> The IRS said technicians went to great lengths trying to recover data from Lerner's computer in 2011. In emails provided by the IRS, technicians said they sent the computer to a forensic lab run by the agency's criminal investigations unit. But to no avail.
> The IRS was able to generate 24,000 Lerner emails from the 2009 to 2011 because Lerner had copied in other IRS employees. The agency said it pieced together the emails from the computers of 82 other IRS employees.
So, reading between the lines here, it looks like the IRS doesn't archive email at the server level, and any copies of mail were retrieved from individual workstations.
I don't see conspiracy here. I see incompetent IT processes and a lack of mandated data retention policies. Maybe I'm predisposed to employ Hanlon's razor, but that's only because I've found it to be the best explanation for most situations like this. If it was a coverup, it's a terrible one.