Posted on 05/22/2013 12:34:42 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said embattled IRS official Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights and will be hauled back to appear before his panel again.
The California Republican said Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination was voided when she gave an opening statement this morning denying any wrongdoing and professing pride in her government service.
“When I asked her her questions from the very beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any statement,” Issa told POLITICO. “She chose not to do so — so she waived.”
Lerner triggered the IRS scandal on May 10 when she acknowledged that the agency wrongly targeted conservative groups applying for a tax exemption. Her lawyer told the House committee earlier this week that she would exercise her Fifth Amendment.
She appeared before Issa’s committee this morning under the order of a subpoena and surprised many by reading a strong statement to the panel.
“I have not done anything wrong,” she said. “I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other committee.”
Issa dismissed her from the committee room once it became clear she wouldn’t answer questions.
Lerner’s decision to speak at all immediately triggered a dust-up among lawmakers who were confused about whether she gave up her Fifth Amendment protections when she made an opening statement.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), a former federal prosecutor, said Lerner lost her rights the minute she started proclaiming her innocence, and that lawmakers therefore were entitled to question her. But Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland said hearing rules were not like those of a courtroom.
During the incident, Issa did not flat-out say whether or not Lerner had indeed waived her rights but instead tried to coax her into staying by offering to narrow the scope of questions.
By the afternoon, Issa was taking a harder stand.
“The precedents are clear that this is not something you can turn on and turn off,” he told POLITICO. “She made testimony after she was sworn in, asserted her innocence in a number of areas, even answered questions asserting that a document was true … So she gave partial testimony and then tried to revoke that.”
He said he was not expecting that.
“I understand from her counsel that there was a plan to assert her Fifth Amendment rights,” he continued. “She went ahead and made a statement, so counsel let her effectively under the precedent, waive — so we now have someone who no longer has that ability.”
Well, eventually...
I didn’t say anything close to that. I said in several posts Gowdy saved this.
Maybe she received advice from that law professor named Obama. I hear he knows how to ‘take the fifth’ when running the country.
That would change everything.
Executive Privilege is used to protect the private counsel that the president receives. Obama is already on record saying that he first learned of this in the news last week.
Asserting executive privilege would be admitting that Obama was involved all the way back to before the election.
-PJ
No doubt...just wish they'd tell Rush to cut the low info and self aggrandizing/media cr@pola.
Good.
When questioning, I hope Issa and the others remember that this statist is in line to administer a significant portion of Obamacare.
SHE will have no problem, lose no sleep, feel no pity in holding YOU to the letter, spirit or intent of the entirty of the law when the positions are reversed.
She’s earned everything Issa and the rest are going to throw at her.
Ha! He couldn't claim he first heard about it in the newspapers, then ;)
I know what you mean.
But every once in a while I become very miopic and see nothing but that carrot in front of me.
It's also my understanding that once a witness takes the stand and makes any statement as to the facts, as LL effectively did via her self-serving screed, that witness becomes legally subject to cross-examination.
And while they may subsequently assert their rights under the 5th at each subsequent question, such assertion does not excuse them until such time as the questioner rests, or they're dismissed via judicial pronouncement.
Now, will Issa apologize to Gowdy for the public smack down?
All politics is theater. I bet that was done on purpose.
But wouldn’t it be delicious irony if Gowdy’s protest was planted by Issa?
You don’t have to explicitly waive it. if you answer a single question or make a single statement other than taking the fifth, you’ve waived it. a trick is to ask multiple questilns and throw one in like, “do you live in texas.” If the person answers, they have waived their right.
I agree with you...razor sharp Gowdy saved bewildered Issa.
She testified as to her own innocence and then (too late) tried to plead the fifth.
You do not get to tell your side of the story and then walk away from questions by pleading the fifth.
I hear ya, lot’s of cause to be cynical....tying to keep up the hope though.
That’s what happened. She read her statement, envoked the 5th and THEN answered Issa’s question about a document.
“Issa flubbed bigtime by not continuing to ask all of the questions, and getting her on record on each of them, one way or the other.”
That was my immediate reaction. Make her sit there and sweat and, as the pundits like to say, capture the optics of her sitting there saying “I will not answer...based on my 5A right against self-incrimination”. I think this leaves an indelible impression that she hiding something very serious.
Really? I missed that somehow. So her lawyer told Issa she would make no statement and then she pops out with one? WTH?
Not the point. She or anyone else can say "I don't recall" just like the Clinton's did. However if she does that she will be damned by the questions asked her if not by her (non) answers.
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