political reforms. incoming house majority leader, kevin mccarthy, was on fox news sunday. he replaces eric cantor at the end of july as house majority leader. here is some of what he said about his new role. >> i believe you can work with anybody. the challenge has been harry reid. there are more than 240 bills that have passed the house that have not been brought up inside the senate. want to know the problem in washington?

the senate has not moved anything. they never send something to the president's desk. how do you negotiate without a bill on the desk? we are going to the appropriations process right now. offeredackson lee has 29 amendments out of appropriation bills. 20 more than the caucus of republicans inside the senate has been a virtual -- been able to offer for the last year. what is the hold up? harry reid in the senate. if that changes in november it will be a new direction for america. on the legislative question tomorrow on capitol hill the house returns at noon for general speeches. legislative business starts at 2:00. members will move on to debate a bill to reauthorize the commodity futures trading commission. the senate is in a 2:00 for general speeches. at 5:30 votes on for general judge nominations. you can watch the house live here on c-span and the senate on

c-span two. >> and aft on freedom of transparency for information. i think my colleagues would give a similar grade, liberal or conservative. the freedom of information process is a joke. it was well on his way prior to the obama administration, but this administration has perfected the redacted excuses. it is shocking, i feel very strongly that the information that they withhold and protect ,any times along to the public we own it, but there is no sense of that when we asked were. a coveted like they are a private corporation defending their trade secrets rather than understanding that what they hold is a private matter on our behalf. atcheryl atkinson, tonight 8:00 on "q&a." >> next, the irs commissioner

and his testimony before the house ways and means committee. he talked about the ongoing investigation into the alleged targeting of conservative and a computer crash that led to the loss of e-mails a virus officials. this portion of the hearing runs one hour and 45 minutes.

irs, was a targeting conservatives for the belief? wasn't asking groups inappropriate questions? was it harassing conservative donors? the irs assured this committee and even testified before congress time and time again that no targeting was occurring. then as we all recall one year ago when a signature new stuff, then head of exempt organizations at the irs lois lerner admitted to the american people that the irs targeted conservative organizations. the irs lied to congress and the american people. in fact, this committee has found there's ample evidence to suggest the irs violated constitutional rights of taxpayers. as of today the investigation into the irs intentional organize targeting of americans for the belize has been ongoing for over a year. what we have found so far is outrageous. the i arrest spent over three

years responding to top democrat complaints and calls to action to stop all activities of conservative groups. the i arrest in washington, d.c. took their marching orders and subjected americans to harassment going so far as to question the content of their prayers and their political beliefs while subjecting them to audits and making a personal taxpayer information. when the scandal first broke out the president vowed that his administration would work adequate hand-in-hand with congress to get this thing fixed, end quote. and the spring commissioner koskinen can you said your goal was to quote find problems quickly, fix them probably to make sure they stay fixed and be transparent about the entire process, end quote. well, since my time in congress i've never seen and i arrest so broken. late last friday the irs admitted to congress that the agency had lost over two years worth of lois lerner e-mails and blame the loss on a computer crash.

my committee staff later learned in an interview that it wasn't only ms. lerner's e-mails, e-mails of six other individuals relevant to this investigation including the former acting commissioner chief of staff. and just two days ago we found out the irs and white house have known for months and kept it secret from congress. this is not the most open and transparent administration the president promised. this is about as far as you can get from getting this thing fixed. now, what does this really mean? it means the irs has claimed that ms. lerner's hard drive is really unrecoverable, the public will never know the full extent of the abuse of americans for exercising their first amendment rights. let me give you an example. ms. lerner told to do investigative she first learned about the two-party targeting in july of 2011. that wasn't true. instead were 2011 ms. linda told subordinates by e-mail quote tea party matter dangers come into

court and discuss ways to deny the applications. we only have this e-mail because they came from another employees in box. had ms. lerner e-mailed this to the treasury department or justice, for example, it would be gone for ever according to the irs. we are missing a huge piece of the puzzle. the years between 2009-2011 are the very peak of an irs organize and gentlemen it's targeting schemes. how convenient for the irs and the administration. i find it hard to believe that i don't believe they either as through every possible exercise to recover these documents. we are missing the e-mails of seven irs officials during periods critical to this investigation. how is this possible? making matters worse the irs kept all this secret while informing political set in the administration account all the of destruction either this congress and the american people cannot take the irs at its word.

one thing is for certain. you can blame it on a technical glitch. it is not a technical glitch to mislead the america the america. usage of lost e-mails of what you've lost is all credibility. the irs is in charge of hundreds of millions of taxpayers information. and you are now saying your technology system was so poor that years worth of e-mails are for ever unrecoverable. how does that put anyone at these? how far would the excuse of i lost it did with the irs for an average american tried to file their yearly taxes and have lost a few receipts? oddly enough, this seems a satisfactory answer for the attorney general. as far as i can tell this administration has done nothing to investigate what truly happened, not withstanding this committee sending the department of justice a detailed referral letter of nearly 100 pages. they have repeatedly tried to keep this under a rug and quote

-- never looking for the facts. the american people have no reason to trust the irs or frankly the administration on this issue. to wait years to reveal the fact the arrest was targeting the american people and then wait months to reveal your conveniently missing years of documents. it's know what i've heard the word cover-up thrown about a lot this week at the time for denial, delay, obstruction and intense to -- attempt to blow this off is over. this committee is set up and we expect some answers. not only from the irs but the whole administration but it's time we restore the american people's trust in the government but i fear with recent events that may not be possible. and now, mr. levin, i recognize you for an opening statement. >> thank you. on september 11, 2013, internal revenue service provided this committee with one of the 770,000 pages of documents it

has turned over since ways and means undertook its investigation into the irs in may 2013. in total, more than 250 irs employees has spent over 120,000 hours working to produce documents at a cost of at least $16 million to taxpayers. that document received a lot of september, last september, included an e-mail from lois lerner to other irs personnel dated june 14, 2011. it began, my computer crashed yesterday. we now know the full extent of that equipment failure. despite an exhaustive effort by forensic i.t. professionals at

the irs, they were unable to save her hard drive, and are e-mails between january 1, 2009, and april 2011. although her e-mails from june 1, 2009, through april 2011 our unrecoverable from her hard drive, the irs will produce 67,000 e-mails related to lois lerner. the irs has or will be producing 24,000 e-mails that have been recovered from the carried before her computer crashed. they recovered these e-mails from other irs employees. that is on top of more than 43,000 e-mails involving ms. lerner after april 2011 that have already been produced. there is absolutely no evidence,

absolutely no evidence to show that ms. lerner's computer crash was anything more than equipment failure. at the time of the incident in june 2011, irs computer experts reviewed the issue and inform lois lerner that, and i quote, unfortunately, the news is not good. the sectors on the hard drive were bad which made your data unrecoverable, and quote. -- end of quote. was your computer crash a conspiracy? no. was the internal revenue service's system for backing up the system entirely underfunded and wholly deficient? clearly, yes. in fact, congress has cut the irs budget for operations, which includes what it spends on computers and other information

technology every year for the last five years. house republicans are proposing to slash it once again next year. commissioner koskinen, whom we welcome here today, has informed this committee that the irs has $1 billion worth of computer equipment, and that the agency should be spending $150 million, to $209 on maintenance for that equipment. instead, the agency spends virtually nothing because he cannot afford to properly maintain what it has. it is important to remember that e-mails were routinely lost during the bush administration. in one instance in 2007, according to report by democrats on the oversight and government reform committee, the bush white house acknowledged having lost nearly 5 million e-mails between

march 2003 and october 2005, related to allegations of the politically motivated dismissal of u.s. attorneys. lost data under the bush administration, coupled with a number of computer crashes at the irs, clearly demonstrate the need for government agencies to have adequate budgets to invest, upgrade and maintain information technology. my colleague's on the other side of the aisle have taken this opportunity to rehash well-worn allegation, allegations of white house involvement. allegations that republicans have made from the very moment the inspector general released his report more than a year ago. on the day the report was released, before a congressional investigation into the issue had even begun, chairman issa

