you were part of an email exchange that appeared to be about writing new regulations on political speech for 501c4 groups and in parenthasis your quote, off plan in 2013. ms. lerner, what does off plan mean? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ms. lerner, in february of 2014, president obama stated that there was not a smidgen of corruption in the i.r.s. targeting. ms. lerner, do you believe that there is not a smidgen of corruption in the i.r.s. targeting of conservatives? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question.

>> ms. lerner, on saturday, our committee's general counsel sent an email to your attorney saying, i understand that ms. lerner is willing to testify and she is requesting a one week delay in talking to the chairman -- excuse me. in talking to the chairman, wanted to make sure that was right. your lawyer in response to that question gave a one-word email response. yes. are you still seeking a one-week delay in order to testify? >> on the advice of my counsel i respectfully exercise my fifth amendment right and decline to answer that question. >> ladies and gentlemen, seeking the truth is the obligation of this committee. i can see no point in going further. i have no expectation that ms. lerner will cooperate with this committee and therefore we shall -- >> mr. chairman, i have a statement.

i have a procedural question, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i have a procedural question. mr. chairman, you cannot run a committee like this. you just cannot do this. this is -- we are better than that as a country, we're better than that as a committee. i have asked for a few minutes to -- and now you're turning me off. i am a ranking member on this committee and i want to ask a question. what's the big deal? may i ask my question? may i make my statement. >> you're all free to leave, we've adjourned but the gentleman may ask his question. >> mr. chairman, i have one procedural question and it goes to trying to help you get the information by the way you just asked.

>> what is your question? >> no, let me say what i have to say. i have listened to you for the last 15 or 20 minutes. let me say what i have to say. mr. chairman, i have one procedural -- >> ms. lerner, you are released. >> but first, i would like to use my time to make some brief points. for the past year, the central republican accusation in this investigation -- [mike cut off] >> we are adjourned. close it down. [indiscernible] >> before our -- [mic cut off] [indiscernible] >> thank you. [mike cut off] >> [indiscernible] >> if you will sit down and allow me to ask question, i am a member of the congress of the united states of america! i am tired of this! >> well --

>> we have members over here each of who represent 700,000 people. you cannot have a one-sided investigation. there is absolutely something wrong with that, and it is absolutely un-american. >> hear, hear. >> the hearing is adjourned. i gave you the opportunity to ask a question. >> i do have a question. >> he is taking the fifth, elijah. [indiscernible] >> to discuss a republican staffing -- [indiscernible] although he provided a copy of [indiscernible] he refused my request to provide it to members of the committee.

the fact however does not support these claims. we have now only 38 employees who have all told us the same thing. that the white house was not directed, subjected or even knew about it at the time it was occurring. and none of the witnesses identified any political motivation. the inspector general told us the same thing. he found no evidence of any white house involvement or political motivation. instead, the very first line of the results section said it began with employees in cincinnati who "developed and used inappropriate criteria to deny applications of organizations with the words 'tea party' in their name." a manager explained that his employees were the ones who first came up with the inappropriate search terms in 2010.

this manager explained that his employees were the ones who first came up with the inappropriate search terms in 2010. he denied any political motivation and he made his point by explaining that he is, a quote, conservative republican. i release this entire interview transcript eight months ago for anyone who wants to read it for themselves. the inspector general's report also found that they did not discover use of this criteria until a year later, in 2011. which when he learned about them, and i quote again from the report, she immediately directed the criteria be changed, end of quote. mr. george's chief investigator also reviewed more than 5,500 emails from i.r.s. employees and, again, found no evidence of political motivation. over the past year, our committee has obtained hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses. the i.r.s. has spent more than $14 million responding to congressional investigations.

we have identified absolutely no evidence to support allegations of a political conspiracy against conservative groups. what we have identified, however, is evidence of gross mismanagement. ms. lerner failed to discover these employees were using these search terms for a year and even after she ordered them to stop, they returned to using similar inappropriate criteria and she failed to inform congress about what she knew. so i do have serious questions for ms. lerner and i'm very disappointed that i will not be able to ask them today. but i do not support the republican conclusion that she waived her constitutional right nine months ago when she invoked the fifth amendment and i do not believe a court would uphold that conclusion.

now, the chairman is gone, but i would like to ask him procedural questions. as i said earlier, her attorney can proffer, and she loses nothing, nobody gains anything. on february 26, her attorney sent a letter to the committee saying that he met with the chairman's staff last month. at that meeting her attorney said, and i quote, the staff asked if i would provide a proper testimony she would give and i agreed to do that, end of quote. but that did not happen. as i understand it, accepting the proffer does not grant immunity to the witness it. does not bind the committee in any way. instead, it allows the committee to obtain information without requiring the witness to waive her fifth amendment rights. i was not invited to the meeting last month when her attorney and i have not been included in any negotiations but it seems to me that the committee loses nothing by accepting this proffer and in fact we may gain important information.

as a matter of fact, the very questions that the chairman just asked ms. lerner when she invoked her fifth amendment rights, those are the kind of questions that can be answered in a proffer. so i wanted to ask the chairman whether the committee can schedule a time, preferably this week, for all committee members to hear the proffer from ms. lerner's attorney and with that i yield back. yes, sir. >> i just want to note for the record i find it supreme irony that the chairman of this committee would unilaterally decide an american citizen has waived her fifth amendment rights while actually exercising

his fifth amendment right not to answer your question on behalf of the minority of this committee. and may the full house debated on the floor the resolution to hold her in contempt. portion begins with john aiken. sacred to americans, nothing than portant to protect the democratic electoral process which has made this by far the greatest country in the world, getting everyone an pportunity to participate. we're here today to hold lois lerner in contempt.

it's been stated she didn't have her rights recognized. she has the right to take the fifth. she's done that. under the constitution. may ught her in twice, 22, 2013, march, 2014. she began -- and you can see the tapes -- declaring her innocence. even before that, when it was pointed out that she was at the heart of this matter, in fact everyone and her employees, when she tried to throw them under the bus, they said she threw them under a convoy of mack trucks. every road leads to lois lerner. lois lerner held the congress of the united states in contempt and is holding it in contempt. lois lerner held the electoral process that is so sacred to his country in contempt.

lois lerner has held the american people and the process they cherish and the chief financial agency, the i.r.s., who we all have to account to, as a tool to manipulate a national election. this was a targeted, directed focus attempt and every road leads to lois lerner. she's had twice the opportunity to come before congress and to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth and she has failed to do that and i urge that we hold lois lerner in contempt. that's our responsibility. and it must be done. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from california reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. cummings: with all due respect to the gentleman who ust spoke, even the i.g. found that lois lerner did not learn

about the inappropriate terms until a year afterwards. the i.g. that was appointed by the republican president with. that, i yield three minutes to the distinguished member from virginia a member of our committee, mr. conway. the speaker pro tempore: the -- mr. connolly. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. connolly: i thank my friend. i think if the founders were here today and had witnessed the proceed thonings government and oversight reform committee with respect to ms. lois lerner, they would have unanimously reaffirmed their commitment to this -- to the fifth amendment because rights were trampled on, frankly starting with the first amendment rights of the ranking member who was cut off and not allowed to speak even after the chairman allowed himself abopen -- an opening statement and no fewer than seven questions before cutting off entirely the ranking member.

then we proceeded to trample on the fifth amendment. and case law is what governs here. the court has said the self-incrimination clause must be interpreted in favor of the right it was intended to secure. since the respect normally accorded to prive sledge normally buttressed by the defendant in a trial, in other words it's the same. it's the equivalent of the presumption of innocence. madison said if all men, and he meant all men and women, i'm sure, were angels we wouldn't knead need the fifth amendment. lois lerner is not to be defended here. she's not a heroic character. but she is a citizen who has an enumerated right in the constitution of the united states. the relevant case, besides quinn vs. the united states, in the 1950's a u.s. citizen, diantha ho fwmbings ue was taken tpwhever permanent subcommittee, she also had a

prepared statement declaiming her innocence, that she was not a spy, not engaged in subversion and then she proceeded to invoke her fifth amendment. ms. hogue answered some questions yes or no that were put to her. she was found in contempt. the chairman of the committee jumped on it and said, aha, i got you. the court found otherwise. the court unanimously ruled that ms. hogue had not waived her fifth amendment right, she was entitled to a statement of innocence and that didn't somehow vitiate her invocation of the fifth amendment right and her fifth amendment right was upheld. this is a about trampling on the constitutional rights of u.s. citizens. and for a very crass reason. for partisan, political reason. we heard the distinguished majority leader, my colleague and friend from virginia, assert something that's absolutely not true, which is that only conservative grouped were targeted by the i.r.s.

