The EPA scandal takes a new turn with crucial EPA losing text messages missing

Remember the scandal where the EPA was accused of trying to charge conservative groups fees while largely exempting liberal groups. The fees applied to Freedom of Information Act requests -- allegedly, the EPA waived them for liberal groups far more often than it did for conservative ones.  The Obama administration has done what it always does.  Delay, delay, delay, and then say that the information has been destroyed and that all this is old news.  Of course, this isn't the first time that the EPA has tried to hide information.  EPA administrator Lisa Jackson resigned over emails that she tried to hide under a pseudonym.  From Fox News:

The EPA is being accused of pulling “an IRS” for reportedly planning to inform the National Archives it has lost text messages being sought in an open-records request. 

The Washington Times reported Wednesday that lawyers from the Department of Justice informed a federal court of the EPA’s plans to tell the National Archives it cannot produce the text messages because they have been deleted. 

The open-records request in question came from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is seeking text messages from the devices of EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.
Christopher Horner, a senior fellow for the institute, told FoxNews.com in a statement it is clear the EPA has not learned from the IRS’ mistakes. . . .

“Here we see EPA agreeing to the court to 'do an IRS', which is to say: notify the National Archivist of the loss of every one of Gina McCarthy's thousands of text messages we have discovered she destroyed, just as the IRS finally agreed to notify (the National Archives) about the emails lost from (former IRS official) Lois Lerner's destroyed hard drive,” he said. “The IRS's insincere efforts at following through on Federal Records Act obligations drew the court's ire – the same court now hearing the EPA case.  Taxpayers should rightly expect EPA to have learned the proper lesson from the IRS's experience and hope for better.” . . .

the [EPA] argued that text messages are personal and therefore do not have to be stored as part of the agency's official record as required by law. . . .

Only 37 percent of Americans trust the federal government

These results are from a new Fox News poll.  One thing that should be explained is that Democrats trust in government goes up when there is a Democratic president and Republican trust is up when there is a Republican.  That explains the different results for Republicans and Democrats.  Interestingly, despite all the scandals with the IRS, NSA, EPA, AP, State Department, Benghazi, VA, and others, the level of trust in the federal government is actually higher now than last year or in 2010.

Obama thinks that IRS and Benghazi scandals are "phony", implies all the other ones are phony also

From yesterday's press briefing at the White House by Jay Carney:

Mr. Knoller. 

Q    Jay, in his speech again yesterday, President Obama mentioned the phony scandals that are part of an endless parade of distractions.  Can you tell us what phony scandals he’s talking about? 

MR. CARNEY:  I think we all remember a few weeks ago when Washington was consumed with a variety of issues that, while in some cases significant, there was an effort underway to turn them into partisan scandals.  I don’t think anybody here would doubt that.  And what we’ve seen as time has passed and more facts have become known -- whether it’s about the attacks in Benghazi and the talking points, or revelations about conduct at the IRS -- that attempts to turn this into a scandal have failed. 

And when it comes to the IRS, as I said the other morning, the President made very clear that he will -- that he wants the new leadership there to take action to correct improper conduct, and that is happening and he expects results. 

What some in Congress have failed to do despite many attempts is to provide any evidence -- because there is none -- that that activity was in any way known by, or directed by, the White House, or was even partisan or political.  As testimony has shown that I’ve seen produced publicly in the press -- although not by the Republican chairman of the committee -- self-identified Republicans who participated in the reviews of these applications for tax-exempt status clearly denied that there was any -- and this is just them saying this -- that there was any partisan or political motivation to what they were doing. 

That doesn't excuse the conduct, doesn't say that it’s the right thing to do.  It means that we have to address poor performance as poor performance, and reject efforts to turn it into yet another partisan political football. 

And I think our views -- and I would wax poetic on it if you want -- our views on the Benghazi issue are well known, and I think that other issues fall into that. 

Q    So you mentioned two -- the IRS and Benghazi. 

MR. CARNEY:  Well, I’m not going to catalogue -- again, I think there was a period where there was -- a lot more energy and focus was paid by some in Congress as well as in the media on issues that, while important, are not of the highest priority to the American people, and they were not scandals. . . .

Apparently all the other four or so recent scandals are also phony (see here, here, and here), but they don't even rate being mentioned.

Obama Scandals number #5 and #6 just since the presidential election

As Glenn Reynolds described four of them this way: journalist-snooping scandal, IRS scandal, Benghazi, and the Sebelius Shakedown.  Of course, all this ignores Fast and Furious and some other earlier scandals.  I am just counting the scandals that have come to light since the presidential election.

Now there are two other new scandals:

1) The EPA

. . . The allegations concern the Environmental Protection Agency, which is being accused of trying to charge conservative groups fees while largely exempting liberal groups. The fees applied to Freedom of Information Act requests -- allegedly, the EPA waived them for liberal groups far more often than it did for conservative ones. . . .
Research by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, claims that the political bias is routine when it comes to deciding which groups are charged fees. Christopher Horner, senior fellow at CEI, said liberal groups have their fees for documents waived about 90 percent of the time, in contrast with conservative groups that it claims are denied fee waivers about 90 percent of the time.
"The idea is to throw hurdles in our way," charged Horner, who says he decided to look into the fee structure after the EPA repeatedly turned down his group for waivers. . . .

This reminds one of the waivers that the Obama administration gave out for Obamacare.  If the Obama administration is giving conservatives a hard time with these fees, how hard of a time do you think that the administration has given conservatives with respect to their regulatory decisions?

2)  Secret email accounts for top Obama officials

There has been the recent secret emails by Lisa Jackson at the EPA to avoid reporting requirements (see here, here, and here).  But now the AP reports that this desire to skirt the law apparently covers many other many Obama appointments.

Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the Cabinet secretary for the Health and Human Services Department, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press.
The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses. . . .
The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged - but often happens anyway - due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved.
The secret email accounts complicate an agency's legal responsibilities to find and turn over emails in response to congressional or internal investigations, civil lawsuits or public records requests because employees assigned to compile such responses would necessarily need to know about the accounts to search them. Secret accounts also drive perceptions that government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions.
"What happens when that person doesn't work there anymore? He leaves and someone makes a request (to review emails) in two years," said Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, an open government group. "Who's going to know to search the other accounts? You would hope that agencies doing this would keep a list of aliases in a desk drawer, but you know that isn't happening."
Agencies where the AP so far has identified secret addresses, including the Labor Department and HHS . . .

Drive perceptions that "government officials are trying to hide actions or decisions"?  Seriously, just the perceptions.  Lisa Jackson denied even having this alternative account.  Her real mistake was using an EPA email account.  If she hadn't used this, it might never have been discovered.  How would one even know how many additional email accounts that these officials might have?  The AP can't even get information on the number of these accounts.

UPDATE: Here is a note that Politico has.

Agency spokespeople generally assert that such alias accounts are searched when the public, law enforcement or Congress asks for information, but some experts doubt they are consistently searched or will be after officials leave. . . .