accused the white house of him in quote, targeting his political enemies. three days later, our chairman, mr. camp, in your opening statement during the first hearing on this matter, you accused the white house of a culture of cover-up. congressional republicans are so determined to find a needle in the haystack that they seek desperately to add to the haystack, even though no needle has been discovered. it was in that vein that chairman camp this week said that this entire case started with the white house, and sent a letter to the president requesting all correspondence between lois lerner and the executive office of the president between january 2009 and may 2011, the period before ms. lerner's hard drive crashed. the white house has conducted a search, and what have they found? there was not a single e-mail

correspondent sent to or from ms. lerner and the white house. this committee has been involved in this investigation for over a year. here is what we have learned. the 501(c)(4) applications of both conservative and progressive groups were inappropriately screened. they were long delays in processing applications. there was serious mismanagement, and i was among the very first to call for ms. lerner and then commissioner miller to be relieved of their duties. in all of the 770,000 pages of documents that the irs has supplied congressional committees, including ours, there has not been any evidence of political motivation or of white house involvement. now there have been computer

failures at the irs, and republicans, conspiracy theories have started a new. the evidence today reinforces this long evident truth, the prevailing conspiracy in this matter is that of the republicans desire to stir their base, tied the problem to the white house, and keep up this drumbeat until the november election. i'm glad that you, commissioner koskinen, is here with us today to set the record straight. we are glad you are here. you started at the irs last december, after distinguished career in the public and private sectors. at omb, at freddie mac, as the chair of president clinton's y2k computer consult. so again we welcome your

testimony. we are glad you are here. we look forward to your testimony to set the record straight. >> all right, thank you. if i recognize commissioner koskinen, for his opening statement i asked him to stand to be sworn in. commissioner koskinen, please raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god? >> i do. >> let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. thank you. commissioner koskinen, thank you for being with us today. you will have five minutes to present your testimony with your full written statement said it for the record. you are now recognized for five minutes. [inaudible] >> chairman camp, ranking member levin, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to provide you with an update on recent irs document productions to congress. the irs has over the past year made a nasty document production

in response to inquiries from congress. in march the irs advised of this committee and the senate finance committee that we completed the production of documents them identified as linked to the investigation of the processing and review of applications for tax exempt status as described in the may 2013 report from the treasury inspector general for tax administration known as tigta. the production efforts included 11,000 e-mails from lois lerner former director of the irs exemplary fashion a cent or decisions division. this committee has noted they've now received more than 770,000 pages of unredacted micheel. we are sending another production to you later today, additional lois lerner e-mails but you already have more than 25,000 e-mails from ms. lerner's computer account and more than 5000 e-mails from other custodians accounts for which wh ms. lerner wasn't also a recipient. the irs expects as noted earlier in my conversation with you to complete its production of the

remaining lerner e-mails to this committee by the end of the month. at that time you have all of the e-mails, 43,000 of them, that we have for ms. lummis computer and e-mail account for the period january 2009-may 2013. in addition is no do you have 24,000 lerner e-mails from other custodians accounts during the period that her hard drive was crashed come for a total of 67,000 lerner in this. in the course of respond to congressional requests the irs in february reviewed the e-mail available on ms. lummis custodial computer accounts with and a limited element of a search template worked out with investigators and identify the possibility of an issue because the date this tradition of e-mail was uneven. it was not within whether lerner e-mails were overlooked, missing, or at other technical issues involved. irs information technology professionals identify documents that indicated ms. lerner had experienced a computer failure in 2011 as congressman levin

noted. some of those e-mails had earlier been provided last fall to this committee. in mid-march 4014 the irs focus on redacting materials from the non-tax writing committees and processing the rest of ms. lerner's e-mail for production. as we reviewed additional lerner e-mails, lot number to buy search terms can relevance or subject matter, in other words, all of her e-mails, the irs review team learned additional facts regarding ms. lerner's computer crashed in mid-2011 which occur before these investigations opened or the ig's report began. we learned that in 2011 the irs information technology division had tried using multiple processes at ms. lerner's request to recover the information stored on her computer's hard drive. a series of e-mails available after all of ms. lummis e-mail was loaded we count the sequence of events in 2011. a front-line manager and i.t. reported to ms. lerner in an e-mail on july 20, 2011,

ethical, i checked with the technician and he still has your drive. he wanted to exhaust all avenues to recover the data before sending it to the hard drive cemetery. unfortunately, after receiving assistance from several highly skilled technicians including hp experts, he still cannot recover the data, unquote. ms. lerner was told by e-mail on august 1, 2011, adequate, as a last resort we center our drive to ci, that's the irs criminal investigation division, forensic lab to attempt a data recovery, the end of that corporate in india on august 5, 2011 after three weeks of attempts to retrieve her e-mails at a lois lerner's request, ms. lerner was advised quote unfortunately the news is not good. the sectors on the hard drive or bad which major data unrecoverable. i am very sorry. everyone involved tried their best, end of that quote. the committee has been provided earlier these e-mails, earlier this spring.

in light of the hard drive issue, the irs took multiple steps over the past month to assess the situation to produce as much e-mail as possible for which ms. lerner was an offer or recipient. we replaced -- retraced, located process that include e-mail from an unrelated 2011 data collection from ms. lerner. we confirm backup tapes from 2011 no longer existed because they have been recycled pursuant to the irs normal policy. we searched e-mail from other custodians. from mid-march to late april the irs review team concentrate on loading her review all the main e-mail from ms. lerner's accounts and then repeating the entire process for quality control and to ensure that no new e-mails from ms. lerner were missing. during this time into men also were identified and reviewing lerner e-mails to and from 82 other custodians. by mid-may as result of these

efforts, the irs identify the 24,000 lerner e-mails between january 1 and april 2011. as the search for a production of lerner e-mails was concluding i asked those working on this matter to determine whether computer systems of the other 80 to custodians had experienced any similar difficulties, especially in light of the aged equipment the irs has been increasingly using as result of its budget provisions. after the irs report on ms. lerner's e-mail production was delivered last friday to congress, it was determined earlier this week, actually on monday the seventh additional custodians had experienced hard drive failures during the search period. a hard drive failure does not automatically mean that any or all e-mails have been lost or cannot be reconstructed. given the extremely broad scope of our production effort it's not surprising we would discover that some employees have encounter some technical issues especially in light of the aging information technology infrastructure.

as you know, the irs described in great detail in its public report last week its effort to reduce lerner e-mails. we are still assessing what affect him if he can hard drive crashes had on the e-mails of any other custodians are at this time it is too early to know if any e-mails have been lost in any of those hard drives. we are committed to continuing to work cooperatively and since billy with you, this committee, and we'll continue to provide you with updates. this concludes my testimony. i'd be happy to take your questions. >> well, thank you. what i didn't hear him that was an apology to this committee. >> i don't think an apology is owed. there's not a single e-mail has been lost since the start of this investigation. every e-mail has been preserved that we have. we have produced or will produced by the end -- >> you don't think that time period between january 2009 and april 20 levin is relevant to this investigation? >> it is a very relevant timeframe. >> the letter we received from the irs on friday the 13th

admitted that lerner e-mails were lost for the two and a half year period spent they were lost offer hard drive but we also -- >> let me finish. i'm not finished with the question of give you an opportunity. but you failed to explain that timeline of events that led to that admission. my question to you is, from the interviews that we've had with the deputy chief of information, deputy chief information officer for the irs, i'm told the irs knew as early as february that her computer crashed supposedly caused a loss of her e-mails during the time period january 2009-2011. has the irs known since february? >> the irs new in february there was an issue. as noted we all had e-mails from ms. lerner last fall and which she recited she had had a hard drive crashed. >> in favor you knew that he knows were missing? >> in february what we knew was there's problem because we're looking at it from the standpoint of what the time frame was in which her e-mails appeared, and it appeared that were not enough e-mails in that

