Posted on 05/11/2014 10:35:51 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The House has held Lois Lerner in contempt, but it won’t use its power to place the former IRS official under arrest, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said on Sunday.
Under a precedent affirmed by the Supreme Court, each chamber of Congress can authorize its sergeant-at-arms to detain individuals it holds in contempt. But Boehner said on "Fox News Sunday" that he has no interest in doing that with Lerner, whom the House last week voted to hold in contempt over her refusal to testify about her role in the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups.
“I’m not sure we want to go down that path,” Boehner said. “It’s never been used,” he said of the provision allowing Congress to arrest individuals and place them in the Capitol jail. The Senate has in fact used that power, but not in the last 80 years. “I’m not sure that it’s an appropriate way to go about this,” Boehner said.
The contempt charge has been referred to the Justice Department, and Boehner said it is up to Attorney General Eric Holder to prosecute Lerner.
“Now will he do it? We don’t know, but the ball is in his court,” Boehner said.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington has said it is reviewing the referral. Lerner has repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but the House contends she waived that right by defending herself in an opening statement at a House hearing last year before she refused to answer questions from lawmakers.
Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/205792-boehner-house-wont-arrest-lerner#ixzz31Qh5wTCv Follow us: @thehill on Twitter | TheHill on Facebook
Boehner implies the House shouldn’t arrest Lerner themselves because that particular power of the House has never been used. What a crock! The entire world KNOWS Holder would never prosecute or arrest Lerner, not in a million years.
The last time someone was arrested for contempt of congress was in the 1920s. Before that you have to go back to the 1790s.
Boehner said, “I won’t have her arrested because I am a coward, and have deep seated anxiety about being called mean when I do anything that opposes Democrats. Even if they burned down my house, raped my wife and slaughtered my children, I wouldn’t call the police, because Democrats would call me bad names, and only that matters to me. Let me once again beg my masters not to hurt me!”
The elitists protecting the elitists.
Dear Speaker Boner,
First I would call you a spineless S.O.B., but that would be an insult to people with spine problems and S.O.B.’s the world over.
This is the start of my letter to Boner, how am I doing so far?
Well boner doesn’t have to worry about being arrested for the illegal possession of a spine, now does he? Seriously, referring the matter to the DOJ is the equivalent of handing your pistol over to the person who is trying to rob you. I’m just wondering why I didn’t hear about the merging of the democrat and republican parties into the socialist uniparty? I must of missed the memo comrades.
What a joke...What a blatant waste of taxpayer dollars...Just drop the case...Save us the embarrassment...
Never before have the executive branch been so corrupt. Boehner shows that the house is also corrupt by letting corruption go unpunished
A dog with no teeth.......
John Boehner, the Democrats’ best friend.
Boehner said, “I won’t have her arrested because I am a coward, and have deep seated anxiety about being called mean when I do anything that opposes Democrats. Even if they burned down my house, raped my wife and slaughtered my children, I wouldn’t call the police, because Democrats would call me bad names, and only that matters to me. Let me once again beg my masters not to hurt me!”
What journal printed a true political quote, for once?? Excellent “reporting!”
:)
Possibly a clever political move, most likely a copp-out because Boenher is a weak quisling.
Even Boehner realizes that Holder will never prosecute Obama’s commissars.
Arrest Ms. Lerner, and she becomes a Victimyzed Womyn Martyr for The Progressive Cause. (And there are three y’s there because that would be the cry of all Progressives, along with the MSM: why, why, why attack this hardworking servant of the public?)
Boehner’s motives are cowardly, but the result is tactically correct. Instead, grant her immunity and protection, depose her in private, and then if what she knows leads to the head of the rotten fish, let her testify in public.
Gee, I wonder why we have an arrogant, out of control civil service that feels like it can get away with anything.
Boner is limp. Totally and completely wimp. (Perhaps some of his friend Bob Dole’s magic blue pills might help?). Boner is utterly useless, sorry to have to say, except as a rubber stamp, enabler, and doormat for the Obama Transformation of AmerikaSSR.
Perhaps the Sergeant-at-Arms is reluctant to make physical contact with Ms. Lerner .....
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