Posted on 05/22/2013 2:12:59 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
You already know the background on this from Ed’s post this morning. Lerner began her testimony by reading a self-serving statement, then declared that she’d answer no questions. Trey Gowdy objected, insisting that once you start yapping in your own interest, you’re not allowed to clam up again.
Issa evidently agrees — but only for the moment, I suspect. Prediction: Either he’ll reverse himself on this or he’ll bring her back simply to have her sit there and plead the Fifth repeatedly in response to the committee’s questions. He won’t hold her in contempt.
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 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.”…
“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.”
Are the precedents clear? It’s true that you can’t take the stand as a criminal defendant to give your side of the story and then go quiet during cross-examination, but what about at a congressional hearing where you’re merely a witness? One expert on the Fifth Amendment tells New York mag that the privilege can always be invoked circumstantially in situations like this:
First, unlike in a trial, where she could choose to take the stand or not, Lerner had no choice but to appear before the committee. Second, in a trial there would be a justifiable concern about compromising a judge or jury by providing them with “selective, partial presentation of the facts.” But Congress is merely pursuing information as part of an investigation, not making a definitive ruling on Lerner’s guilt or innocence.
“When somebody is in this situation,” says Duane, a Harvard Law graduate whose 2008 lecture on invoking the Fifth Amendment with police has been viewed on YouTube nearly 2.5 million times, “when they are involuntarily summoned before grand jury or before legislative body, it is well settled that they have a right to make a ‘selective invocation,’ as it’s called, with respect to questions that they think might raise a meaningful risk of incriminating themselves.”
In fact, Duane says, “even if Ms. Lerner had given answers to a few questions — five, ten, twenty questions — before she decided, ‘That’s where I draw the line, I’m not answering any more questions,’ she would be able to do that as well.” Such uses of selective invocation “happen all the time.”
What happens when Issa brings her back and the questions begin? Could be that she’ll cave and start answering, but I assume her lawyer will tell her to take the Fifth again, in which case it’s Issa’s move. He could try to hold her in contempt, which would probably ignite a court battle and would certainly ignite lots of media concern-trolling about the GOP crushing Lerner’s rights as a way to change the subject from the underlying scandal. The court battle would slow down the investigation and might spark a bit of public sympathy for Lerner and the IRS — although judging by the applause after Gowdy’s remarks in the clip below (via the Washington Free Beacon), maybe not. Politically, it might even be worth losing the court battle: Litigation will only call more attention to the fact that Lerner doesn’t want to talk for mysterious reasons, which makes the IRS’s actions look that much shadier. Still, there are other fish to fry here that make it not worth getting bogged down — yet — in a privilege fight over Lerner. There’s still Cindy Thomas and her underlings to hear from, for starters. If they point the finger at Lerner, then it’s to court we go. But in the meantime, sure, why not bring her back and make her sit through an hour or so of serially re-asserting her privilege to dozens of questions? Worst-case scenario, the dodginess of the spectacle puts even more pressure on the IRS. Best-case scenario, she’ll decide to answer questions selectively, which will add a bit more information to what the committee knows.
BuzzFeed has a new post up this afternoon that acts as a nice counterpoint to Mark Hemingway’s piece on Lerner yesterday. She was very, very hard on the Christian Coalition while at the FEC, but conspicuously not so hard on one of Al Gore’s biggest fundraisers. Go figure. Exit question: Is our government now so weak vis-a-vis union power that not a single person at the IRS, including Lerner, has been fired or even disciplined for what happened? (Steve Miller ended up resigning, but of course he had only a few weeks left to his term.) Has anyone at any level been fired for any of the scandals now roiling political media? The only person I can think of is Raymond Maxwell, who wasn’t fired but placed on “administrative leave” over Benghazi and who argues forcefully that he’s being scapegoated for something he had nothing to do with. But don’t give up hope: Obama’s biggest fans in liberal media, who were at the White House just yesterday, are chirping this afternoon about how it’s time for Lerner to go. Maybe O’s messaging team is using its surrogates to prepare the way for a big firing.
“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”-
JOHN MARSHALL McCulloch v. Maryland
Lerner is probably at home downing her second Fifth after she heard that.
I watched the hearing and if my memory hasn't failed me, the lady in question claimed she was innocent but claimed the 'fifth' to protect others who were innocent as well...I had always thought that claiming the fifth was for the purpose of not incriminating yourself, not others...
Bad news for Barry...keeps it in the news cycle.
What did the President know and when did he know it?
When did he find out about Jeremiah Wrights racist rants?
These things don’t happen by accident. Surely her counsel knows the law. And knew that the Republicans have a former prosecutor on their committee so they wouldn’t miss it either. So she took this big risk to just be able to say she’s innocent under oath, when she could just as easily announced it on the steps of the Capitol a few minutes later? Unlikely.
More likely:
1. She’s aware of the law, and it doesn’t force her to keep answering questions; or
2. It’s a setup. She wanted the committee to say “now we’ve got you. stay right there. answer these questions or we’ll throw you in jail for contempt of Congress!!” and to be seen to be beating up on her and denying her her rights. It could have been a long-shot attempt to provoke a scene that she could later claim was “reminiscent of McCathyism”. Remember that this was the woman who staged the whole setup Q&A where she just ‘suddenly’ admitted something that would be coming out in the IG report a few days later.
I don’t think these things happen by accident and I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by dragging her back. Much better to focus on getting all the emails.
Trey Gowdy is awesome! Republicans need to take some lessons from him!
Especially if they ask just the right questions that can cause people to start asking and answering questions of their own about the IRS and what it's done!
When a setup is planned in the context of lying, sometimes it can be defeated in a counterattack. Such a time is when your opponents have reached the point of smothering themselves with their own lies.
All that has to be done is expose the truth.
McCarthyism? With the right amount of guts and some wit, anyone could show with a few well placed words that accusations of “McCarthyism” are themselves reminiscent of McCarthyism. Believe me, it wouldn’t be difficult.
The white house. I suspect she's got the goods and is scared to death to reveal them.........
In a court of law, you cannot take the stand, and then when things do not go your way, plea the fifth.
Nor can you make a statement.
Issa is not a lawyer. So he did not catch this immediately, but he is 100% correct, he can recall her and force her to testify.
No, FM, there is a presidency on the cancer, this time.
the fake prez didn’t just “know” ....he DID IT!....IMO of course.
“What did the President know and when did he know it?”
The liar in Chief blocked the military from responding to the Muslim terrorist attack in Benghazi.
The liar in Chief lied to hide the fact that Muslim terrorist in an organized terrorist attack killed Americans in Benghazi.
The liar in Chief directed the IRS to go after conservatives. To think otherwise means your effective IQ is not even approaching room temperature.
The liar in Chief directed ATF and others to dump guns into Mexico in a traitorous scheme to prove US weapons were the cause of Mexico’s arms problems.
ETC.
The liar in Chief is a traitor working to destroy America. The average American is so brainwashed that he will not even consider that the acts by Obama are so traitorous that even an idiot should be outraged. Obama can do these things because Americans can no longer think without the government through the controlled press telling them what the answers are. Don’t believe it? Look at the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQLxlSBGwMY
Biden?
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