time frame. >> so why didn't the irs notify congress at the time it was a problem with the potential loss of the e-mails we were investigating? >> because i thought it was important, it was my decision that we complete the investigation so we could fully advise you as to what the situation was. >> i got a letter to just two days ago that said treasury contacted the white house in april, in april of this year to tell them about the lost e-mails. who told of the treasury department? >> part in? >> who told of the treasury? the letter i received said treasury told them at april 2014. so my question is who told the treasury department? >> my understanding only from that letter which i've seen which does not say e-mail said the laws. my understanding of the letter says someone in the general counsel's office at the irs inform the general counsel's office at treasury that was an issue and the irs was investigating. >> no. the letter reads as treasure was told that treasury told the white house. we have a letter from treasury

said they learned in april 2014. who told treasury? do know who in treasury told the white house of? >> i have no communication with the white house. >> you are the end of the irs. you don't know something this important, the content? you are unaware speak with we are part of the executive branch. we have regular fumigation with treasury. we issue regulations. we review them. were in the process of reviewing the regulations on the 501(c) issue. we have regular to mutation, particularly between our counsel's office and the treasury counsel. >> the irs new in favor or maybe even march and treasure and white house knew at least in april but congress and the american people didn't find out until june. were you purposefully not telling us? >> no spent where you purposefully not telling the american people? >> my proposal, my original thought was to complete the review of what other custodians have a problem and produce a report to you laying it all out. >> so why did the irs inform the

executive branch agency, the executive, the white house but kept it secret from the congress who is conducting an investigation? >> we were not getting it is ago. it was our public report to you that provided you this information. there's been no attempt to keep it a secret. my position has been that when we provide information we should provide completely if we provide you input the information people sometimes tempted to lead to the wrong conclusions without will be important to to give you the full description -- >> it's okay for the white house and treasury to leap to conclusions six weaker congress but my question also is, have they been discussion within the irs about when to reveal this information to congress? >> certainly. >> these discussion included treasury? >> no. >> how did treasury find out about it speak with treasury and covers a i'm not aware. apparently the first time i knew was -- >> i will have a lot of questions to write to you to follow up with you.

completely unacceptable. >> can i answer that question and get -- >> i want to move onto another topic. your letters describe the lois lerner e-mails as being unbreakable. >> correct. >> but failed to mention with the damaged hard drive is today. you know what actual hard drive is that crashed in 2011? >> i'm advised the actual hard drive after was determined there was dysfunctional and with experts noting that could be retrieved was recycled and destroyed in the normal process, which did was to physically destroy? >> that's my understanding. >> was it melted down? >> i have no idea what the recycler does with it. this was three years ago. >> does the irs have a system for tracking items? does the irs have a tracking system for items of? >> we track items but we don't track every item that everybody has everywhere but i'm sure we track some items. >> does someone better have a serial number for that our drug? >> i do not know whether they do or not. i was just advised as a normative one hard drive fails,

the e-mail cannot be reconstructed to the hard drive is turned over to recycler's. >> it seems to me that it was recycled to government property would have been tracked. >> part in? >> it seems to me if it was recycled government property would have been tracked. you could walk away with property sites and there's a tracking system for the disposal of government property. >> there's tracking for computer question is lois lerner's computer continue to be functioning with a new hard drive. the hard drive fits with inside. i'm not aware whether hard drives have computers, have identifiers. >> and we get the serial number and all the other employees whose hard drives, you know seven loss of? >> if they have serial numbers you are welcome to them. >> all right because i want to hard drive and what hard drive every computer that crashed during that timeframe. so what i've learned in the last week i think calls into question every document in response the irs has given. for that matter has failed to give due this committee. the only way i see any hope of

restoring confidence is established a special prosecutor with the authorities, powers and resources needed to uncover the truth. for the sake of the agency to restore the trust of the american people will you support the appointment of a special prosecutor? >> there are six investigations going on -- >> yes or no? >> the ideas already investigating -- >> can you give a definitive answer, yes or no, do you support the appointment of a special prosecutor? >> i -- >> on controlling the time. i'm ask a question that can have a simple yes or no answer. [inaudible] >> he has answered. >> regular order. spent i think the appointment of a special prosecutor, the ig investigation into this matter ongoing would be a monumental waste of taxpayer funds. >> is that a yes or a no? >> that is a no. >> thank you. mr. levitt is recognized. you have five minutes. >> you know, i think witnesses

deserve some respect. i think it's in the tradition of this committee to give witnesses respect. this is not the committee of decades ago, led by people who disrespected witnesses. mr. koskinen, you had a long career. what have you done in the years of your career, briefly? >> i'm sorry, what have i done what? >> what has your career penlight? >> my great has been 20 years and the private sector turning around large troubled organization. i started my career as the chief of staff for senator walkoff before he was in the states in a concert on the presidential commission as staff member in

late 1960. of represented new york city here for a year and a half. i was the deputy director for management at omb for three years. i was the chair of the presidents council on year 2000, for two years guiding the country through the year 2000 transition to i was asked by the bush administration to take over freddie mac as the chairman of the board when the government took over those enterprises and i was asked to come to the irs which i did last december when i was confirmed. is to the agency through these difficult times. >> the letter that went from the counsel to the president to mr. camp and mr. wyden spelled this out and indicated when the treasury was notified, when the treasury consult inform the white house counsel about this problem with the computer.

it also has indicated, contrary to this effort by the committee and the republicans are, connect the problems, and there were serious problems with the white house, that there is no such connection. they are desperate to find a connection. they've never found it. they will keep looking because i think it makes sense for them politically. i don't think whatever clinical affiliations their we should be disrespectful. so will you repeat again what happened these last months after you found out about the computer crash, and why you decided to conduct yourself the way you did? >> we learned in february, i learnt in favor there was a potential issue with her hard drive. that was investigated through

march, into early april, the i.t. people had uncovered the e-mails training, you can see the talk about the effort to restore her computer because the nose up and provided some time ago to this committee so they were not hidden or covered up. thereafter i told people we needed, we decided we look at all the other custodians and produce as many e-mails as we could that were, in fact, within our system which is the 24,000 t24,000 ialso asked that we i sl review all of the 82 custodians to see what, if any, happened been. our plan was when we produced, completed the production of all of lois lerner e-mails at the end of this month will provide a full report and by the time we would know what the situation was with excess but there's been a question as to why i didn't advise congress earlier and my expensive than we do better to have a discussion when you know all the facts. it's shown by the fact that on monday we were advised monday morning that there were preliminary indications that there were difficulties with a

handful of custodians. that information was passed onto the staff of the committee on monday afternoon. immediately thereafter rather than ask us for additional information a press release went out from this committee identifying knuckle flakes as a particularly interesting person to this committee and stating that nicole's e-mails have been lost. have the committee waited to asia that release and renew further information which were continuing to drive through discovered that nicole had two computers. or office computer which she used during the day and chat and tell a computer, a portable but it was the portable computer that crashed but it ran on the same e-mail system as her office system. so it turns out there is no indication that a single nicole flax e-mail has been lost not within the press release and statements out of this committee. those press releases with regard to nicole flax were inaccurate and misleading and to demonstrate why we'll provide this committee a full report about the custodian review when it is completed. we will not dribble out the

information and have it played out in the press. >> time has expired. mr. johnson is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for holding this hearing. you know, learning about the loss of lois lerner's e-mails and other irs officials is troubling, and we received that information with great skepticism. americans have been waiting for the whole truth, and we hope to get it today but it doesn't sound like we are getting it. it's past time told all of those responsible accountable for targeting americans for their beliefs. mr. commissioner, welcome. i have some questions for you. you have argued that the irs practice is destroying employee e-mails after six months with a cost-cutting measure. in fiscal year 2011, the irs enacted budget was $12 billion, a high watermark of spending.

