Posted on 03/06/2014 7:15:56 PM PST by smoothsailing
March 6, 2014
Patrick Howley
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is moving in the direction of holding ex-IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress sooner rather than later, committee member Rep. Jim Jordan told The Daily Caller.
“I think that’s where we’re moving,” Jordan said. “I think that’s where this is headed.”
Jordan added that he feels holding Lerner in contempt is “the right thing to do.”
An Oversight Committee staffer confirmed that a contempt charge is being considered.
Lerner invoked the Fifth Amendment on each question Issa asked about the agency’s targeting of conservative groups at an Oversight hearing Wednesday morning. The hearing lasted approximately fifteen minutes before Issa released Lerner.
Issa began the hearing by explaining that Lerner previously waived her Fifth Amendment rights in a May 2013 hearing and that “the committee may proceed to consider whether she be held in contempt.”
Lerner sat for a “Q&A” with the Department of Justice but was not under oath, Lerner’s attorney Bill Taylor told TheDC Wednesday.
“She sat for a long, unconditional Q&A with prosecutors and members of the inspector general’s staff,” Taylor said, but her interview will not be made public.
“It was not under oath,” Taylor admitted, maintaining that it would have been illegal for Lerner to have made false statements at the meeting: “You can’t lie to a federal investigator.”
“We haven’t heard anything back” from DOJ regarding the meeting, Taylor said. “I don’t expect we will.”
Obama political donor Barbara Bosserman is leading DOJ’s investigation, which has been roundly criticized by people close to the case.
Taylor claimed that Lerner was fully willing to testify in one week but not at Wednesday’s Oversight hearing. The purpose of the “one-week delay” Taylor proposed to Oversight was to give Lerner, who has been under subpoena since May 2013, “a breather.”
“She will go to jail for perjury”....
I wish but don’t think so. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon before “jail” got anywhere near him. Obama will do,the same.
He has to. She can hang him (figuratively speaking).
He will do the same for Holder and several others.
My guess is Lerner’s lawyer Taylor is quietly behind the scenes trying to negotiate a deal with Issa. It sure looks like Lerner is on very shaky ground.
She clams up to Issa but sings like a canary to the DOJ? I don’t see how that peculiarity can go on unresolved and her invoking the 5th can be justified.
Issa keeps giving her more rope and DOJ is content to see her hang herself.
Inherent contempt is one way to bring this to a head, and I can’t imagine Lerner’s attorney wants to see that happen.
I think she has cut her deal with the administration and has nothing to fear.
She may well think she has, but the administration does not honor deals, promises, or anything else it finds suddenly troublesome and inconvenient. So she has plenty to fear, whether she knows it or not.
They should use any “process” available and string up as many of these communist rats as they can.
Just when Lois is about to talk, she will have a sailing accident on the Potomoc and drown with her hand on the presidential tiller.
From your lips to God’s ears...
EVERY person who sat in on the meeting from the “Just Us” Dept. are CRIMINALS since they are PROTECTING OTHER CRIMINALS, LERNER, Obama etal.
Exactly!
I believe your scenario is most plausible.
It would explain the dust up about Issa saying Lerner would testify Wednesday and then Taylor coming out and denying it.
Taylor clearly lied because there were emails between his office and Issa's that confirmed she would testify.
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