that's not true and we have testimony that's not true. words like occupy. acorn. progressive. were all part of the so called bolo list. they too were looked at. this was an incompetent, ham handed effort by one regional office in cincinnati by the i.r.s. was it right? absolutely not. but does it rise to the level of a scandal or the false assertion by the chairman of our committee on television as the ranking member cited that somehow it goes all the way to the white house picking on political enemies? flat out untrue. not a scintilla of evidence that that's true. and to have the entire house of representatives now voting on the contempt citation and declaring unilaterally that a u.s. citizen has waived her constitutional rights does no credit to the this house and salo moment that evokes the spirit of joe mccarthy from a long-ago era. shame on us for what we're about to do i yield back.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. issa: nobody answered the debunking we put out this document this document makes it clear it was all about targeting and abusing conservative groups and the gentleman from virginia knows that very well. with that, it's my honor to yield two minutes to the gentleman from oklahoma who has champion sod many of these issues in our investigation, mr. lankford. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. lankford: thank you, mr. speaker. about three years ago, all of our offices started getting phone calls from constituents. they were being -- said they were being asked unusualle -- unusual questions by the i.r.s. they were applying for nonprofit status. they were patriot groups, tea party groups, they were getting questions coming back new york questions like, tell us as the i.r.s. every conversation you've had with a legislator in

the -- and the contents of those conversations. tell us and give us cop dwhroifs documents that are only given to members of your organization. if there's a private part of your website that's only set aside for members, show us all of those pages and by the way, all of those questions were prefaced with the statement from the i.r.s., whatever documents you give us will also be made public to everyone. so the statement was, tell us what you privately talked about with legislators, tell us what only your members get because we're going to publish it. so of course we start to get questions about that. the inspector general starts an investigation on that. on may 10 of last year, 2013, lois lerner stands up in a conference, plants a question in the audience to talk about something completely irrelevant to the conference so she can leak out that this investigation is about to be burst out and four days later, the inspector general launches

out this investigation and says, conservative groups have een unfairly targeted. 298 groups had their applications held, isolated. they were asked for all these things when they turneding to be yumets in, they were store the initial accusation is, this was a crazy group from cincinnati that did this so our committee happened to bring in these folks from cincinnati. they all said they wanted to be able to advance these applications and they were told no. we asked the names of the people in washington that told them to hold them. we brought those folks in. they said they wanted to move them. they were told by the counsel's office to hold them. as we continue to work through point after point, through person after person, all come back to lois lerner's office. lois lencher who had come in before us on may 22 of 2013, made a long statement professing her innocence, saying she'd done nothing wrong, has broken no law, and then said i won't answer questions. what's at stake here is a constitutional principle, can a person sit for a court or

before congress and make a long statement, i've done nothing wrong and then choose to not answer questions? this is a precedent before every congress from here on out and in front of every court. can this be zphone and we would say no. it's not just a statement about accepting that she's guilty. though all the evidence leads back to her and her office. it's, if you have the right to remain silent, do you actually remain silent during that time period? with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from california reserves. mr. cummings: i would say to the gentleman, we are talking about the constitutional rights of a united states sint and we do not have the right -- united states citizen and we do not have the right to remain silent if those rights are being trampled on. i yield three minutes to the distinguished leader from hoyer from maryland. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized.

mr. hoyer: thank you, mr. speaker. if this is a precedent, it is a bad precedent. it is a dangerous precedent. it is a precedent that we ought not to make. read the constitution, i heard, over and over and over again. i've read probably the opinions of 25 lawyers whom i respect from many great institutions in this country. none of whom, as i'm sure the ranking member has pointed out, none of whom believe that the precedent supports this action. mr. speaker, what a waste of the people's time. for congress to spend this week on politics and not policy. we are about to vote on a resolution that is really a

partisan political message. everyone here agrees. everyone. that the i.r.s. should never target anyone based on anything other than what they owe in taxes. not their political beliefs or any other traits. other than their liability and their opportunities to pay the fair share to the united states of america. and in fact, during the exhaustive investigation into the i.r.s., chairman issa's committee, interviewed 39 witnesses, analyzed more than 530,000 pames and could not find the -- pages and could not find the conspiracy they were looking for. that they always look for. that they always allege. $14 million of taxpayer money

has already been spent on this investigation. and all that was found was that which we already knew. that the division led by ms. lerner suffered from fundamental administrative and managerial shortcomings that bore no connection to poll tirks or to -- to politics or to partisanship. independent legal experts concluded that chairman issa's efforts to hold ms. lerner in contempt of congress is constitutionally deficient. this resolution before us today is of course not meant to generate policy. it's nonet generate headlines. -- it's meant to generate headlines. republicans once again are showing that they are more interested in partisan election year gimmicks than working in a bipartisan way to tackle our country's most pressing challenges. we ought to turn to the important matters of creating

jobs, raising the minimum wage, restoring emergency unemployment for those who are struggling to find work. issues the american people overwhelmingly support and want their congress to address. i urge my colleagues to give this partisan resolution the vote it deserves. and to feed -- and defeat it so we can turn to the people's business. in closing, let me say this, mr. speaker. there are 435 of us in this body. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman will suspend. the gentleman from california reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized, the gentleman from maryland is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. i urge all my colleagues, do not think about party on this vote. think about precedent. think about this institution.

think about the constitution of the united states of america. and if you haven't read, read some of the legal opinions. that say you have to establish a predicate before you can tell an american that they will be held criminally liable if they tobet respond to your questions. -- if they don't respond to your questions. that's what this issue is about. not about party. not about any of us. but about the constitutional protection this is a every american deserves and ought to be given and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from maryland reserves. mr. couple spgs: may i inquire how much time is remaining? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland has eight and a quarter minutes remaining, the gentleman from california has eight minutes remaining. mr. issa: i want to correct the record, earlier a minority member stated that with 35

words said by lois lerner, our count is 305. hopefully the inaccuracy of their experts will be considered the same. with that, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from arizona, mr. gosar. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. gosar: i thank the gentleman for yielding. mr. speaker, i rise in support of this resolution. the people's house has thor hi documented lois lerner's trespasses, including her history of targeting conservative groups as well as the laws she has broke . there's a 443-page committee reporting supporting these allegations. we know ms. lerner refuses to comply with a duly issued subpoena from the house oversight and government reform committee and without ms. lerner's full cooperation the american public will not have the answers it needs from its government. my friends across the aisle have continuously cried foul over this legitimate investigation. but where is there evidence -- where is their evidence to put this to rest? i do not enjoy hold anything federal official in contempt or

pursuing criminal charges because doing so mean we was a government run amok and a u.s. attorney general who does not uphold the rule of law and such a predicament is a lose-lose situation for all americans and our constitution. as uncomfortable as it may be, it is our job to proceed in the name of government accountability. i support this resolution and it is way pastime for contempt for lois lerner. with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from california reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. cummings: i yield two minutes to mr. welch. mr. welch: i thank the gentleman. mr. speaker, there's a reason that the american people hold the congress of the united states in such low esteem. we're providing them with some additional basis to have that opinion. and here's what it is. number one, this was an important investigation. we should do it. we should do it energetically

and we should do it together. instead, information was constantly withheld from the minority. our own ranking member was cut off with really quite a bold gesture by the chairman at a certain point, and it created an impression that it was going to be a one-sided affair rather than a balanced cooperative approach. that's essential to having any credibility. the second thing is, what do we do about mrs. lowey: who took the fifth -- will lois lerner who took the fifth? and the manner which she did that took her to waive that. your side think she waived it and therefore should be held in contempt. our side, and we have the side of legal opinion, said she didn't waive it. you know, that's a legal question and there is a document called the constitution that separates the powers.