can you tell you whether in 2011 the irs was engaged in a policy of destroying and reusing its backup tapes? >> actually what happened with the irs in 2000 a went on to i.t. director came, the retention policy then was only for less than three months but in point passion into those may be increased the retention back a policy to six month. it's a disaster recovery system. if the entire system goes down you can reconstitute the e-mails. those systems actually are usable and then it is a disaster you continue to produce and back up the e-mails so they are available. i would note as it did in my testimony, since the start of this investigation every e-mail has been preserved, nothing has been lost, nothing has been destroyed. >> which tells me that you got plenty of computer space. you know, i wondered at the time to you to keep track of everybody's irs requirements when you lose your own. let me just ask you, did the irs estimate the keeping and storing

those would only cost $200,000 annually? >> $200,000 annually every year but as it grows we collect more trillions now of terabytes as a call, millions of e-mails stored over six months and the disaster recovery program, it's not come in no system as a sit in testimony is not a system of record. a system of record is, in fact, the records acted to produce carbon copies and follows in the record so that the irs has historically only preserve the backup tapes for six month. we are reviewing all of this but i told people some month ago when we get through it as we need to take a look at what we can do to actually create a more searchable in the process. the problem right now is anything anybody wants a piece of information, we have 90,000 plus, whatever employs one we have to pull the e-mails accounts, we have to pull their hard drives and then take them and vote them into a search machine to be able to discover what's in them. that is an antiquated system. i refer to our i.t. system as a

model t with a gps system and a sound system and redone engine but it is still a model t. >> in a, my constituents and i refuse to accept that, in years of record high irs budget, you know, you wouldn't let us refuse to give you information on our tax returns. the irs destroyed employee e-mails every six months just to say 200,000 annually. i'm far too familiar with the rampant wasteful spin at the irs during that time. to date the committee is uncovered wasteful spending from the star trek videos to the spending on lavish conferences to an irs estimated 23.5 million in spending on salaries and benefits, and two bonus is going to workers who owe back taxes. mr. commissioner can you and i both know the irs go to back up

employee e-mails began long before any budget cuts happened to that agency. there's simply no excuse for what happened. i yield back. >> mr. mcdermott is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. today we are here listening to a myth that there was a conspiracy by ms. lerner and whoever else to get rid of some data. and before i came to congress i was a physician and one of eventually did with the patient was taking history. and i would like to review the history again with you, mr. koskinen. on june 13, 2011, lois lerner's hard drive failed, meaning all her e-mails were lost at that point, is the true? >> that's correct. >> sixteen days later she was briefed that inappropriate criteria have been used in this

management in cincinnati, according to the ig's report. is that true? >> that's what the report reports. >> wealth in the question is, did lois lerner preemptively crashed her hard drive? >> all the evidence is to the contrary but the e-mail string i told you shows that her request ex ord efforts were made to retrieve e-mails from her crashed hard drive. >> do you think did she for see something happening in the future and make the decision to destroy her own hard drive? >> the record shows quite the contrary. also after the crash on april 11 she continued to send an archived e-mails on her computer. with produce, will produce 43,000 of those, she was, in fact, going to try e-mails, visit indication in the record that her performance demonstrated that. >> in all the e-mails that have been collected is there any

evidence to suggest that she call the white house or the white house called her and said, get those right wing organizations? >> there is none that we been able to produce and understand although announcing the production from the white house that the white house did not find any e-mail to or from lois lerner. >> and the inspector general didn't find them? >> no. his report stated that the evidence of political involvement. >> in fact as you quote, as you talked about, on july 19, 2011, lerner wrote to the feel director of customer service support for informational technology saying whatever you can do is helpful, would be greatly appreciated. now, in mid-july 2011 she learned about cincinnati. and for a couple of weeks the i.t. division tried to repair her hard drive, bringing in experts inside i.t. and also the

forensic division of the irs, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> and they failed? >> they failed after three weeks of efforts to the e-mail trail was clear that i would note the criminal investigation division is expert in seizures in civil and criminal cases seizing hard drives and restoring e-mails. so it at that time apparently great conference you could find those e-mails, they would find them. and they were unsuccessful. >> finally she wrote, thanks for your efforts, to them. i really do appreciate the efforts. sometimes stuff happens but is this a woman rejoin us in over losing her hard drive and saying thank god that thing is gone, they will never get me? no. it's a woman who is resigned really to the fact that the thing is lost. in my office on we just

upgraded. we upgraded to windows 10 -- 2010. and my staff director in washington state lost her hard drive. they friday. i don't know how it happened. nobody knows how it happened. she lost all her records. she did not rejoice over that experience, i can tell you. but dimly, fast-forward to february 24, 2014, and chairman camp asked for all, and i emphasize all lois' e-mails. is there anything you can see in the time that you've been there that they didn't, that the irs did not do to try and get all? >> doesn't in the kitchen but as is it would've gone to great length. would retrace the process for producing or enos twice just to make sure no e-mail was missing. we understand the importance of this investigation. we've gone to great lengths to

spend a significant amount of money tried to make sure that there is no e-mail that is required that has not been produced. >> i understand you sort of backtrack come went out to 83 people in the agency that should contact with and retrieved their e-mails to try to get the e-mails? >> that's right. rather than having lost loves learned in those, we will produce 24,000 lois lerner e-mails from the timeframe in question. spent time as expected i would ask men's consent to put into the record a letter from this committee funding as chairman to then commissioner doug shulman on june 3, 2011 asking for the name, title, and divisions of any individuals who were involved in investigating taxpayer contributions to 501(c)(4)s which were sent to the irs 10 days before lois lerner's e-mail crash. without i would yield to mr. brady. >> point of information, mr. chairman spent the latter without objection is put into

the record. >> was that less are committed to members of the committee? >> the letter was signed by me and sent to the commission of the irs. >> so we have, none of us have seen it, okay. spent you may have seen it. it's certainly been -- we can get you a copy. but i think is larger bring up a time when we got to get a complete picture of the timeline which is the e-mail crash occurred 10 days after the first letter went to the irs. mr. brady is recognized spent when we told about the problems with the lerner e-mails, february? >> i was told there was an issue with her e-mail? >> in february? >> instead were spent why did you choose to withhold that information speak was i've no intention. as i said our plan was to investigate and find out what the details were. of that what we did not know whether that been a crash that affected three meals or not. as noted -- >> you testified you gave your agency three weeks to determine if it could be retrievable or

not. they were successful. so giving you the benefit of the doubt, in march you knew these e-mails were not available. why didn't you inform this congressional investigation them? >> as i told you, my goal was to invite determine all of the facts would give you a full report. as i noted earlier this -- >> yet, yet, you inform -- [talking over each other] spin can answer the question? >> can the witness after the question? >> regular order, mr. levin. the gentleman from texas has the time. he is questioning a properly. so please no more interruptions the regular order allows a witness to answer a question. >> review order allows the witness to conduct his questioning as he sees fit. this committee has given broad latitude to members of both parties to do that. >> chairman, parliamentary procedure spent the gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry. >> under the rules of the house, every member has five minutes to ask compos question to the

witness and the witnesses given opportunity and right to respond to is the chairman singh the witness does not have a right to respond to a question? >> the gentleman has had plenty of time to respond. that is not a parliamentary inquiry. spent my question is, does the witness have a right to respond? >> the gentleman has not started a parliamentary inquiry. the gentleman from texas. >> start again with a question. >> you knew in march withheld information, and in may you assure this committee that all of ms. lerner's e-mails would be provided to us, yet you knew that that was not possible spent no. in fact, i knew we would provide you all lois lerner's e-mails we had. >> you already knew in march that they were not retrievable. a., you didn't inform the congressional investigation. too much let you told to fight all the e-mails without them addition, and you knew you didn't have them. >> by march i didn't know they were not retrievable and, in

fact, we received, we have received 24,000 -- >> mr. mcdermott -- that was the case, you knew. and enable your agency informed treasury about the problem, and treasury agreed with you that congress should be told as soon as it was able to. yet you didn't provide the information and then you assure us he would provide all the e-mails about limitation with no mention that you then you two, three months into this that they weren't retrievable. spent as noted and i think the record should make it clear, all of this issue is result of our providing you a public and fulsome document about this matter. so we've not been hiding -- >> sending a letter months after you knew the e-mails were supposedly lost, withholding information -- you were aware there was a congressional investigation, great? >> i was aware.

