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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.”
How is that different than entering a plea of “Not Guilty” and then claiming 5th amendment rights. Isn’t the plea testimony?
The way I read the constitution the burden of proof is on the prosecution and the right remains until she explicity waives it. And if current legal procedure is different that I call BS on current legal procedure.
Bring her back in tomorrow. Don’t let her get marching orders from the White House.
You apparently don’t know editor-surveyor’s background or you would have not made that statement.
That may be the case. I have watched a few videos of her speaking on youtube. This Beotch is full of herself to the point of delusion. She may have screwed herself.
Sui
And she had it her way and rolled Issa. You can already see the effect here
on this site. The debate is now about if she waived her rights or not. Not that
she pleaded the fifth. Plus the video of her proclaiming her innocence
is getting a lot of heavy rotation. Lerner and her attorney rolled Issa and
every member of that committee except Gowdy. They could have at least
asked her a couple of hard questions and let her claim the fifth for campaign material. Issa did not even get that.
No, he’s giving the sorry spectacle of Lois Lerner, IRS bitch, a 24 hour news cycle.
Let Lerner start singing up the tree.
Fire her and prosecute her. She has exposed the taxpayers to possibly billions in settlements for her wrongdoing.
Just because it worked for O.J., doesn’t mean it will work for her.
She will not testify, mark my words. They are democrats and will twist and bend some congress rule or law so the ‘pleading the fifth’ will stand with no recourse.
That is simply not so. Partial testimony is fairly common.It's my understanding that if someone invokes their 5th Amendment rights, any testimony the did give can be thrown out.
That's to prevent just what she's trying to do: give only the self-serving part of their testimony, while avoiding the tough questions.
How (and whether) that is how it will be handled here remains to be seen.
Yes. Issa did not come off well today. I thought it odd she could make a statement and then plead the Fifth, which she planned to do before she made the statement. She can’t have it both ways. Issa goofed. Thank goodness for Trey Gowdy.
For those of you that are not giving Issa credit...
You need to rewatch it again. He brought it up first. She waived her rights.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/CmteH
Then Gowdy made a point of order.
I thought that to ‘fix this’ during the morning hearing it would have been necessary to strike her comments from the record and order them ‘disregarded’. But they did not do that.
Maybe by design...
I still say offer immunity to people just under Lerner's position and get them to testify and implicate the higher ups. Put pressure on Lerner and those like her to defend themselves.
“They’ll be lucky to manage to slap her wrist”
Or, like Susan McDougal, she can spend over a year in prison contemplating whether she should testify or not.
To the contrary, if I were on the committee, I would give her rope. Then after some time, I would snap her back, and ask her who she talked with in the interim. Similar to tailing a criminal to see where they go.
But, us country lawyers sometimes spend too much time on strategy!
I am guessing she played it just as her lawyer wanted. He is playing chess as well. Maybe trying to muddy the waters. She won’t be going to jail any time soon I would imagine.
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