whether this person crossed the line or didn't the idea that a congress, this time run by republicans, next time by democrats, can have a right to make a determination about the rights of a citizen is in complete conflict with the separation of powers in our constitution. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from vermont yields back. the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. issa: i thank the gentleman from vermont in advance for his yes vote on this because the only way to send this to the court to be decided is to vote

yes. in fact, we are not try lois lerner. we are determining that she should be tried. the question should be before a federal judge. with that, i yield two minutes to the gentlelady from wyoming a member of the committee, mrs. lummis. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. mrs. lummis: thank you, mr. speaker. i contend that in the interest of protections the -- protecting the constitutional rights of this country from the behavior of the i.r.s., from lois lerner, herself a lawyer, who understands that you can waive your right to remain silent as to matters to which you chose to testify. and that she did that. she said, i've done nothing wrong, i have broken no laws, subsequently, we find out that she blamed the rimplet s. employees in cincinnati for wrongdoing that was going on here in washington, d.c. that she was targeting

conservative groups and only conservative groups, thereby violating their first amendment constitutional rights. the oversight committee needs to find the truth and to that end, we need answers from lois lerner. the committee has sought these answers for more than a year. lerner's refusal to truthly answer these questions posed by the committee cannot be tolerated. i urge a yes vote. following that swift action by the justice department to ensure that lois lerner provides answers on exactly what she i.r.s. was up to. mr. chairman, i thank you and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the gentleman from california reserves. on the time remain, the gentleman from california has 11 -- has 12 minutes left. the gentleman from maryland has 6 1/4 minutes left. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. cummings: i yield two minutes to mr. davis of

illinois. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. davis: i agree that one of the responsibilities of our committees is to investigate, to try and make sure that the laws are carried out the way we intended and to try and make sure that the money is being spent the way we intended for it to be spent. that we spent $14 million up to this point investigating this one issue, and while i think the investigations are designed to tell us something we don't know , we have not learned anything new. we have not learned of any kind of conspiracy. we have not learned of any kind of underhandedness. the only thing that we know is that we have said to a united

states citizen that you cannot invoke the fifth and say that i have a right not to answer questions if i think it's going o damage me. i'd rather see us spend the there are 14 million creating jobs, providing educational opportunities for those that need it, doing something that will change the direction and the flavor of the economics of our country rather than wasting $14 million more on continuous investigations. i vote no and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. issa: at this time it's my distinked honor to yield two minutes to -- distinct honor to yield two minutes to the gentleman from georgia. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from georgia is recognized for two minutes. >> you know, it is amazing. the american people still have not received answers that they

deserve, i believe, from lois lerner. i think sitting here on the floor and listening to the last few minutes, it just really amazes me about what's being said. it said if the chairman had done this and if we had not done this then maybe we would have had more time and maybe we'll find out the truth. mr. collins: she did talk. she said a lot of things, including making 17 different factual assertions and then decided, oops, don't want to take anymore. here's the problem. no one has said or even implied that you can't assert your fifth amendment right. that's never been said on this floor. it's never been asserted by any member of the republican party. what has been asserted is you can't come in and you can't say, i've done nothing wrong, i'm clean, and oh, by the way, quit asking because i'm not going to answer any of your

questions. when do you that, then you're taking advantage of a system that you are not supposed to be taking advantage of. you could have -- she could have said, mr. chairman, with all due respect, i am not going to answer your question. i am asserting my fifth amendment right. she did not do that and what we have now is not a waste of time. i believe there's a lot of things. the republican majority is working on economic development. one thing we have to reassert in this country is trust, and right now the american people do not trust us and they do not breeb the government is in their favor. and incidents like this when they are being asked inappropriate questions, when they are trying to fulfill their right and freedom of speech, this is why you're here. you can't keep doing it. ms. lerner needs to be held in contempt. i have heard arguments that reminds me the song from pink floyd, i am comfortably numb, because at this point the facts don't matter. she chose to say, i didn't do anything wrong. that's not the way this process works, ms. lerner. it's time to testify.

with that i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the remaining time for the gentleman from california is 10 minutes. the gentleman from maryland has 4 3/4 minutes. mr. cummings: i'd say to the gentleman who is leaving the floor, the arguments do matter this is still the united states of america. there are still constitutional rights which we declare -- mr. collins: if the gentleman will yield? mr. cummings: no. i'm about to yield to ms. norton, it's her time. i yield two minutes to the gentlelady. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady from the district of columbia is recognized for two minutes. ms. norton: if the point is of the contempt resolution is to find out what ms. lerner knows, what the committee wants to know, deliberately here, of course, is whether there was deliberate targeting of citizens for political reasons. the fact is that the committee

passed up the opportunity to learn this information. it asked her attorney, would you tell us what she will tell us? t's called a prover. indeed, her attorney sent a letter to the chairman offering to provide a prover. that's the information -- a proffer. that's the information we want to know. this proffer would detail what ms. lerner would testify. instead of accepting that proffer, the chairman went on national television and claimed that this written offer never happened. the chairman, therefore, never obtained the proffer that the attorney was willing to offer. the information which is the only reason we should be on this floor at all and when the

ranking member tried to ask about it at a hearing in march, the chairman famously cut off his microphone and closed down the hearing in one of the worst examples of partisanship the committee has ever seen. the chairman did something similar when mrs. lerner's attorney offered to have her one-week h a simple extension, mr. speaker. since the attorney had obligations out of town. rather than accepting this offer to get the committee the information that is at the ttom of this contempt matter today, the chairman went on national television and declared inaccurately that she would testify without the extension. of course, that meant nothing could happen. there was no trust left. clearly what the committee wanted was a fifth amendment show hearing in violation of ms. lerner's rights.

hey wanted a contempt citation vote. that's an example of a political contempt citation vote. it will never hold up in the courts of the united states of america. and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back. the gentleman from maryland reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. issa: i work long and hard with the gentlelady from the district of columbia, and she's a good person but her facts are simply 100% wrong. in every single one of her assertions -- and every single one of her assertions was simply not true. you can go to every page and see that none of those statements are true. we would have accepted a proffer from the attorney. we were not given one. although i will say he did tell one time we wouldn't like what she would say if she said something. i went on national television

to say she would appear and testify. additionally, the gentlelady did make one point that was very good. it was very good. the attorney told us that she needed a week to prepare, which we were pg willing to give her. when we learned it was actually inconvenient for the attorney to necessarily prep her, we said if he would come in with his client and agree she was going to testify we would recess and give her the additional week. when they came in that day, no such offer was on the table from her attorney but in fact he said she had decided that she simply didn't want to speak to us. not that she was afraid of incrimination because you can't be afraid of incrimination and not afraid back and forth. that's pretty clear. her contempt for her committee was in fact contempt for the body of congress while she was happy to speak at length apparently with the department of justice, perhaps with that

$6,000 or $7,000 contributor to president obama that is so involved in that investigation. and with that i yield two minutes to the gentleman from michigan, mr. bentivolio. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for two minutes. mr. bentivolio: thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. speaker, i stand in support of this resolution recommending that the house of representatives find lois lerner in contempt of congress. our pledge of allegiance ends with the words, for liberty and justice for all. lois lerner's actions have made it nearly impossible for us to follow those ideals for the victims of the i.r.s. targeting scandal. she has placed obstacle after obstacle in front of our pursuit for the truth, worrying that her ideology and actions of a corrupt federal agency will be exposed. i ask my colleagues to join our effort in promoting transparency in our government. as members of congress, it is our job to protect rights, not

take them away. and with that i yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. cummings: we reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized. is is with that, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from texas, member of the committee, mr. farenthold. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. farenthold: i'm here today because i believe lois lern waived her fifth amendment rights to testify and by so ing in not answering our questions. the other side makes a big deal about this. but the way the system is supposed to work, we will find mrs. lerner in contempt. there will be a full hearing in the court and this may well make it to the united states supreme court. her rights will be protected. but we have also got to protect the rights of the people. we are the people's house.