>> so you withhold the investigation -- information. he misled congress when you said the e-mails would be provided. >> we have provided information and it turns out you had information for some time. >> mr. commissioner, you did not tell me under oath that you told us in february, in march, in april, in may that the information was lost. that was just what you said. tell us that again. >> february, march until april i did not know if any information was lost. >> yet your agency had already in april communicate with treasury department about the problem. in the letter we have from treasury, says we agree with the irs that it should inform congress as soon as it is able. that, that is the letter today that exactly disputes which just told us under oath. exactly disputes it. >> that letter from treasury reveals and provides you all of

the lois lerner e-mails so that there is no issue that any lois lerner e-mail -- >> assistance at your legislative affairs, quote, treasury agreed with the irs that it should inform congress as soon as it was able. yet you did not. >> we actually provided to the information. my goal was -- >> you have not provided us any information. in fact, we didn't learn and to last week, and then this week that you have supposedly lost e-mails, not just from ms. lerner but other persons of interest. >> there's no evidence that any of us in those have been lost either. and, in fact, as i said earlier my process has been to make sure that we are all of the facts provided so that, in fact, -- >> why at this point, why should anyone believe you? the irs denied for two years targeting of america's based on their political police.

that wasn't the truth but they said it was a few wrote agents in cincinnati. that wasn't the truth. you said you were targeting liberal organizations. that wasn't the truth. dangerous shortage would provide us all the e-mails in may, and that wasn't the truth. and today you are telling us out of thousands of irs computers, the one that lost the e-mails was the person of interest in an ongoing congressional investigation. and that is not the truth either. this is the most corrupt and deceitful irs -- [inaudible] >> mr. lewis is recognized. >> mr. commissioner, first of all, i want to thank you for your service. thank you for your patience. and i want to apologize to you for the way you have been treated this morning.

i thought this was a hearing and not a trial. i want you to take the five minutes that i have and use it to say anything that you haven't had an opportunity to say. >> thank you. i think that between my full testimony and my oral testimony and my response to the questions, which i hope is clear, that we have not in this investigation lost in e-mail from the start of the investigation and till now. i hope it is clear that by the end of this month we will provide all of the lois lerner e-mails that we have, that those will number 67,000. it should be clear that any period of ms. lerner's hard drive crashed we have located 24,000 e-mails that lois lerner sent or received. it should be clear on the basis of the e-mail track that lois lerner was not trying to destroy e-mail. in fact, was working very hard

and asked for extranet efforts to try to restore her e-mails at that time so it does appear to be any attempt on her part as noted to rejoice over the loss of those enough. it should be clear that when we did provide this committee with, on monday preliminary information reporting, the net result of that was a press release a row nissley making the conclusion that nicole flax in those have been lost along with others. it turns ou out on for the wco e continuing the investigation that none of the nicole flax's e-mails appear to have been lost. will provide this committee a full report on the other custodians as we complete that work. thus far incidentally demonstrated that peace in the out information about there's a possible problem simply results in press releases and angry letters to me. for my position from the start and will continue to be we will as we have continued to keep this committee fully informed of the facts as we find them, if there are situations we will investigate those and give you all of the information.

i did not come out of retirement to run an agency that did not create transparency, responsiveness to congressional inquiries, congressional letters or otherwise. this is an important agency. and provides critical work for the government collecting 93% of the money the government uses to run more importantly it touches virtually every american. and i think it is in port for every american taxpayer to feel comfortable and confident that when they treat, deal with the irs they'll be treated fairly the matter who they are, whether they are rich, poor, republicans or democrats, whoever they voted for in the last election. to say that this is the most corrupt irs in history ignores a lot of history and seems to me again is a classic overreaction to a series problem which we are dealing with seriously. and i would just like that to be our record. i'm comfortable with it. i'm confident about it and i'm willing to stand on the record in a six-month i've been the irs commissioner. >> thank you, mr. commissioner. i yield back spent i ask

unanimous consent to place into the record at june 18 letter from neil adelson counsel to the president as well as a june 20 letter of this year from alastair fixed-income assets and second for legislative affairs at the department of the treasury. without objection so a speed reserving my right to object spend you may reserve the right to object. >> and i will tell you why. i hope everybody will read the letter from mr. fitz and come which says it is that is the purpose of placing speed i just want to continue with -- i know and want to continue with my reservation. >> the gentleman has reserved his objection spent i wanted to you why. it says in response to your questions, irs informed treasury in 2014 that ms. velazquez to e-mail box appeared to contain very few females prior to 2011. .. -- few females prior to 2011.

>> nobody bleevens you. >> come on now. >> the internal revenue service comes to congress a couple of years ago and says no targeting is occurring and then it said

there were a few rogue agencies and said all of those things had been proven untrue. this committee sent a criminal referral of possible criminal wrongdoing just a month ago to the justice department and heard nothing. you bury in a 27-page letter to the senate asking them to conclude the investigation that emails because's of a hard drive crash. we asked your agencies if any other hard drives crashed. you didn't tell us that. >> we told you on monday. >> and what did you do -- >> because we asked you. >> what did you do with that information? >> we asked you whether any other hard drives crashed. this is unbelievable. you told us you were going to

give us all of the emails and you learned that this happened in february. >> i'm not asking a question but making a statement. >> my apologies. >> you are the internal revenue service and can reach into the lives of hard-working pairs and with a phone call or letter. you ask taxpayers to hand seven years of their personal tax information in case they are ever audited and can't keep six months' worth of employee emails. and now that we are seeing this investigation. you don't have the emails. hard drives crashed. you learned about this months ago and we had to ask you on monday. this is not being forth coming. this is being misleading again. this is a pattern of abuse, a pattern of behavior that is not

giving us any confidence that his agency is being impartial. i don't believe you. this is incredible. >> i have a long career. that's the first time anybody has said -- >> i don't believe you. >> i'm willing to remind you that it was not buried in 27 pages. most of that 27 pages is exhibits. when asked about the cuss towedians -- >> being forth coming which we knew for one day. congress is investigating us. >> let him ask him a question. >> i didn't ask him a question. >> yes, you did. >> i realize disrupting a hearing -- come on. >> the gentleman from wisconsin -- i'm not yielding time, i control the time.

here's what being forth coming is. if we are investigating wrongdoing, targeting people based on their political beliefs and emails in question are lost because of a hard drive crash that is apparently unrecoverable which i.t. professionals would question and you don't tell us until we ask you and i yield back. >> that is not true. >> the gentleman yields back. the gentleman has yielded back his time. >> mr. neal is recognized. >> i'm going to let you answer mr. ryan's question. >> mr. ryan tried to lead the impression only being asked did we reveal information about the hard drive crash. the information about the hard drive crash is in the e mails. we produced that public report telling you about the email loss on our own. it was not in response to a question. third, we learned on monday morning about the cuss toddians.

our staff was asked on monday afternoon and told them what we knew which we indicated there was a hard drive problem with six others. next morning put out this committee asserting the conclusion that emails had been lost. as we continue to work and we have more work to do there is no evidence that any email is lost. what we are trying to do as the treasury letter suggested, as soon as we are able to give you a full picture of it. that was a public report we provided you. we will continue to provide you documents. you have 770,000 pages. lernerl have 67,000 lois emails. they have not been lost and will be produced to you. >> on this point, may i ask you a question, may i ask a question during your time. there is a distinction, yes.

