IRS Exempt Organizations Director To Plead Fifth
It is a shocking development in a story that continues to explode. Lois Lerner, the Director of the Exempt Organization’s unit at the Internal Revenue Service, who is scheduled to appear before Congress tomorrow morning, has said through her lawyer that she will invoke her rights under the Fifth Amendment against giving incriminating testimony. Her defense attorney, William W. Taylor III went on to request of the Congressional committee that she be relieved of having to appear, claiming that calling her in a congressional hearing would “have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her’ since members would not expect her to answer questions.”
The question now is, why is she claiming the fifth? One cannot claim the fifth simply because they do not wish to testify. They only do so when they have reasonable expectation that what they say could criminally implicate them. Make no mistake…this is a huge development.
We know that the White House has not been forthcoming. Through Press Secretary Jay Carney, the administration has spun, obfuscated and parsed its words. We are now on about the fifth version of who knew what and when. Despite earlier statements to the contrary, we now now that senior White House officials knew about this months ago, yet we are asked to believe that they left the President out of the loop. Neither outgoing IRS Director Stephen Miller nor his predecessor, Doug Shulman seem to know anything. Their testimony before the Senate today left you to believe they are either lying or serially incompetent. You pick.
As for Lois Lerner, she is obviously worried about something. What is it? It will come out, it’s only a matter of time. Maybe granting her immunity is the only way we will ever find out. For what its worth, The Washington Post last week awarded Ms. Lerner “four Pinochios” for her misleading statements about this targeting activity that started the whole story.
If you cannot tell, I’m angry about this. Not as a partisan, as an American. As a professional who has dedicated the last 20 years to working with tax exempt organizations. As someone who knows how this system works. As someone who knows professionally some of the names you are seeing in the news. No, not the Millers and Lerners, though I have met Ms. Lerner. I’m talking about the front line IRS people. The ones being thrown under the bus as “rogue” employees acting alone.
DO NOT BELIEVE THAT NONSENSE!
The Cincinnati IRS office does not work that way. This was a systemic, organized effort to target specific groups. We saw it ourselves. And for some to be saying it was done to make it easier for an overworked staff to manage an influx of applications, why then were only conservative groups targeted? And why issue letters with hundreds of irrelevent, intrusive questions if you are overworked? Wouldn’t it make more sense that an overworked staff would ask fewer questions?
Who knows how far or how high this will go. I, for one, would like to believe that it begins and ends with few “rogue” agents. Unfortunately, I’ve been around all this way too long to believe such tales.
This is big.
