Posted on 05/22/2013 4:44:41 AM PDT by LD Jackson
Remember Lois Lerner? She's the IRS official who requested a reporter to ask a planted question at a news conference, ostensibly so she could answer said question with a prepared statement, revealing publicly that the IRS had indeed, targeted certain conservative groups for more intense scrutiny. That came as no surprise to those of us who have paid attention. I actually wrote about this issue in February 2012. We know this happened. It is not here say or rumor. It is a fact.
Now that Congress is getting into the act of asking the IRS to account for its actions, they are holding hearings on the issue. Several IRS officials have been asked to testify and they have done so. Lois Lerner is scheduled to testify to Congress today, but her lawyer has informed Darrell Issa that she will be pleading the Fifth Amendment and will answer no questions. For an individual and organization that is still claiming they have done nothing wrong, pleading the Fifth Amendment seems like a strange move. That's on the surface. Underneath, there is an entire host of reasons why she wouldn't want to be faced with giving truthful answers to the questions Darrell Issa and his committee may be throwing in her direction. When I say this woman has a history, that's the understatement of the year.
The Weekly Standard - Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct.If anyone is guilty of conducting a politically motivated witch hunt, it is Lois Lerner. Considering she is now the head of the IRS division charged with implementing Obamacare, the plot gets even thicker. You'll have to excuse me if I am not exactly enamored with the idea of Lois Lerner implementing Obamacare. That's more than a little scary.Still, Lerner has her defenders in the government and the media. Shortly after the scandal broke, The Daily Beast published an article headlined "IRS Scandal’s Central Figure, Lois Lerner, Described as ‘Apolitical.’" Insisting Lerner, and the IRS more broadly, were not not politically motivated has been a central contention of those trying to minimize the impact of the scandal.
The trouble with this defense is that, prior to joining the IRS, Lerner's tenure as head of the Enforcement Office at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was marked by what appears to be politically motivated harassment of conservative groups.
Lerner was appointed head of the FEC's enforcement division in 1986 and stayed in that position until 2001. In the late 1990s, the FEC launched an onerous investigation of the Christian Coalition, ultimately costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours in lost work. The investigation was notable because the FEC alleged that the Christian Coalition was coordinating issue advocacy expenditures with a number of candidates for office. Aside from lacking proof this was happening, it was an open question whether the FEC had the authority to bring these charges.
Victory Girls - Lerner is the very same woman, mind you, who received a big fat bonus for a job well done, and then promoted to head of the ObamaCare division in charge of implementing all the hidden taxes stuffed within it. If that doesn’t that make your skin crawl, and your heart skip, I don’t know what does…but surely she has nothing to hide, right? There’s no “there, there,” right? She’s just keeping mum for the fun of it all. Not because she knows where the bodies are buried. And certainly not to protect her own cowardly hide…or someone else’s. Maybe she’s waiting for Susan Rice to help deliver her testimony.Are we really supposed to believe Lois Lerner and the IRS has nothing to hide? I, for one, believe no such thing. From the beginning of this scandal, they have been less than forthcoming. They have repeatedly made the claim that political motivation had nothing to do with the IRS targeting some of the groups that were most vocal in their opposition to the liberal and progressive agenda. I refer you back to the article from The Weekly Standard to point out just how doggedly Lois Lerner went after the Christian Coalition. Read the transcript of the deposition the FEC conducted of Lt. Col. Oliver North. He was asked, again and again, about his relationship with Pat Robertson and that he had asked Robertson to pray for him. Tell me again how that investigation was innocuous. What business is it of the FEC or the IRS who is praying for whom?
Plainly, Lois Lerner is running scared of the questions Darrell Issa and his committee may ask her. Given that she appears to be up to her eyeballs in this scandal, I suppose I can't blame her for pleading the Fifth Amendment. She clearly has plenty to hide and she plans to do just that.
She MUST protect the Tyrant or she will be Audited
and her family killed by Deathpanel.
Somebody needs to get their hands on an organization chart for those immediately under her.
Bring in everyone of them, under oath.
Somebody will tell the truth.
The Republicans will never do it. They are no more than willing enablers because it fit their needs to bring down the Tea Party.
She and her boss at the time Sarah Hall Ingram both need to be prosecuted.
She and her boss at the time Sarah Hall Ingram both need to be prosecuted.
Obama used his IRS to rig the election. The IRS prevented many tea party groups from getting started .Obama’s IRS stole the election of 2012. the IRS stole the senate for democrats/socialists and there were many more socialists/democrats that got elected to the House than if the tea party would have been allowed to get out the vote for conservative R’s
And a reminder....Watergate was a hangnail compared to this stroking during triple bypass surgery.
There’s always the immunity trick.....But then she better stay out of Marcy Park.
She and her boss Barack Hussein Obama need to be prosecuted
What a disgusting bit of humanity.
I’m amazed that she can count to 5.
McCain rides to Obama’s and the IRS’ rescue in 3...2...1... blaming evil Conservatives and making every excuse under the sun why we all should give Obama a break.
Based on this statement, is it possible she disapproved of the Obama policy targeting conservation groups, and now wants to spill the beans on all of them once she gets immunity? If not, I can see no reason she would have planted the question.
After all, she knows how whistle blowers get treated if they complain internally.
The IRS was an agent in Obama’s election.
He had many Agents.
Government Unions that violated the Hatch act.
Pollers who let people vote more than once and sometimes added votes themselves.
Polling places where more than 100% voted for Obama.
The GOPe who gave us a non candidate.
You see a lot of gangsters invoking the Fifth.
I plead the fifth.
Second Question: Was Vice President Joe Biden in the Room when the President made this order?
I plead the fifth.
Was Eric Holder present with the President and Vice President when this order was given?
I plead the fifth.
And so on....
In the next budget, her salary should be excluded. Does the GOP have the stones? I doubt it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.