the committee did know about the hard drives, but we did not know about the server. there is a distinction. we did not know about the server. and the server that came in the carbon copy of the letter you sent to the senate. the server means they are lost forever. the hard drive crash means they aren't lost forever. is there a distinction that have not been made to date? >> would you like to respond? >> that's an important question and one of the reasons that we did not immediately say we discovered a hard drive crash because as you just noted, a hard drive crash does not mean that emails have been lost forever. 24,000 of her emails were not lost and have been found and will be produced. you will have 24,000 of them by the end of the month. when a hard drive crashes, the emails do not necessarily

disappear. any emails in those accounts which were the emails we could find were included and did not crash. >> commissioner, i must tell you based on what we heard so far today and if you agreed with everything that the republicans have suggested, then they would say, we don't believe you. they have come to a conclusion, not based upon the facts but upon what they might promote as a conspiracy. only thing that is missing is oliver stone, but there's time for that because there is an election five months from now. let me say this. an individual who served in republican and democratic administrations, coupled with the fact that he took an oath today. unless those here didn't witness him take the oath, for him take the oath and people suggest to him we don't believe you, that is not the way this committee

has functioned in the past and ought not be the way we function going forward. just a couple of quick questions and then i want to offer something to you. the tax investigator general has said there wasn't a cover-up, is that correct? >> that's correct. >> there was not a conspiracy based on that assertion he has made? >> that's my understanding. >> and to the moment there is no smoking gun linking the administration to lois lerner. >> that is my understanding. >> i was hoping this committee would spend maybe a morning talking about the success you had with offshoring accounts for individual taxpayers. the numbers are pretty stunning in what you have begun to collect from those who voluntarily complied in switzerland and other tax havens and it's a story i would hope we have an opportunity to talk about.

mr. camp is correct that the tax system works on the basis of people believing that there is equity for all and everyone carries their burden and spending time on offshoring or compliance might be equally good for a hearing, but i know it doesn't fit with the determination that was made this morning for the purpose of this hearing. thank you, commissioner. >> mr. nunes is recognized. >> mr. commissioner in september 2010, a letter from the chairman asking for investigation for groups, that would have gone to mrs. lerner? >> i don't know. >> if it went to her assuming it did, she would have responded? >> she or the agents would have responded. i don't know what the response would have been. >> would we have that email? >> which email? >> would we have the response?

>> the response would not have been by email. >> there would have been a letter back to a senator. >> letter comes in from a senator, there should be a response back. >> then there is in october of 2010, senator durbin wrote the commissioner asking him to investigate conservative groups specifically crossroads g.p.s. did ms. lerner ever write back to him? >> i have no idea. >> if she did, would we have the emails? >> there would be a hard copy and letter in the file as to what it said. > during the period before the crash, liberal-leaning groups, democracy 21 repeatedly wrote the i.r.s. asking for an investigation of conservative-leaning groups, did ms. lerner ever write them back?

>> i don't know. >> would you have a copy of those letters. >> you would have a copy of those letters. >> could we get those letters? >> they probably have been produced. >> chairman camp sent a letter to the i.r.s. asking about abuses of the gift-tax targeting. and we do have that letter. we did not receive a response. there point here is that were 83 specific employees that we asked for all of their emails on. you're aware of that, right? >> you asked for all of the emails and selected the 83 that seemed to be most likely involved and select a range of search terms that would actually produce the emails that would be relevant. >> that was only emails between the 83. >> that's any mail. >> if lois lerner sent an email

to the secretary. >> there was no limitation that they would only be emails within the agency. the search terms were any emails to anyone. just the 83 were the email accounts that were searched to see if any of the 83 wrote to anybody else about any of those search terms. those emails would be produced. >> the secretary is not one of those 83. you are telling me if there was an email. >> email from any of the 83 to the secretary, that email would be in their email box and would be found and produced. the limitation was not to have communications back and forth among the 83. the 83 cuss towedians as they are called. any email that in the time frame met any of the search terms that were agreed to. all of those emails were produced whether they were produced to someone within the 83, outside its 83 and the

agency or outside the agency. >> do you understand mr. ryan's point in the letter you sent to the senate last week on friday, which is exactly had happened when lois lerner planted a question in the audience, shows a pattern of abuse and pattern of dumping things on fridays and then specifically -- i'm not trying to get in a tit for at that time here. here. -- tath you only talked about lois lerner's hard drive but there were six additional folks in that 83 that have disappeared, too and you didn't tell us about it on friday.

>> at the time we produced the report on friday, we had no information about the other cuss towedians that i asked people to review. that information was provided to that i.p. person on monday morning who happened to be briefing your staff. i'm under a lot of heat because i didn't know on monday and didn't tell them on monday because i didn't know. it wasn't in the friday report because when that report was prepared no one in the agency knew which if any of the other 82 cuss towedians were involved. >> time has expired.

mr. becerra. >> commissioner thank you for being here and let me add my regrets to you that this has been -- this hearing has been conducted as less -- as hearing as it has as an inquestion situation. you deserve better and you are obligated to give us truthful answers. let me suggest to you one thing. you have a right to try to respond to any question. if you find that you are being badgered or not given an opportunity to respond, take a breath and try to get your answer out. if you are not given that opportunity, then recognize that again, this is maybe not a hearing but an inquestion situation. the record has the right to reflect what you would like to say.

, me let me ask you a question in this added scrutiny that i.r.s. is giving to the so-called social welfare organizations, is there evidence that shows that any number of different types of organizations other than just far right or conservative organizations were being scrutinized. >> there is evidence that organizations across the spectrum were reviewed. the bulk of the applications were from conservative groups and the bulk of the reviews was from conservative groups. >> it wasn't just of conservative groups? >> that's correct. >> some would like to say it is targeting or attacks on conservative groups. but the evidence that has been revealed to everyone is otherwise. i think we are watching how people are trying to confuse the issue here. this investigation should truly be what's really wrong with the system and that is that today in

the america, the so-called social welfare organizations, these not-for-profit organizations that get special tax breaks that ordinary americans don't get. they spent in the last election cycle, more money as social welfare organizations than the two political parties combined. 256 million spent by so-called social welfare organizations to conduct political campaigns. while the two parties, which are there to conduct political campaigns spent less than the $256 million than these social welfare organizations spent. i hope at some point commissioner, we'll have a chance to get into that, because we are seeing now the seeds of this dark money that's being

spent. my understanding is that there is an investigation by the state prosecutors in the state of wisconsin of the wisconsin governor for perhaps coordinating illegally campaign activities in waist that might violate the law. what we're finding is that fewer and fewer of these organizations that are applying for this tax exempt status that gives them special tax treatment are doing social welfare and doing nothing more than campaigning. is that something that the i.r.s. is concerned about, what was to be a tax provision and tax status reserved for organizations that want to do social welfare is being used to conduct campaign activity? > our concern is to take a review of the regulations governing. can we provide clarity of what's

allowable activity without jeopardizing your tax exemption and to which organization should it apply. we have had over 150,000 comments on that draft regulation. into earlier next year, we will review and repropose and ask for more comments. i do think it's important -- we are not in the political business. what is important is to provide clarity. right now it's an unclear standard. hard for people to know what's allowable, not allowable. they should not operate worried that the facts and circumstances changesed and you are not eligible. our goal is to have a rule that is fair to everyone, fair and easy to administer. >> final question. you are under oath. to your knowledge, are there any documents or requests for information that you have not responded to completely?