it'sure job to get to the bottom of the scandals that are troubling the american people so we can regain the trust to the american people. you know, it's healthy to be skeptical of your government but if you don't believe a word that comes out of the mouth of the administration, there is a real problem. i don't think the justice department is going to pursue this. the same thing that is going to ppen to ms. lerner and we've got to do our job. we've got to deal with these people that are in contempt of congress. for that reason, i have h.r. 4447 that is pending before this house that would withhold the pay of anyone in contempt of congress. we have to use the power of the purse and everything we've got to reclaim the power of the purse and the power that the constitution gave this body to get to the truth and be the representatives of the people. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california reserves. the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. cummings: we reserve. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is ecognized. the gentleman from california has 5 1/2. the gentleman from maryland has 2 1/2 minutes. the gentleman from california is recognized. is is i yield a minute to the gentleman from texas, mr. gohmert, who is, in fact, a constitution -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for one minute. mr. gohmert: i was struck by the comments by the minority whip instructing us to check the constitution. that really struck me, because i believe i recall him standing up and applauding in this chamber when the president said if congress doesn't do its job, i'll basically do it for them. so someone that would do that

doesn't need to be giving lectures on the constitution. we have powers under the constitution we got to protect. and when someone stands up and exerts their innocence repeatedly and then attempts to take the fifth amendment right, it's not there. this is the next step. it will preserve the sanctity and the power of this body whether it's democrats or republicans in charge for anyone who attempts to skirt justice and provide truth. and with that, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from california reserves? is is i reserve subject to the close. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland is recognized. mr. cummings: mr. speaker, as i close, i want to remind all of my colleagues several references

have been made to the oath that we take every two years in this chamber. and every two years we extend in this chamber and say i will swear and support and defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. the first words we say. but it's interesting that in the beginning of that swearing-in is that we will defend the constitution of the united states of america. and yesterday, we had a very interesting argument in rules when one of the members of the rules committee questioned whether when one becomes a public employee, whether they then lose their rights as an american citizen. and it is clear that those rights do stand no matter

whether you are a public servant or whether you are a janitor at some coffee shop. and we are in a situation today where we need to be very clear what's happening. not since mccarthy has this been tried, that is the stripping away of an american citizen's constitutional right not to incriminate themselves and then holding him in contempt criminally. mccarthy. we are better than that. we are so much better. and the idea that somebody can come in after their lawyer has sent a letter in saying they are going to take the fifth, then the lawyer comes in and sits behind them while they take the

fifth, then that person said they are taking the fifth, and then suddenly when they say i clare my innocence, we say gotcha. the supreme court has said this is not a gotcha moment. it is not about that. the supreme court has said these rights, no matter how much we may not like the person who we are talking about, no matter how much we may think they are hiding, they have rights. and this is what this is all about. with that, i yield back and i urge my colleagues to make sure that they vote against this, because this is about generations yet unborn, how they will view us during our watch. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from california is recognized. is is mr. speaker, i regret that we have to be here today. and if it is within my power, if

at any time lois lerner comes forward to answer our questions, i'm fully prepared to hear what she has to say. and at that point, i would certainly ask that the criminal prosecution be dropped. it may not be within my power after today, but for more than a year, our committee has sought to get her testimony. for nearly a year we have sought to get her to testify honestly. it was shocking to us on the ommittee that a lawyer represented by a distinguished lawyer would play fast and loose with the fifth amendment assertion. it's a pretty straight-forward process to assert your rights and in fact, her attorney may have planned all along to have a controversy. i'll never know. what i do know is we asserted that she had waived because we were advised by house counsel, an independent organization, that she had.

we continued to investigate and only today, nearly a year after a subpoena was issued, the treasury, the i.r.s. gave us like 12,000 emails and earlier emails, they indicate a deeply political individual, partisan in her views, who apparently was at the center of deciding that when the president in this well objected to citizens united, that it meant they wanted us to fix it and she was prepared to do it. that's for a different court to decide. the only question now is did she, in fact, give testimony and then assert the fifth amendment and then give some more testimony and can we have that kind of activity? we have dismissed other people who came before our committee, asserted their fifth amendment rights after enough questions to know they were going to continue to assert, we dismissed them.

we have a strong record of respecting the first, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth amendment and so on. that's what this congress does and we do it every day and our committee does it. rather than listen to debate here which was filled with factual inaccuracies, refuted in documentation that is available to the american people, rather than believe that the minority's assertion should carry the day because the gentleman from georgia said, if about eight different ifs, thans, they would vote for this. the gentleman from vermont said, we shouldn't be doing this or finding her guilty, this should be before a judge. he may not have understood because what we are doing is putting the question did she properly waive or not and should she be back before us or be held in contempt and punished for not

giving it? this won't be my decision, this will be a lifetime appointment nonpartisan federal judge. the only thing we are doing today is sending it for that consideration. and if the court rules that, in fact, her conduct was not a waiver, then we will have a modern update to understand the set of events here. but we'll still have the same problem, which is lois lerner was at the center of an operation that abused americans for their political beliefs. asked them inappropriate questions, delayed and denied their aprovals. the minority asserted well they could have self-selected. maybe they could have, maybe they should have, but it wouldn't change the fact that der penalty of perjury the i.r.s. was asking inappropriate

questions. the i.r.s. is an organization we don't have confidence in. we need to re-establish that and part of that is understanding how and why a high-ranking person at the i.r.s. so blatantly abused conservative groups in america that were adverse to the president, no doubt, but that shouldn't be the basis under which you get scrutinized, audited or abused and yet it clearly was. it is essential we vote yes on contempt and let the court decide but more importantly let the american people have confidence that we will protect their rights >> the house later voted to hold his lois lerner contempt of congress. you could watch all of our irs targeting coverage on our website. we continue our spotlight series with u.s. archivist david fer

rio. we begin with tim walberg. state they are required to report the incident to the archives. did the irs report any loss of records related to lois lerner? >> no. is it fair to say they broke the federal records act? required toency is notify us when they realized they have a problem that could

be unauthorized disposal. >> they did not do that. did they break the law? >> i am not a lawyer. >> is they do not follow the that theye assume broke the law? would have liked to of gotten those records, but he will let the lawyers work it out. help those who are watching understand we are dealing with a , that wasas broken broken by an agency that has the power to tax which is also the

power to destroy. general, could you briefly for us the process?eping >> i would like to take that question for you. first, i need to apologize about intimating that the federal records act itself says print and file. so the federal records act does not stipulate that you have to print and file. it is a practical activity that most agencies have adopted as part of their policy so as to ensure that federal records are identified and put into official record-keeping systems within agencies. the connection to the federal records act is based on an analog and paper model for managing records, and as a practical matter, most agencies, if not all agencies across the government, have had print and file policies were individual employees are required to

identify what federal records are and put them into the record-keeping copy of -- within their agency for retention, according to records control schedules that the united states approves. what we're trying to do is the capstone policy and the activities on managing government records, to automate this process so that we can eliminate the human intervention and the likelihood or possibility of humans making errors and agencies losing control of records. print and file has a long history of human intervention, whether it is printing it on paper and putting it into a file folder or clicking and dragging an electronic file into an electronic file folder. >> the irs has the policy? >> the official policy as we understand it is the print and file. >> in general, do you think it would be sufficient for the federal records act for an employee to save e-mails that are federal records to a local

folder on the computer hard drive instead of printing goes out? >> it is inconsistent with the guidance that the irs has given to their employees. their official guidance is to print and file e-mail records, in this case, to paper, and put them into the system. >> if an employee were to deliberately not comply by not printing up their e-mails, would they be subject to any sanctions under the fra? if so, what sanctions? >> i am also not a lawyer. it is not an enforcement statute. what we do with agencies when these sorts of issues arrive is at them report to us what has occurred. in the instant were e-mails or other references have been alienated or destroyed, then what are their plans for reconstructing those records or are they putting plans in place to make sure that does not happen again in the future? >> let me complete the questioning here.

if a federal employee's hard drive crashes with no warning and no backup of the e-mail exists, do you believe it is proper for an agency to assume that no records were lost? >> no. >> that is the question. $100 billion question that i hope we can ultimately get an answer to. i yield back. >> thank you, gentleman. the chair recognizes the gentleman from nevada. >> thank you, mr. chairman. last night the actual chairman, chairman issa, take extreme action by issuing a unilateral subpoena to the white house. he demanded that ms. o'connor show up here today within 24 hours and under threat of contempt. there was no vote on this

>> the committee did not debate it. members did not have the opportunity toway the gravity of what the chairman did in the committee's name. now we find out how misguided that subpoena really was. ms. o'connor, let me just confirm what we have heard here this morning. you were not at i.r.s. when employees were using inappropriate search terms, is that correct? >> i was not at the i.r.s. during the period covered by the inspector general's report. >> you joined the i.r.s. after the inspector general issued his report, is that correct? >> yes, i joined on may 30, 2013. >> and you left the i.r.s. in 2013 which was long before the i.r.s. made these recent discoveries this spring about ms. learner's email, is that correct? >> that's correct, yes. >> and you joined the white house less than a month ago? >> about a month ago. >> and according to a letter we

received from the white house, that was after the treasury department informed the white house in april about potential problems with ms. learner's email, is that right? >> right, i have seen that letter. referral o an april or informing in april, yes. >> thank you. thank you. i quite honestly do not understand how chairman issa was able to rush to issue the subpoena, to force you, ms. o'connor to be here today within 24-hour notice. your connection to this topic of today's hearing is at best a stretch and all of these questions could have been answered by simply picking up the telephone and asking. it's just a continuation of the same charade that unfortunately this chairman continues to use this committee to perpetuate.

