How Convenient! #IRS Offical Lois Lerner To Plead The 5th

On May 21st, 2013, in news, politics, by Velvet Hammer

Let’s break the 5th amendment down: You only use it when your ass is guilty. You know, that whole self-incriminating thing. #IRS

— Sean (@massSNAFU) May 21, 2013

And Lerner’s guilt is written all over this manuever.

(LA Times) –WASHINGTON — A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the 5th Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.

Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening — or why she didn’t disclose it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor III. Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” said a letter by Taylor to committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Vista). The letter, sent Monday, was obtained Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.

Taylor, a criminal defense attorney from the Washington firm Zuckerman Spaeder, said that the Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation, and that the House committee has asked Lerner to explain why she provided “false or misleading information” to the committee four times last year.

Since Lerner won’t answer questions, Taylor asked that she be excused from appearing, saying that would “have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her.” [...]

Shorter defense lawyer Taylor: ‘It would be an embarrassing burden for Lerner to incriminate herself.

Meanwhile “Issa has issued a subpoena to Lerner anyway.” GOOD.
Oh the irony!

@jimgeraghty Violator of 1st, 4th and 14th pleads 5th.

— Matthew Burtner (@MforestB) May 21, 2013

Previously

Today: #IRS Commish Miller: “I will, take responsibility for” Planted Q&A –Last Week: “I did not do that” [Video]

On May 21st, 2013, in news, politics, by Velvet Hammer

Miller (under oath) ensnaring himself in a tangled web of lies of his own making.

Last week (May 17th, 2013) IRS Steven Miller testifying during the House Ways and Means IRS hearing. Subject; the IRS’ planted Q&A at the American bar Association conference:

Congressman Kenny Marchant: When was Celia Roady told to ask the [planted] question?

IRS Commish Steven Miller: I don’t have exact knowledge on that. I did not do that.

Marchant: Who told her to ask the [planted] question?

Miller: I don’t know, actually, I’m not sure, might have been Lois Lerner. But I’m really not sure.

Today (May 21, 2013) during the Senate Finance Reform Committee hearing:

Senator Chuck Grassley: Mr. Miller on May 14th I wrote you a letter raising questions about the so called spontaneous apology Lois Lerner made at the American bar Association May the 10th. Initially Miss Lerner said her response was spontaneous and denied that the question was planted. However you admitted during your testimony last week [May 17th --ed.] that the IRS had in fact planted the question to be asked at the ABA conference. You said quote: “It was a prepared Q&A” end of quote. Who’s idea was it to prepare this Q&A and why?

IRS Commish Steven Miller: Um, well I will, take responsibility for that. Um, the thought was that now that we had the TIGTA report and we had all the facts. We had our response, we thought we should begin talking about them. We thought we would get out an apology. Um, the way we did it we wanted to reach out to Hill staff ….did not work out. Obviously, the entire thing was an incredibly bad idea.

……

Grassley: How appropriate is it for the IRS to secretly plant questions ahead of an IG report?

Miller’s (non-answer): I think that what we tried to do was to get the apology out sir and start the story. The report was coming, we knew that. And the report was done.

Also see: The Odd Case of the Planted IRS Question

Previously:

Video: #IRS Commish Miller Denies [Again] That Targeting Was Partisan Then [Finally] Admits It “Absolutely” Was

On May 21st, 2013, in news, politics, by Velvet Hammer

Under oath. Dead to rights.

Today for the umpteenth time Obama’s IRS Commissioner Steven Miller denied that the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups was an act of partisanship:

Transcript:

I do not believe that partisanship motivated the people who engaged in the practices described in the Treasury Inspector General’s report. I’ve reviewed the Treasury Inspector General’s report and I believe its conclusions are consistent with that. I think that what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection. The listing described in the report, while intolerable, was a mistake, and not an act of partisanship.

Whoomp! There it is!

Transcript:

Miller: The second listing … in the Treasury Inspector General’s report is still problematic because it talks about policy positions, but it actually is not particularly partisan in how it talks about policy positions.

Sen. Richard Burr: So it was partisan before, though.

Miller: Yes, it absolutely was.

‘Accidental partisanship’ …oxymoronic morons…

There’s no such thing as “accidental” partisanship. No such thing as unbiased partisanship. But that’s the #IRS‘s excuse right now.

— RB (@RBPundit) May 21, 2013

BAM! #IRSHearing @RepPaulRyan Gets #IRS Commish Miller To Admit No Progressive Groups Were Targeted [Video]

Previously:

Armed DHS Guards Outside St. Louis #IRS During #TeaParty Rally [Photo]

On May 21st, 2013, in news, politics, by Velvet Hammer

St. Louisan Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit tweets:

Woah!! armed DHS guards outside #IRS in St Louis twitter.com/gatewaypundit/…

— Jim Hoft (@gatewaypundit) May 21, 2013

Rally info. here: Reminder: National Tea Party Rallies Today at Noon at IRS Offices

Previously:

Smoking Gun? Obama MET With #IRS Union Pres. DAY BEFORE Conservative Targeting Began

On May 21st, 2013, in news, politics, by Velvet Hammer

“For me, it’s about collaboration.” — National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley on the relationship between the anti-Tea Party IRS union and the Obama White House (February 15, 2009)

‘What did the President know and when did he know it?’

Via American Spectator:

March 31, 2010.

According to the White House Visitors Log, provided here in searchable form by U.S. News and World Report, the president of the anti-Tea Party National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelley, visited the White House at 12:30pm that Wednesday noon time of March 31st. (Screenshot above –ed.)

The White House lists the IRS union leader’s visit this way:

Kelley, Colleen Potus 03/31/2010 12:30

In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:

April 1-2, 2010: The new Acting Manager, Technical Unit, suggested the need for a Sensitive Case Report on the Tea Party cases. The Determinations Unit Program Manager Agreed.

In short: the very day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS “Determinations Unit Program agreed” to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases.” As stated by the IG report.

The NTEU is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies. Kelley herself is a 14-year IRS veteran agent. The union’s PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles to anti-Tea Party candidates.

Putting IRS employees in the position of actively financing anti-Tea Party candidates themselves, while in their official positions in the IRS blocking, auditing, or intimidating Tea Party and conservative groups around the country.

Much MORE here.

Also see: Meet the Partisan Union Behind The Partisan Internal Revenue Service

@RepKevinBrady Asks #IRS Commissioner Miller: “Is This Still America?, Is This Admin. Drunk On Power”? [Video]