>> we are responding as quickly as we can. we have had requests for documents that we have not been able to respond to now. there are no requests that we will not respond to. we will respond to anything the committee would like. >> you have a lot important job and a lot of americans fear the i.r.s. struggled to have a leader with any consistency over the last several years and this congress and this committee heard from a lot of different leaders that come and go and frustrating for us and many of our constituents regarding -- and i won't rehash the concern. but i think every member of this committee ought to do something this weekend and maybe monday. go talk to your case worker that deals with the i.r.s. for your constituents. get an earful from them and maybe we wouldn't be apologizing

to the i.r.s. small businessman in my district paid taxes on time forever. automatic payment set up with his bank to pay the i.r.s. october of last year, he found out one day, actually the day that his payment was due to the i.r.s. that his account had been hacked, no fault of his own. fraud. fraud. he did what any law-abiding citizen would do. he worked with the bank. closed the account. the i.r.s. already accessed the account but already been closed. he called the i.r.s. and said my account has been hacked. a payment was made incorrectly because they closed the account, so the payment's going to get bounced. what do i do? well, thank you for letting us know. get us a check immediately and all will be good.

middle of june, sir. he is being charged penalty and interest because of that fraudulent payment, no fault of his own. he fears the i.r.s. that's just one case. that's one case, ladies and gentlemen. and when these constituents have watched long before you got to the i.r.s., long before you got there. has seen the i.r.s. continually delay. when there is no delay on their part if the i.r.s. wants information. if they say, well my documents got destroyed, sorry buddy. not an excuse. there seems to be two sets of rules, sir. and the frustration that we have is, quite frankly, everybody knows that this has been going on for years, for three years. and so if the president would have asked me to go over and become commissioner of the i.r.s. and i found out in may,

april, march, february what you found out, rather than bury it in a letter on page 15, here's what i would have done, just a suggestion, because of the lack of confidence the american people and this committee have, because our constituents are treated differently than how the i.r.s. leadership treats america is mr. camp, mr. levin, i just found out this happened. wouldn't cost a cent, pick up the phone, president has a phone, you probably have a phone, pick up a phone and say something very bad just happened. i don't think it's a cover-up. i don't think it's criminal, but because of the past and the lack of transparency in the past and because we are really important agency that the american people need to have confidence in and congress needs to have confidence in, i just wanted you to be aware of this and we will

continue to try to get to the bottom of this. when you don't do that, for what reasons i understand completely what you are saying. i don't agree but i understand where you are coming from, but find it buried in a letter and on monday because we asked the question, not because you provided the information, because we asked the right question and there are probably a lot of questions that we haven't figured out are the right questions, that we get the right answer. there's a feeling here that oh my gosh, the i.r.s. has no credibility and doesn't need to be that. this isn't about republicans or democrats. talk to your i.r.s. case worker. i can give you 12 more. i did i.r.s. case work. americans fear the i.r.s. and now unfortunately with a pattern of delay and disrespect and defeat and in many cases not

from you, sir. there is just know credibility. this is not good for our country and my hope is you can clean this up. but i got to tell you, i don't have a question for you. this is amazingly awful. this is absolutely awful. this is not partisan. just talk to your case workers. this is not partisan. this is just americans frustrated with an arrogance of an agency that is above the law, in their opinion. i yield back. >> mr. doggett is recognized. >> the first thing i did was to talk to my constituent service representatives as we call them in austin and san antonio, and what i found is that when 250 i.r.s. employees spend over 120,000 hours and almost $20 million on responding to congress, those employees are not able to respond to their ordinary duties.

i found, for example, that as far as nonprofit community service organizations that the austin african-american cultural center that wanted to raise money in that small town for the first time to support community activities, that a neighborhood community association in san the justice ministry, that a video service that covers community organizations in san antonio and tries to spread the word about their activities, all of them had waited months and in some cases over a year to try to get approval of their application because it would appear to me your folks are so busy responding to one claim after another, you have no additional resources. you are not able to respond to the job that the law asked you to do. i believe that there has been a long-term commitment to

hamstring, to incouple beer and underfund the internal revenue service. now let me ask you after the seriousness of this investigation, have you ever been in benghazi? >> no. >> do you if you or ms. lerner had any responsibility with having to do with benghazi or anything there? >> no. >> how about area 51 where the space aliens allegedly came? have you had responsibility for that? no. custody of the president's birth certificate? >> no. i believe one of the mistakes you made in dealing with the committee you did assume profession neals that this is a serious inquiry. i believe it is an endless conspiracy theory that is being exploited solely for political purposes. i don't approve of ms. lerner or

the way i.r.s. handled all these matters. but there is a large cover-up issue and desire of our republican colleagues to cover up these social welfare organizations that don't want to disclose the secret campaign contributions that they rely on to pollute our democracy. without a letter from a member of congress that the internal revenue service would have at least questioned why one organization headed by karl rove of texas was spending $71 million in election cycle in 2012. my concern is it doesn't appear from the public record there has been an determination as to whether there was a legitimate social welfare organization or not. as my colleague indicated, we know from today's papers and

elaborate chart that another one of these social organizations headed by mr. rove called citizens for a strong america, that that organization apparently was involved in polluting the political process in the state of wisconsin. i believe this is a serious matter, the use of corporate secret matter is a problem enough, but the determination to have that money be taxpayer subsidized in social welfare organizations, in some cases headed by individuals who never had any interest in social welfare until they could claim it for themselves to pollute our democracy, that that is a serious problem. i'm pleased you are going to be coming forward with anything else that you can find because though this is not a serious investigation but the endless pursuit, the obsession with conspiracy and conspiracies, we do need to have every bit of

information, every shred of information that you can find even though the people i talk about in texas, who have legitimate issues before the i.r.s. are collateral damage in the process.

>> currently ongoing right? >> two i.g. investigations, one on the response to the first i.g. report and another investigation going on to the hard drive crash of lois lerner. >> you are cooperating? >> i once chaired the intergovernmental agency coordination of all inspector germs. i'm a big supporter. >> and you provided them with all the information they have asked for in the process of their investigation, all the requests? and you have kept them updated on all the information that's developed on this investigation? >> as they investigate we provide all the documents. >> i'm a little confused today when i learned that the i.g.'s office called our office here on the ways and means committee and said they didn't learn about the hard drive issue until ways and

means committee put out their press release. how could that happen? the i.g. is conducting an investigation and they have no idea there is any hard drive issues or lost emails. >> investigation they were doing was the investigation of the response to their report. they have started an investigation on the issues regarding the hard drive. they were not doing an investigation of that. >> you said you fully cooperated. >> i meet with the i.g. >> they have to learn through a press release from the ways and means committee, united states congress, they have to learn from that there is an issue that i would think as an old cop, i would need to know. if i was conducting an investigation and you were helping me and assisting me in that investigation, does that not make sense that is information you would provide to the i.g.'s office?

yes or no. my time is limited. would that not be information that you provide to the i.g.'s office? >> yes. we have provided. >> you didn't provide it to them because they learned it in a press release. >> that's not correct. >> i think you want to be honest, but there have been some mistakes made and i can understand that. you know, let's go through this very quickly. we have a flagging of the tea party applications. people have gone over the time line here. lois lerner sends her emails to i.r.s. employees saying they probably should not have these cases, tea party matter is very dangerous. we gn our investigation and told that potential targeting was conducted by rogue employees in ohio. we request all of lois lerner's emails. the internal review then we find

out that emails are destroyed and we find out that a hard drive is destroyed. american people don't believe this. i can't -- if you had an employee under investigation for some violation of your policy internally, you wouldn't accept mr. supervisor -- i lost my emails. hard drive blew up. would you stop your investigation? >> no. if i found -- >> what happened if they would say i destroyed my hard drive. >> if i found -- what would you do, sir, what would you do sir. my time. thank you, mr. levin. >> regular order. regular order. >> what would you do if an

employee came to you and said my hard drive -- i've destroyed my hard drive. >> if i found con temperature prainyouse information that he worked hard to restore his hard drive and got the best experts available to reconstitute the email and that had failed, i would believe them. >> the other six hard drives, they destroyed, too? >> we are still investigating. >> one of the ones on monday turned out to have a failure. the other hard drive is not to have caused. we don't know the information. we will get it to you. >> time has expired. >> now mr. thompson. >> mr. commissioner, thanks very much for being here, i want to thank you for your public service and distinct issued career and i don't want to

apologize to the i.r.s., but i do want to apologize to you as a professional in the way you have been treated today. if you could cut through a lot of the political theater that we see taking place here today, i think there are some things that we can all from both sides of the aisle agree to. i think we are all pretty upset, if, in fact, there was any inappropriate behavior on the part of the i.r.s. and i think most of us in previous hearings have expressed that. i don't care if you are -- actually i do care if you are a democrat or republican. doesn't matter if you are a democrat, republican, conservative or liberal, you should receive equal and ransparent activity from the i.r.s. think we are all at the least disappointed that ms. lerner took the fifth. that helped create a lot of the