what is further insulting about this is that the chairman promised to use the authority of this committee responsibly. let me read what the chairman said back in 2011 and i quote -- "i'm going to take the thoughts on why you object seriously. to be honest, i will ask other members of my committee, am i doing the right thing. i will also undoubtedly talk to other members on your side and say, am i nuts? am i wrong? is this somehow a subpoena that is outside the mainstream? so i don't intend on simply writing subpoenas endlessly, but that's exactly what chairman issa has done. since he became chairman four years ago, he has issued more than 50 unilateral subpoenas. he has never once allowed a debate and he has never allowed a vote. not only do these actions contradict the promises that he

made four years ago as the chairman, but they result in unwarranted and abuse of subpoenas like the one he issued last night. now, many constituents do care about the issue of the wrongdoing that occurred at the i.r.s. there are members on the other side of the aisle who i have listened to try to understand the concerns about the lack of accountability of those individuals who should be held responsible. but unfortunately, that is not what the chairman has allowed us to focus on in any of the hearings that we have had dealing with this matter. in fact, he has used this process to politicize the process and to not focus on the proper oversight or government reform function of the committee. perhaps this should not be a surprise because during an

interview on august 19, 2010 before chairman issa became committee, he was asked what he planned to do with the ability to issue subpoenas and his response was, and i quote -- "can't officers, assistant secretaries, directors, i will be able to take on everybody that the president hires and relies upon." well, he has certainly made good on that promise. i yield back my time. >> thank you, gentlemen from nevada. the chair would now recognize the gentlemen from arizona. >> thank you, mr. chairman. you know, the ranking member brings up new legs about electronic -- legislation about electronic preservation. that's immaterial if you don't uphold the law, right? >> the law is -- >> well, the hope is, you don't uphold the law, it doesn't mean a hill of beans, right? >> that's true. >> how about you, ms. o'connor,

would you agree with that statement? >> the ability of upholding the law is very important. >> a government of laws, the existence of the government will be unperiled if government because a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. it invites everybody to become a law unto himself and invites anarchy. following the law is very important, would you agree, ms. o'connor? >> absolutely. >> yeah. you found out about potential loss of documentation by the i.r.s. or through a letter to the senators? >> through the letter in june. >> you are aware that federal gulations 36 c.f.r. states that agencies must report destruction of records in the custody of that agency to the administration records program, true?

>> true. >> yeah, that's what i thought. so once again, we got a problem. last night i cited the articles of impeachment for president richard nixon actually cited inference about the i.r.s. people are scared of the i.r.s. because of the power to tax is the power to destroy, wouldn't you agree? >> i know that people are afraid of the i.r.s., yes. >> yeah. missing documents kind of similar to missing tape minutes, wouldn't you agree? >> i'm not sure they equate. >> whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. missing material, missing material, missing records, missing records, this ain't, agreed? >> missing material. >> yeah. and then we haven't followed the rule of law, so everybody is scared to death that there is one application to bureaucrats and there is another application to the regular laypeople on the street. it defies me. ms. o'connor, you have been in

the clinton white house. you used to help with the clinton administration with the teamster union strike. in fact, you have been quoted as being a veteran of washington battles. would you agree with that? >> i have been here a long time. >> so you know the process, right? >> i'm not sure which process you're referring to. >> the bureaucratic inside the beltway politics process, you know about these record-keeping and aspect of that as well? >> i'm not a record-keeping expert, certainly -- >> you are an attorney, you have to know when there is a problem and you don't have records or there is a problem with records, you know to report it, right? >> i know that if you discover that records have been lost and they're not recoverable, it needs to be reported, yeah. >> let's go back through this again. the accidental removal defacing, alteration or destruction of records in the custody, so it's not just loss, it's potential problems with it. so in your tenure over at the i.r.s., there was no inferences, ms. o'connor that

there was some sequencing problems or some problems with he emails out of ms. learner's office, none? >> nobody raised to me what i understand to be the issue that arose here, which is an identification that some of the emails were -- >> i didn't ask about missing, there were some problems with her email. even the commissioner said that it was known that there was problems with that, with her records? >> i don't recall knowing that there were problems -- >> no one reported to you that there was any problems. >> i don't recall anybody telling me that there were problems. >> would you consider the conduct of ms. learner normal? >> which conduct? >> the conduct in front of this committee and her conduct in front of supplying a question to the audience, a question to the audience, as an employee and somebody supervising records, would you say the conduct of ms. learner as being normal? >> just to break it out, the question at the conference, it

wouldn't be something i would advise. in terms of the laptop situation, my understanding from the material that's become public in the last week or so is that she took quite a number of efforts to have the laptop reconstructed and that seals to be appropriate. >> you can also look at it from the standpoint of america looking at it as covering up for a crime, too? >> i have no evidence of that. >> if you're from the inside out, it's pretty interesting that you could actually try to cover that up in regards to the way that you look like you're coming off on disclosure. let me ask one last question. so the way she took the fifth, is that normal, ms. o'connor? >> i don't have any point of reference for that. >> you have seen plenty of fifth, taking the fifth, have you not? >> i have not. >> you have not. ok. i yield back. >> you can watch all of this hearing on our website, c-span.org. type in i.r.s. targeting in the search bar at the top of the screen. our issue spotlight program concludes with the i.r.s.

commissioner. he testified in june about his agency's missing emails and the status of the targeting investigation. this portion of the house, weighs and means committee is about 15 minutes. >> let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. thank you. commissioner, thank you for being with us today. you will have five minutes to present your testimony with your full written statement submitted for the record. you are now recognized for five minutes. >> chairman, ranking member and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to provide you with an update on recent i.r.s. documentations productions to congress. the i.r.s. has made a massive document production in response to inquiries from congress.

in march, the i.r.s. advised this committee and the senate finance committee that we had completed the production of documents identified as relating to their investigation of the processing and review of applications for tax exempt stat you as described in the may 2013 report from the treasury inspector general for tax administration. those production efforts included 11,000 emails from lois learner, former director of the i.r.s. exempt organizations division. this committee and the senate finance committee has noted has now received more than 770,000 pages of unredacted material. we are sending another production to you later today of initially learner emails. you already have more than 25,000 emails from ms. learner's computer account and more than 5,000 emails from other custodian's accounts for which ms. learner was an author or recipient. the i.r.s. is due to complete the production of the remaining learner emails to this committee by the end of the

month. at the time you will have all of the emails, 43,000 of them, that we have from ms. learner's computer and email account for the period january 2009 through may 2013. in addition it is noted you will have 24,000 learner emails from other custodian accounts during the period that her hard drive was crashed for a total of 67,000 learner emails. in the course of responding to congressional requests, the i.r.s. in february reviewed the email available from ms. learner's cuss stoodall computer accounts which had been date limited and limited by search terms we had worked out with investigators and identified the possibility of an issue because the date distribution of the email was uneven. it was not clear then whether learner emails were overlooked, missing, or had other technical issues involved. i.r.s. information technology professionals identified documents that indicated ms. learner had experienced a computer failure in 2011 as the congressman noted, some of

those emails had earlier been provided last fall to this committee. in mid-march, 2014, the i.r.s. focused on redacting materials from nontax writing committees and processing the rest of the email for production. as we reviewed additional emails, not limited by search terms, relevance, or subject matter, in other words all of her emails, the i.r.s. review team learned additional facts regarding ms. learner's computer crash in mid 2011 which occurred before these investigations opened or the i.g.'s report began. we learned that in 2011, the i.r.s. information technology division had tried using multiple processes at ms. learner's request to recover the information stored on her computer's hard drive. a series of emails available after all of ms. learner's email was loaded recounts the sequence of events in 2011. a frontline manager and i.t. reported to ms. learner in an email on july 20, 2011 and i quote, "i checked with the

technician and he still has your drive. he wanted to exhaust all avenues to recover the data before sending to the hard drive cemetery. unfortunately, after receiving assistance from several highly skilled technicians including h.p. experts, he still cannot recover the data." ms. learner was told by email on august 1, 2011, and i quote, "as a last resort, we sent your hard drive to c.i., the i.r.s. criminal investigation forensic ab to attempt recovery." after three weeks to recover her emails, she was advised, "unfortunately the news is not good. the sectors on the hard drive were bad, which made your data unrecoverable. i am very sorry. everyone involved tried their best." the committee has been provided earlier these emails earlier this spring. in light of the hard drive

