Sure its very important. That we have the appropriate people working. Im a big supporter of igs, and we take it seriously. We have implemented their recommendations. We have a personal Security Group now that ensures before an offer goes out if you have violated 1203b which are the two most serious issues you dont get hired. And if there are other conduct issues, not only are we going to follow the opm rules were going to review those for appropriateness for employment at the irs. People need to be comfortable that we take it seriously. And people working for the irs ought to be tax compliant. I appreciate that. And i would like the information on those that are still employed that came under these 824. The 824 covers a large a lot of the gentlemans time is expired. I recognize the gentleman from alabama, mr. Palmer, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to give mr. Koskanan a break here for a minute. I dont want you to think thats not appreciated. Well that doesnt mean i wont come back to you. Mr. Lightfoot nasas done a good job in making progress on getting off the highrisk list. There are still some issues im from alabama. Nasas a major presence in our state. There have been some issues with rebase lining costs and scheduling in management and technical issues. Can you address that . On some of your projects . Yes, sir. We have the process we go through where we review these projects on a routine basis, weve had some that have done really well. We continue to make progress on the last eight of the last nine. Once we go through confirmation what we call confirmation of a project that moves it from formulation to development thats when we make a commitment for a certain cost and schedule. The process we have where we review those monthly, occasionally we have one that pops up, and it gives us an issue. Weve had two of those. Sustaining the system we have, and the project where we were required to go back and baseline. You go through a process of announcing alternatives, is there another way to get the particular mission accomplished. Can you descope the existing mission. Thats the process we go through. Each one of those has lessons. One of the things weve been working on is the continuing to improve our process as we go forward with the rest of those projects. At a prior time in my life i worked for a couple of major engineering companies. And one of the things that drives a client crazy the one paying the bill is change orders. Youve got some projects that i dont know if its a result of design changes, or poor design to begin with that are running some substantial outruns on change orders. Could you address that . Yes, sir, i think the one youre talking about is the ground systems project that we had. This was the first time that weve actually applied the same project management methodology that we had for spacecraft weve been flying to a ground system. One of the things thats an upgrade to the Ground Networks that actually communicate with all the satellites we have in orbit. That system is basically becoming obsolete. What we did is we went out and tried to we knew we had a pretty large job in front of us. The techniques that weve been doing for spacecraft one of the things to the ground system. We learned a few lessons in that process. The first one is, we have to be very clear on our requirements. Much to which youre talking about. And make sure we understand that the contractor thats doing that work understands those requirements as well. So weve gone back and forth with this in terms of trying to define better the expectations we have, per the contractor, and then managing that contractor. In this particular case weve changed out the entire contract management team. And the team we have in terms of our managing it. Since weve done that, we have managed to stay from the value perspective, we stayed at the levels we expected. Would you say this is the result of a design that of a project that the schedule dictated the design, or is this something where youre entering a new area and youre designing as you go . I think this is a case where we underestimated the type of work we needed to do to deal with the obsolescence issues we had in front of us, in terms of designing the Software System we were putting in place with the new equipment. All right. I believe thats all i have. I yield the balance of my time. I recognize the gentleman from georgia for five minutes. Thank you mr. Chairman. And mr. Koskanans, since you had a break, i thought it appropriate to come back and ask you a couple of questions on my mind in particular. Based on previous testimony you made it clear that the ability of the irs to make progress in the areas that have been outlined by the gao have been largely hindered due to reductions in funding. And this is kind of a personal question to me, because of my involvement with Nonprofit Organizations. And the irs has spent millions of dollars to basically rewrite the governing rules for 501c 4s, or what have you, different Nonprofit Organizations, specifically potentially removing taxexempt status that those organizations are involved in political activity. My question is multiple. Its rather amazing personally that there would be an issue of trying to hinder speech of americans. My specific question really comes down to how much money can you tell me how much money the irs has spent on writing and the attempt to rewrite that specific section of the 501c4 ruling. I know it was withdrawn, but my understanding is there is an attempt now to rewrite that. Im curious how much money has been spent. The only money thats being spent is the lawyers that have been working on the drafting of this. And they havent been spending full time so its not a large amount. I could try to get an estimate of how many people worked on it. The first version was before i got there. If youd like, we could try to figure out a rough estimate, in manhours. But the only man spent is a relatively small number of lawyers who are working on it. But i would note the goal is not to hinder. As i said when i started and kind of inherited all of this, the goal is in fact to make clear what the rules are, in a way that is fair to everybody. All of the organizations. Its clear