political nonsense that we are seen playing out today. i wish that would have gone smoother and could have gotten to the bottom of some of these problems from the start. and i certainly hope that we all agree that given all of these hearings that we are having a race to have this hearing before the other committees, has been a distraction from us being able to address the problems that are important to the american people, everything from tax reform to immigration reform, highway repair, transportation bill. if we could just take a little bit of this time, maybe we could get some of the issues that would help put american back to work dealt with. and i think all of us experience the same significance as my friend from ohio. we all can tell stories about constituent problems with not just the i.r.s. but with

anything. i'll take the opportunity and take the lead from my friend from ohio and the opportunity to tell you that i personally have been trying for weeks to get an appointment in my district with the i.r.s. over a constituent matter that a small businessman in my district has been dealing with for a couple of years. and all based on a bill that the chairman and i co-authored and had signed into law. >> the issue of the lost and misplaced and not knowing where they are or the process with dealing with them is hard drives. a number of years ago, because

of legislation that i've carried with dealing with electronic waste. we found out not through our own resources, through press reports, that a number of hard drives from our intelligence community and from the department of defense were found in third world countries in disposal sites because that was a terrible breach of national security and caused me to amend our intelligence bill and probably everybody here who was there then voted for that amendment and that bill. and we had to figure out how to deal with that in the intelligence community. we have the same security problem with the hardware and software in your agency and i would like to know if that is something we should try and

collaborate on to make sure that we can protect the records of the public as they're stored and your equipment. >> it is an important issue that when there is a hard drive that is no longer usable is destroyed rather than sent out somewhere else. >> i would be happy to share ith you the intell approach we took. you had some things you were trying to say to my last colleague who spoke. i'll yield my remaining time to you to answer any of those remaining questions. >> i appreciate that. i think the important thing to note, i encourage people to talk to their case workers and let us know if there are issues. i have spent visiting the 25 largest offices and i met with over 10,000 i.r.s. employees to

let me know if there's an issue and give us their best insights and advice and improve our operations and working on the ack logue on the 501-c-3 organizations and so your constituents get an appropriate and prompt answer. >> time has expired. dr. boustany. >> commissioner, good to say say founddamned angry when we out what happened to the hard drive and the news that has broken on this and i'm even angrier about this. we sent a letter to secretary on monday and after months of stonewalling on documents, we got 2,00 documents 30 minutes before this hearing convened. amazing that the treasury department can respond that quickly and we are waiting for a

lot of information from your agency. i want to explore some questions with regard to nicole. she had two computers, a desk top and laptop, is that right? >> yes. >> which hard drive failed? >> i have been advised it was her laptop, not her office computer. >> how do you even know where she has archived or do you know where she has archived the documents in the time frame we are interested in? >> everyone archives their documents on the hard drive in the office because that is where most of the work is done. >> can you attest all relative email, documents, memos from nicole relating to targeting are produce i believe? >> i'm advised there is no evidence that any email has been

lost. >> this is information being developed. >> email, memos, all documents? >> my understanding is no email of hers has been lost as a result of her hard drive crash. >> and where is the laptop now which supposedly has hard drive problems? >> i don't know. we just got the list on monday ourselves. we have been pursuing this and will give you a full report on ll the cuss towedians, now seven. >> we don't know where those hard drives are right now? >> we do not. >> unbelievable to me that you don't have that information. it's been a week since this information was made public to us. >> information was made public by you. we advised you in the committee on monday that all we had was the names. we are actually working through in a review to find out what is the status of those, how many emails were lost and we will

find out where the hard drives are. >> and it continues to function. we will give you that information and part of the issue as i said earlier, with providing partial information, well, what's the answer for this. >> we can expect this information in a timely manner? >> we will get you all of the information. hard drive loiser made retrieveable? >> she was advised in the summer of 2011 that the criminal investigation division had been unable to retrieve any emails off her hard drive and -- >> give us that precise date. but really, really disturbed that it took this long for the committee to find out this information. buried in the letter that we received on friday. >> as i noted, there are emails, we have a good close working relationship with her staff.

emails last fall in the productions that referenced her hard drive crash that no one was paying attention to because they were looking at the relevant information. as we proceed through, it wasn't until april that we understood there was a crash and not until mid-may that we could bound the information. >> why wasn't this committee notified before a decision was made to completely recycle her hard drive? >> the committee was not notified because that decision would have been made three years ago. none of this had anything to do with the investigation. >> i would submit it does have to do with the investigation because we are trying to get necessary information and i know you weren't there at the time. but i thought maybe in your investigation you might be able to shed some light as to why we were not notified. and it disturbs me that this decision was made internally without any kind of outside consultation when this committee was vigorously pursuing

information regarding this targeting scandal. >> i would like to make the record clear. the decision about that hard drive was made three years ago. certainly since i started to anything destroyed, every email and hard drive that says if lois' after the crash is now in the possession of the i.g. >> i want to make it very clear that any decisions that are made, we need to be notified, this committee needs to be notified prior to any decisions made about the dispositions of those hard drives. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> he will be on capitol hill tomorrow. he will be testifying before the house oversight committee about his agency's recordkeeping practices. we will bring it live at 7:00 p.m. on c-span 2 and comment during the hearing as it happens on our facebook page and on twitter. and c-span three live coverage

on delayed medical treatment of veterans. two officials from the v.a. will be testifying live at 7:30 p.m. eastern. the st. louis post dispatch indicated it was dropping george will from its pages after a controversial column he wrote about sexual assault on campuses and saying that efforts to combat rape in his words make victim hood a coveted status. he addressed the controversy in an interview on c-span. >> george will, colleges become the victims of progressivism and e day we are recording this, st. louis has said they dropped your column. >> yes, they have. this is my job is when dubious

statistics become the basis of dubious and dangerous venom on due process, to step in and say, take a deep breath everybody. what's happened is, the administration has said that one in five women in college experience a sexual assault and that 12% of sexual assaults are actually reported. take that, only 12% of sexual assaults are reported. take the reporting, ex trap late from that and don't come to anything like 1-5. the administration's statistics fall apart. the office of civil rights and department of education has said , schools should adjudicate sexual assault charges by a preponderance of evidence, not

beyond a reasonable doubt. just a preponderance of evidence. serious due process. a lot of young men and young men andhaving a sea of hormones alcohol get into trouble. you are going to have charges of sexual assault and young men disciplined, their lives oftenly seriously brighted by this. don't get into medical school or law school and you are going to have litigation of tremendous expense as young men sue the colleges for damages done to them by abandonment of the rules of due process that we have as a civil society evolved over many centuries and they are being casually shutted aside. >> i have a letter and you

answered it from senators that begin the letter by saying, having -- your thesis fly in the face of everything we know about this issue. you trivialize the scurge of sexual assault and treating this crime as a socially acceptable fen no, ma'amon and you legitimatize the risks. >> have you seen my letter that i wrote back? >> yes. i take sexual assault more seriously than they do. i agree society has correctly said that rape is second only to murder as a serious murder and ed of rapene is accuse

and had to deal with this, not with impro advised campus statistics. i take sexual assault more seriously than the senators do because i think there is a danger now of defining sexual so broadly that it begins to trivialize the seriousness of it. remarks become sexual assault, improper touching. that shouldn't be done but it's not sexual assault. we begin to blur distinctions are important to preserve if you believe as the senators purport to believe that this is a serious matter. >> did you have any idea that you would get the kind of feedback that you would have a lot of people calling for your head? >> sure. the reason i wrote about it, there is a lot of passion and that's what i do. calling, today for some reason and i have some theories,

indignation is the default position of certain people in civic discourse they go from a standing start to fury in about 30 seconds. it has something to do with the internet. the internet is a wonderful thing. it has lowered and erased the bar years into entry of public discourse. unfortunately, the downside of various at among the barriers that have been reduced, you don't have to read, write or think. you can shout, call names. and we have all kinds of interest groups who think they are going to get attention and probably right and will get attention if they are maximum decibal level. and they shout and say, send him to jail, fire him, all that stuff. but these are like summer storms. they dissipate fast.

>> the post stuck by you right away. "st. louis dispatch has said we lot been watching him for a of years. over the years have you had much of this kind of reaction?