issue, the i.r.s. took multiple steps over the pass months to assess the situation and produce as much email as possible for which ms. learner was an author or recipient. we retraced the collection process for her emails. we located, processed and included email from an unrelated 2011 data collection from ms. learner. we confirmed the backup tapes from 2011 no longer existed because they have been recycled pursuant to the i.r.s. normal policy. we searched email from other custodians for material on which she appears as you thor or recipient. they concentrated on loading for review all of the remaining email for her account and then repeating the entire process for quality control and to ensure that no new emails from ms. learner were missing. during this time, we also were identifying and reviewing emails to and from 82 other custodians. by mid may, as a result of these efforts, the i.r.s. had

identified the 24,000 learner emails between january 1 and april of 2011. as the search was concluding, i asked those working on this matter to determine whether computer systems of the other 82 custodians had experienced any similar difficulties especially in light of the aged equipment the i.r.s. has been increasingly using as a result of its budget pressures. after the i.r.s. report on the email production was delivered last friday to congress, it was determined earlier this week, actually on monday, that seven additional custodians had experienced hard drive failures during this search period. a hard drive failure does not automatically mean that any or all emails have been lost or cannot be reconstructed. given the extremely broad scope of our production effort, it's not surprising that we would discover that some employees had encountered some technical issues especially in light of the agency's aging information structure. the i.r.s. described in great

detail in its public report last week its effort to produce emails. we are still assessing what effect if any hard drive crashes had of any other custodian. at this time it's too early to know if any emails have been lost on any of those hard drives. we are committed to working cooperatively and transparently with you, this committee, and we will continue to provide you with updates. this concludes my testimony. i would be happy to take your questions. >> well, thank you. what i didn't hear in that was an apology to this committee. >> i don't think an apology is owed. there is not a single email that has been lost since the start of this investigation. every email has been preserved that we have. we have produced or will produce by the end of this week. >> you don't think the time period between january 2009 and april 2011 is relevant to this investigation. >> it is a very relevant time frame . >> let me ask you this. the letter that we received from the i.r.s. on friday the 13th that admitted that

learner's emails were lost for the 2 1/2-year period. >> they were lost off her hard drive. >> let me finish. i'm not finished with my question. i'll give you an opportunity to answer. >> that's fine. >> but you failed to explain the timeline of events that led to that admission. and my question to you is -- from the interviews that we have had with the deputy chief of information, the deputy chief information officer for he i.r.s., i'm told the i.r.s. knew as early as early as february her computer crash supposedly lost the emails from january 2009 to 2011. has the i.r.s. known since february? >> the i.r.s. knew in february there was an issue. as noted, we all had emails from ms. learner last fall in which she had recited that she had a hard drive crash. >> in february you knew the emails were missing? >> in february we knew there was a problem. we were looking at it from the standpoint of what time frame was in which her emails appeared and it appeared that there were not enough emails in that time frame.

>> so why didn't you, why didn't the i.r.s. notify congress at that time there was a problem with the potential loss of the emails 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. >> now, i got a letter from the white house two days ago that says that treasury contacted the white house in april, in april of this year to tell them about the lost emails. the who told the treasury department? >> pardon? >> who told the treasury department? the letter i received from the white house says that treasury told them in april of 2014, so my question is, who told the treasury department? >> my understanding only from that letter which i have seen which does not say that emails had been lost, my understanding the letter says that someone in the general council's office at the i.r.s. informed the general council's office at treasury that there was an issue and the i.r.s. was investigating it. >> the letter says the treasury was told, that treasury told the white house, we also have a letter from treasury that says they learned in april of 2014.

who told treasury and do you know who in treasury told the white house? >> i have no idea. i have no communications with the white house. >> you're the head. i.r.s. you don't know this important, contacts between your agency and the executive branch? you're unaware of them? >> we are part of the executive branch. we have regular communications with treasury. we issue regulations, we review them. we're in the process of reviewing the regulations on the 501 c issue. we have regular communications between our council's office and the treasury council. >> the i.r.s. knew in february or maybe even march and treasury and white house knew at least in april but congress and the american people didn't find out until june, were you purposely not telling us? were you purposely not revealing this to the american people? >> as i told you, my proposal, our original thought was to complete the email production, complete the review of what other custodians had a problem and produce a report to you laying it all out. >> so why did the i.r.s. inform the executive branch agencies,

the white house, the administration, but kept it secret from the congress who was conducting an investigation? >> we were not keeping it a secret. it was our public report to you that has provided you this information. there has been no attempt to keep it a secret. my position has been that when we provide information, we should provide it completely if we provide you incomplete information, people sometimes are attempted to leap to the wrong conclusion not based on any facts. we thought it would be important to give you the full description. >> it's ok for the white house and treasury to leap to a conclusion six weeks before the congress. my question, have there been discussions within the i.r.s. about when to reveal this information to congress? >> certainly. >> and obviously these discussions including treasury? >> no. >> how did treasury find out about it? >> treasury in a conversation that i'm not aware of, apparently the first time i knew about that -- >> i'll have a lot of questions to write to you to follow up with you. completely unacceptable. >> can i answer that question and make the record --

>> i don't think you're giving me an answer. i want to move on to another topic. >> all right. >> your letter describes as the emails being uncoverable? >> correct. >> but fails to manage where the damaged hard drive is today? do you know where it is? >> i'm advised the actual hard drive half it was determined it was dysfunctional and with experts, no emails could be retrieved was recycled and destroyed in the normal process. >> so was it physically destroyed? >> that's my understanding. >> so was it melted down? >> i have no idea what the recycler does with it. this was three years ago. >> does the i.r.s. have a system for tracking items? >> tracking what? >> items. does the i.r.s. have a tracking system for items? >> we track items, we don't track every item that everybody has everywhere, but i'm sure we track some items. >> does someone there have a serial number for that hard drive? >> i do not know whether they do or not. i am just advised that a normal case when a hard drive fails, the email cannot be

reconstructed, the hard drive is turned over to recyclers. >> it seems if it was recycled, the government property would have been tracked? >> pardon? >> it seems to me, if it was recycled, government property would be tracked or people could walk away with property from the i.r.s. i assume there is a tracking system for the disposal of government property? >> for computers, her computer continued to be functioning with a new hard drive. the hard drive fits inside. i'm not aware whether hard drives have identifiers. >> can we get the serial number of this hard drive and all of the other employees whose hard drives, whose emails have been lost? >> if they have serial numbers, you're welcome to them. >> i want that hard drive and i want the hard drive of every computer that crashed during that time frame. what i have learned in the last week, i think calls into question every document and response the i.r.s. has given or for that matter has failed to give this committee. the only way i can see of restoring any confidence is to establish a special prosecutor

with the authorities, the powers, and the resources needed to uncover the truth. for the sake of thes and to restart the trust of the american people, will you support the special prosecutor. >> there are six investigations going on right now. the ifplg g. is investigating. can you give a definitive answer to this committee, yes or no? >> i do. >> i'm asking a question that can have a simple yes or no answer. >> i think the appointment of a special prosecutor after the six investigations are on going and the i.g. investigation would be a monumental waste of taxpayer funds? >> is that a yes or a no. >> that's a no. >> thank you, mr. levin is recognized. you have five minutes. 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 ecades ago led by people who . srespected witnesses .ou had a long career what have you done in the years of your career briefly? >> i'm sorry, what i have done what? >> what's your career been like? >> my career has been 20 years in the private sector turning around large troubled organizations. i started my career as the chief of staff for a senator for four years in the u.s. senate. i served on a presidential commission as a staff member in

late 1960's. i represented new york city here for a year and a half. i was the deputy director for management at o.m.b. for three years. i was the chair of the president's council on year 2000 for two years guiding the country through the year 2000 transition. i was asked by the bush administration to take over freddy mac as the chairman of the board when the government took over those enterprises. i was asked to come to the i.r.s., which i did in december when i was confirmed to steer the agency through these difficult times. to he letter that went from the president spelled this out and indicated when the treasury was notified or when the treasury consult informed the white house consult about this problem with the computer.