and easy to administer. Right now, the role is you judge both the determination as to whether youre eligible, and whether youre performing under the statute by facts and circumstances. So that means anybody running an organization is running the risk looking over their shoulder saying, is somebody going to have a different view of the facts and circumstances. So my sense is we ought not to be hindering political speech. We ought not to be changing the way people act. What we ought to have the ig in his recommendation said the Treasury Department and irs should clear up what the standard is for what amount how much and what the definition is of the political activity you can engage in. And my sense is, it ought to be possible to have a rule that would be clearer easier for people in those organizations to understand, and fair to everyone. And that would not be hindering political speech. So its not my intention, anyway, in looking at that, to do that. My sense and concern is, that the present system has over the last several years, via the igs analysis, has turned out to be unworkable. I think it would be in our interests to make it clearer what the rules are, and the organizations are confident that no one will come in and secondguess them. We certainly need clarification in that. But i would also strongly urge a very clear understanding of the freedoms of americans. Just because someone is a part of a Nonprofit Organization they have not waived the First Amendment rights. And that is a tremendous threat that the irs has in my opinion no business interfering with. And that is a deep concern. I agree with you. And in fact, my sense is the rules that they are fair and clear to everyone will in fact create less of a constraint on peoples right to free speech. Then the present rules which are muddy and hard to interpret. One other question and i will yield my time. Again, going back to the issue that the main problem has been lack of funding, the issues from the gao have come up with the irs for some 25 years, or close to it. Its been a long time that weve had issues. And yet a few years ago in 2010, the irs had more funding than theyve ever had. And these problems, these issues have still not been addressed. Thats not quite true. We did have more money in 2010 by a long shot. As i noted in my testimony, in 2013 as a result of that spending on information technology, the information technology, Business System modernization problem for the irs was taken off the highrisk list after having been there for 14 years. So it has been true and proven that certainly in the i. T. Area, that if we have the funding, we can make significant progress. Thats great for the i. T. Area but theres many other areas that need to be addressed. And 25 years is far too long. Its time to put some teeth to it. Sir, thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from florida. Commissioner it was a year ago when the senior irs leadership learned that lois lerners hard drive had crashed. There was an issue about getting her emails off backup tapes. You wrote a letter to Senate Finance in june of 2014 saying that there were problems with lerners emails that the backup tapes had been destroyed. And then on june 20th, you testified before the ways and Means Committee that the irs went to, quote Great Lengths and made extraordinary efforts to recover lerners emails. Let me ask you this. After the irs became aware that lerners hard drives had crashed, what specific steps did the irs take to locate any backup tapes, or Disaster Recovery tapes . The Disaster Recovery tapes that the irs are recorded over until theyre no longer usable. There is no technique or capacity in the irs to actually retrieve emails off of those tapes. What we did do is go to everybody in the whats called the custodial list of about 80 different people that miss lerner would have been communicating with, because we were looking for all emails. We already produced all emails relevant to the determination process. We took every email that was to or from lois lerner compared them against emails that would not be backup tapes, that was their hard drives. The backup tapes you made the judgment they simply were not going to be recoverable or did you actually have somebody investigate whether you could have backup tapes, or could find some backup tapes . Our experts said there was no way, it was not recoverable. Its taken the ig six months working around the clock and he still hasnt gotten them produced. My position all along has been with the ig because we helped him find what the backup tapes were that had been recorded over from that time, is if he could find more emails that would be terrific. I actually mean that seriously because it would lend even more light than the 24000 we already produced into what were in those emails in that time frame. But why would the ig be able to find it when you couldnt find it . Because the ig, when we discovered this and, in the spring, and we reported it in june, six weeks later within a couple weeks thereafter the ig started his investigation, so we had no more time. I will tell you today if we started today, its taken the ig, and i dont know how many money theyre spending, its taken over six months to in fact recover whatever theyre going to recover. Let me ask you this. You dont have that capacity . Did the irs ever collect any tapes or send any backup tapes to any forensic lab in your investigation, the people that you detailed to do this . Was that were any tapes recovered, any tapes ever sent to a lab by the irs . No. Okay. Now, who told you that the backup tapes would not yield any emails from lois lerners crashed har drive . I was told that by our technology department. Do you know the basis for that statement . Did you inquire as to how they could be sure of that . Basically what they described to me is they had these Disaster Recovery tapes theyre actual tapes. They keep them for six months, and when the six months is done, they simply reuse them and record over them. If you ever had tapes when you record over them in the normal process the data underneath them is gone. In fact, i was told that we had no capacity and no way you could actually recover those. In fact, they were not sure there