Ameri-Shred Pic

Lois Lerner’s hard drive met its end in the amoral maw of an AMERI-SHRED AMS-750 HD shredder, according to testimony submitted today by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

In 2011, after an IRS-contracted Hewlett Packard technician serviced Lerner’s laptop and determined the hard drive “more than likely crashed due to an impact of some sort,” and after a different technician in the IRS Criminal Investigation Division noted there was “some scoring on the top platter of the drive,” the hard drive made its way to a recycling facility in Florida operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The testimony states:

“We determined by obtaining the certificate of destruction dated April 16, 2012, interviews with the facility manager, and a search of the facility, that this shipment of hard drives was destroyed using an AMERI-SHRED AMS-750HD shredder. TIGTA agents observed the shredder in operation and noted that the shredder cut the inserted hard drives into quarter-sized pieces, and according to the facility manager, those pieces are then sold for scrap.”

Video footage of the 7.5 horsepower, 2,700-lb. shredder in action can be found here