it also has indicated contrary to this effort by the committee and the republican side to connect the problems and there were serious problems with the white house that there is no such connection. they're desperate to find a connection. they have never found it. they'll keep looking because i think it makes sense for them politically. i don't think whatever political affiliations, 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 that, we learned in february there was a potential issue with her hard drive. that was investigated through march, into march, early april,

the i.t. people had uncovered the emails train you can see it took about the effort to restore her computer. those emails have been provided sometime ago to this committee so they were not hidden or covered up. thereafter, i told people that we needed to, we decided we would look at all of the other custodians to produce as many emails as we could that were in fact within our system which was the 24,000. i also asked that we actually review all of the 82 custodians to see what if any failures happened then. our plan was when we produced, completed the production of all of the lois learner emails at the end of this month, we would provide a full report. by that time we would know what the situation is with the custodians. there is a question why i didn't advice congress earlier. my experience is we do better to have a rational discussion when we know all the facts. it's shown by the fact that on monday, we were advised monday morning that there were preliminary indications there

were difficulties with a handful of custodians. a press release went out from this committee identifying nicole as a particularly interesting person to this committee and stating that nicole emails had been lost. had the committee waited to issue that release until we knew further information which we are continuing to dearrive they would have discovered she had two computers, her office computer that she used during the day and a travel computer, portable. it was the portable computer that crashed. it ran on the same email system as her office system. it turns out there is no indication that a single nicole email has been lost, notwithstanding the press release and statements out of this committee. so those press releases regard to nicole were inaccurate and misleading and it demonstrates why we will provide this committee a full report about the custodian review when it is completed. we're not going to dribble out the information and have it

played out in the press. >> time has expired. mr. johnson thank you for holding this hearing. learning about the loss of the e-mails is troubling. we received that information with great skepticism. americans have been waiting for the whole truth, and we hope to get it today. it does not sound like we are getting it. it is past time to hold 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 of destroying employee e-mails after six months was a cost-cutting measure. in fiscal year 2011, the mr. commissioner, welcome. irs-enacted budget was $12

a high watermark of spending. the irs was accused of destroying its backup tapes. >> in 2008, when our new i.t. director came, the retention policy was only for less than three months. in 2008, he increased the retention backup policy to six months. it is a disaster recovery system. if the system goes down, you can reconstitute the e-mail. those systems are usable. if there is no disaster, you continue to back up the e-mails so they are available. i would note, since the start of this investigation, every e-mail has been preserved. nothing has been lost. nothing has been destroyed. >> you have plenty of computer space. i wondered at the time how you could keep track of everybody's irs requirements when you lose your own. didn't the irs estimate that keeping and storing those tapes would only cost $200,000 annually?

>> $200,000 annually, every year, but it grows. we have trillions of terabytes, hundreds of millions of e-mails stored over six months. the disaster recovery program -- the e-mail system is not a system of record. the system of record is for the records act, to produce hard copies and file those in the records, so that the irs has historically only preserved backup tapes for six months. we are reviewing all of this. when we get through with this, we need to take a look at what we can do to create a more searchable e-mail process. the problem right now is any time anybody wants a piece of information, we have 90,000 employees. we have to pull their e-mail accounts, hard drives, load them into a search machine. that is an antiquated system. i fondly refer to it as a model

t with a nice gps system with a sound system and a redone engine, but still a model t. >> my constituents and i refuse to accept that in years of record-high irs budgets, you would not let us refuse to give you information on our tax returns, the irs destroyed employee e-mails every six months just to save $200,000 annually. i am far too familiar with the rampant wasteful spending at the irs during that time. to date, the committee has uncovered wasteful spending from the "star trek" videos to the spending on lavish conferences to an irs estimated $23.5 million in spending on salary and benefits due to union time, and to bonuses going to workers who owe back taxes. you and i both know this

happened before any budget cuts happened to that agency. there is simply no excuse for what happened. i yield back. >> 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. before i came to congress, i was a physician. one of the things you always did with the patient was take the history. i would like to review the history again with you. on june 13, 2011, lois lerner's hard drive failed, meaning all her e-mails were lost at that point. is that true? >> that is correct. >> 16 days later, she was briefed that inappropriate

criteria had been used in mismanagement in cincinnati, according to the i.g.'s report. >> that is what the report reports. >> the question is, did lois lerner preemptively crash her hard drive? >> all the evidence is to the contrary. the e-mail string shows that at her request extraordinary efforts were made to retrieve the e-mails from her crashed hard ride. >> do you think she could foresee 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 and archive e-mails on her computer. we will produce 43,000 of those. if she was going to hide e-mails, there is no indication in the record that her performance generated that.

>> is there any evidence to suggest that she called the white house or the white house called her and said, get those right-wing organizations? >> there is none we have been able to produce, and i understand that the white house did not find any e-mail to or from lois lerner. >> and the inspector general did not find them? >> the report stated there is no evidence of political involvement. >> in fact, as you talked about on july 19, 2011, lerner wrote to the field director of customer service support for informational technology, saying, whatever you can do is helpful, would be greatly appreciated. in mid july, 2011, she learned about cincinnati. 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 is correct. >> and they failed. >> they failed after three weeks of efforts. the e-mail trail is clear. i would note the criminal investigation division is expert in seizures from civil and criminal cases, at seizing hard drives and restoring e-mail. we had great confidence if you could find those e-mails, they would find them. and they were unsuccessful. >> finally, she wrote, thanks for your efforts. i really do appreciate the effort. sometimes stuff happens. is this a woman rejoicing over losing her hard drive and saying, thank god that thing is gone, they are never going to get me? no. this is a woman who is resigned to the fact that the thing was lost.

in my office we just upgraded to windows 2010, and my staff director in washington state lost her hard drive. they fried it. i do not know how it happened. nobody knows. she lost all her records. she did not rejoice over that experience, i can tell you. we come fast-forward to february 24, 2014, and the chairman asked for all, and i emphasize all, lois' e-mails. is there anything you can see in the time you have been there that the irs did not do to try to get all? >> we have gone to great lengths, as i said. we retraced the process for producing her e-mail twice, just to make sure no e-mail was missing. we understand the importance of this investigation. we have gone to great lengths, spent a significant amount of

money trying to make sure there is no e-mail that is required that has not been produced. >> i understand you backtracked and went out to 83 people in the agency she had contact with and retrieved their e-mails to try to get the e-mails for the committee. >> that is why rather than having lost lois lerner e-mails, as if there are none of them, we have been able to produce 24,000 lois lerner e-mails from the timeframe in question. >> time has expired. i would ask unanimous consent to put into the record a letter from this committee from me as chairman to then commissioner doug shulman on june 3, 2011, asking for the names, titles, and divisions of any individuals involved in investigating taxpayer investigations into 501(c)4's, sent days before the e-mail crash.

the letter, without objection, is put into the record. >> was that circulated to members of the committee? >> that letter was by me to the head of the irs. >> none of us have seen it? >> you may have seen it. >> so none of us have seen it? >> you may have seen it. i will get a copy to you. >> when were you told about problems with the learner e-mails? >> in february, i was told there had been an issue with her e-mail. >> in february? >> in february. >> why did you choose to withhold that information from this congressional investigation? >> our plan was to find out what the details were. at that point, we did not know whether there had been a crash that affected her e-mails or not.

>> you testified that you gave your agency three weeks to determine if it would be retrievable or not. they were not successful. giving you the benefit of the doubt, in march, you knew the e-mails were not available. why didn't you inform this congressional investigation then? >> my goal was to determine all of the facts so we could give you a full report. i noted earlier this week -- >> yes, you informed the treasury. >> could the witness answer the question? >> regular order, mr. levin. the gentleman from texas has the time, and he is questioning appropriately. please, no more interruptions. >> regular order allows the witness to answer a question. >> regular order allows questioning to be conducted as the questioner sees fit.

the committee has given latitude to members of both parties to do that. >> parliamentary inquiry, mr. chairman. ask the gentleman will state his parliamentary inquiry. >> under the rules of the house, every member has five minutes to pose questions to the witness, and the witness is given the opportunity and right to respond. is the chairman saying the witness does not have a right to respond to the questions? ask the gentleman has had plenty of time to respond. that is not a parliamentary inquiry. >> does the witness have a right to respond? >> the gentleman has not stated a parliamentary inquiry. >> you withheld the information from a congressional investigation. 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. >> no, in fact, i knew we would provide you all the lois lerner e-mails that we had. >> you already knew in march they were not retrievable. you did not inform the congressional investigation. b, two months later you told us you would provide all the e-mails, without limitation. and you knew you did not have them. >> by march i did not know they were not retrievable.

in fact, we have retrieved 24,000 of those e-mails. >> you knew that was the case. you knew. and in april, 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 did not provide the information. and then you assured us you would provide all the e-mails without limitation, with no mention that you then knew, two, three months into this they were not retrievable. >> as noted, all of this is a result of our providing you a public and fulsome document about this matter. we have not been hiding -- >> sending a letter months after you knew the e-mails were supposed to be lost, withholding the information -- you are aware this was a congressional investigation. you withheld the information.