was any way to recover them. Has the irs communicated with lois lerner her attorneys about recovering the emails from any of her crashed hard drives . Ive had no communication with lois lerner about this at all. Ive never met her. Let me ask you this. In the course of the irss response to this committees investigation, has the irs withheld any information or documents from congress on any other basis other than 6103 . No. Weve had some that weve asked the staff to review in camera because theyre personal matters that have nothing to do with the investigation. But weve exercised no privilege. We arent trying to keep anything from you. In fact weve continued to respond to requests and continue to provide any information we can find. And you would say that your responses to the request from this committee have been above and beyond what is required in this situation . I dont know about above and beyond. When you ask for information, we have an obligation to do the best to provide it. Anytime you want extraordinary efforts arent above and beyond . In fact, when we discovered the crash, then it was my decision and thought that we needed to do whatever we could to fill in that gap. And we did find 24000 emails we provided. My understanding fromis that the ig may be able to find another 9,000 or 10,000 lois lerner emails. The final question is, you made the effort you were not cavalier about this you made the effort to find what the committee wanted is that your testimony . Thats my testimony. Thank you. I yield back. I now recognize the distinguished gentleman from south carolina, mr. Gaudy, for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The book of ecclesiastes, you convinced me earlier this evening not to question mr. Koskanin. He was here for gao related testimony and not irs. And i dont know whether hes prepared for the questions or not. Well find out. I believe that you have agreed at some point hes going to come back before the committee. I was wondering if the chairman might engage in a colloquy with me to make sure that my chronology is correct. I thought the last time the commissioner was in front of us there was a robust discussion about the time period within which he was going to produce emails. And he had asked us to narrow the scope so that he could prioritize and get us those emails that we had asked for. And of course, as the chairman will recall, we need those emails, because the emails we do have from lois lerner contain such jewels as lamenting gop, celebrating democrat wins, forecasting gloom and doom, if the gop god forbid ever controlled the senate saying that we needed a plan to overcome citizens united. Those were just some of the emails that i recall, mr. Chairman. And if my chronology holds after the commissioner told us that he would priority the production of those emails, of course, they magically disappeared. And then the irs of course mr. Chairman employed herculean efforts to recover those emails. They were not successful. But then after the election, they did appear at some point. And now we are reading that 500 of those emails will not be made available due to the invocation of a privilege. Does the chairman know what privilege the white house is relying upon to not produce those documents to congress . I do not. Do you think do you know whether the president has had an opportunity to review those 500 documents . Good question. Do you think theres a chance that his conclusion that not a smidgen of corruption exists in this investigation might be altered if he did have an opportunity to review whats in those documents . Certainly. Will you consider inviting mr. Koskanin back to update us on this chronology . Yes, indeed. All right. Well commissioner, im not going to question you today. Because i think the hearing title was something else. But i hope at some point we can go back to where we left off, which was an assurance from you that you were going to prioritize email productions. And i hope at some point, mr. Chairman, we can evaluate the refusal to turn over certain documents to congress the invocation of privilege. I hasten to add as the chairman remembers, because of his service on judiciary and oversight, this administration has invoked executive privilege before, only for us to then learn that that privilege was invoked to protect an email that the attorney general sent to his wife. Under what theory of executive privilege is that email protected . So i hope that i live long enough to see the production of those emails. And i certainly hope i live long enough to see the commissioner come back before us. With that the gentleman yields. Yes. Can i just make one clarification . During the course of all of the document production, Treasury Department turned over all of its lois lerner emails and the white house made a representation they had no lois lerner emails. In terms of that process in fact this committee issued a report in december noting that in fact there was no evidence that anyone outside of the irs, whether the white house or treasury, had any impact or influence over the as the ig said improper use of the criteria for the c4. So i dont know what the documents over there are. Theres been litigation around the Inspector General investigating communications. But thats not a case between us and the irs. The irs is not a party to that. Thats in part why i directed my questions to the chairman and not to you. But if you would like us to have this conversation, i will ask you, do you understand why Congress Wants those emails . Can you understand as a trained attorney why we might want access to all the documents . I can understand that. My understanding was that the white house some time ago certified there were no lois lerner emails. And treasury gave you all of their lois lerner emails. Well come back and well have more occasions, i think this is my sixth appearance before this committee. I look forward to the seventh. Ill be delighted to give you an update, and ill be delighted if the Inspector General can ever complete his work to produce those emails. All of us will learn what was in them. I have been totally supportive of the ig. My view really is if there are emails that can be found and in the public press its been said