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

that there is no issue that any lois lerner e-mail -- >> the assistant secretary for 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 have provided you the information. >> you have not provided us any information. in fact, we did not learn until last week. this week that you had you supposedly lost the e-mails not just from ms. lerner, but other persons of interest. >> there is no evidence that any of those e-mails have been lost either. in fact, my process has been to make sure we had all of the information and provided it to you. >> at this point, why should anyone believe you? the irs denied for two years targeting of americans based on their political beliefs. that was not the truth.

they said there was a few rogue agents in cincinnati. that was not the truth. you said you were targeting liberal organizations. that was not the truth. you are tellign us out of thousands of irs computers, the minutes that i have, and use it you are tellign us out of and that is not true either. this is the most corrupt irs in history. >> 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 and that is not 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 have not had an opportunity to say. >> thank you. i think between my full testimony and my oral testimony and my response to the questions, i hope it is clear that we have not, in this investigation, lost any e-mail from the start of the investigation until now. i hope it is clear that by the end of this month we will have provided all of the lois lerner e-mails we have, that those will number 67,000. it should be clear that in the period of the hard drive crash, 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 asked for

extraordinary efforts to try to restore her e-mails at that time, so there does not appear to be any attempt to rejoice over the loss of those e-mails. it should be clear that when we did provide this committee with on monday preliminary information reporting, the net result was a press release, erroneously leaping to conclusions that nicole flax e-mails had been lost. it turns out, on further investigation, and we are continuing, that none of nicole flax's e-mails have been lost. we will provide a full report on the other custodians as we complete that work. it has been demonstrated that piecemeal information about the problem simply results in press releases and angry letters to me. so my position will continue to be we will, as we have, continue to keep the committee fully informed of the facts as we find them. if there are situations, we will give you all the information about them.

i did not come out of retirement to run an agency that did not create transparency, responsiveness to congressional letters, or otherwise. this is an important agency that collects 93% of the money the government uses to run. more importantly, it touches every american. more important, for every american taxpayer to feel comfortable and confident that when they deal with the irs, they are going to be treated fairly, whether they are rich or poor, republicans or democrats, whoever they voted for in the last election. to say this is the most corrupt irs in history seems to me again to be a classic overreaction to a serious problem which we are dealing with seriously. i am comfortable and confident

about it, and am willing to stand by that in the six months i have been the irs commission. >> i place into the record a june 18 letter by the counsel president, as well as a june 20 letter of this year by the assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the department of the treasury. without objection, so ordered. >> may i reserve my right to object? >> you may. >> and i will tell you why. i hope everybody will read the letter from mr. fitzpaine. >> that is the purpose of placing it in the record. [laughter] >> i want to continue with my reservation. and i want to tell you why. it says, in response to your questions, irs informed treasury in 2014 that ms. lerner's custodial e-mail box appeared to contain very few e-mails prior to 2011. treasury agreed with the irs

that it should inform congress as soon as it was able to provide accurate and complete information, although treasury ultimately deferred to the irs on how to handle the matter. >> those letters are being distributed -- >> we are making copies now. the committee received these recently. copies will be made available to every member of the committee. mr. ryan is recognized for five minutes. >> this is unbelievable. the apology that ought to be given is to the american taxpayer, not to a government agency that is abusing its power. i am sitting here listening to this testimony. i just -- i do not believe it. that is your problem. nobody believes you. >> come on, now.

>> the internal revenue service comes to congress a couple years ago and misleads us and says no targeting is occurring. then it said it was a few rogue agents in cincinnati. then it said it was also on progressives. all of those things have been proven untrue. this committee sent a criminal referral of possible criminal wrongdoing just a month ago to the justice department. we have heard nothing. you bury in a 27-page letter to the senate, asking for them to conclude the investigation, that you have lost lois lerner's e-mails because of a hard drive crash. monday, our investigators ask your agency whether any other hard drives crashed. we learned six other hard drives of the people who were investigating were involved. you did not tell us that. >> we told you on monday. because we asked you. >> and what did you do with that information? >> we asked you whether any other hard drives crashed. this is unbelievable.

you told us you are going to give us all of lois lerner's e-mails, and you learned in february that this crashed. >> i did not learn in february there was a crash. >> i am not asking a question. i am making a statement. you are the internal revenue service. you can reach into the lives of hard-working taxpayers, and with a phone call or letter can turn their lives upside down. you ask taxpayers to hang on to seven years of their personal tax information, in case they are ever audited. and you cannot keep six months of employee e-mails? and now that we are seeing this investigation, you do not have the e-mails. hard drives crashed. you learned about this months ago, you just told us, and we had to ask you on monday. this is being misleading again. this is a pattern of abuse, a pattern of behavior, that is not giving us any confidence that

this agency is being impartial. i do not believe you. this is incredible. >> i have a long career. that is the first time anybody has said you do not believe me. >> i do not believe you. >> that's fine. we have a disagreement. our record was not buried in 27 pages. most of the 27 pages is exhibits. when asked about the custodians, we advised you you what we knew, which we knew for one day. >> congress is investigating -- >> will you let him answer the question? >> i did not ask him a question. yes, you did. >> i control the time. >> i realize disrupting a hearing sort of -- >> come on. >> i am not yielding time. i control the time.

>> regular order. >> if we are investigating criminal wrongdoing, targeting people based on their political beliefs, and the e-mails in question are lost because of a hard drive crash that is apparently unrecoverable, which a lot of i.t. professionals would question, and you do not tell us and how we ask you about it, that is not being forthcoming. i yield back the balance of my time. >> that is not true. >> the gentleman has yielded back his time. >> thank you. mr. neale is recognized. >> i am going to let you answer mr. ryan's question. >> mr. ryan tried to leave the impression that only when asked did we reveal information about the hard drive crash. the information is in the information you have had for a long time. we produced the report telling you about the e-mail loss. it was not in response to a question.

we learned on monday morning about the custodians. we asked our staff on monday afternoon, we told them all we do, which told us there was an indication of a hard drive problem. the next morning there was released asserting the conclusion that e-mails had been lost, particularly nicole flax's e-mails. there's no evidence that any e-mail was lost. they're responding. do it asre trying to soon as we are able to give you a full picture of it, we're providing that. it is not in response to aggression. at was a pub report we provided you. we will continue to provide documents. you have 75,000 pages. yet 24,000 of lois lerner e-mails in a time when crashed have not been lost. they will be produced to you. >> on this point, may i ask you a question here in your time, and i will give you more time?

yes, the committee did know about the hard drive. but we did not know about the server. there is a distention. we did not know about the server. came inerver was what the carbon copy of the letter to the senate. the server means they are lost forever. notard drive crashed is necessarily mean that the e-mails are lost forever. there is a significant decision that has not been made yet today. >> it is an important question, and one of the reasons we did not immediately say we discovered a hard drive crash, a hard drive crash does not mean the e-mails'. in the case of lois lerner, 24,000 of her e-mails were not lost. they have actually been found. they will be produced. you have 5000 of them already. you will have 24,000 by the end of the and. , any e-mailscount

in his accounts, the e-mails we could find, were included and did not crash. >> you have been watching a special look at the irs targeting the investigation. joining us is kim dixon. what is the status of the house oversight investigation? >> investigation is ongoing. if has gone on a temporary hiatus because lawmakers are back in their districts. there have been dribs and drabs the outcome including yesterday, accusations by house republicans that prosecutors is at doj looking into the matter may have potential conflicts of interest. look at lois lerner and one of the hearings earlier. an article saying irs probe includes lois lerner e-mails. reports that the justice department is also looking into some erased e-mails on her blackberry.

what do you know of that? >> they are looking at a computer crash that the irs said happened to ms. lerner in 2011, provided e-mails showing her contacting computer services seeking help to fix her computer. swaths says that a broad in nearly two years of e-mails are gone and that they do not have backup tapes, but people are looking into it. the treasury inspector general has ms. lerner's blackberry, theough in a court filing blackberry will have e-mails that were on outlook in a main computer. >> you mentioned a headline in political, republicans are rooting for a special that there'll i said and jim jeffords are not

happy -- jim jordan is not happy with the status of the investigation, calling on justice to appoint a special counsel. how likely is that to happen? >> i think that is pretty unlikely. attorney general holder said he does not think that this case merits a special counsel. it is unclear if the alleged conflict of interest would really push it to that level. one of the women they focus on obama.en money to she is one of many looking into this and a few people they have called out have previously issues and had relationships with ms. lerner. as it stands now, it does not seem that it will change the view of attorney general holder. >> what about to the issue of tax exempt status for these political groups? where does that stand? are there was