Lois Lerner does about-face, will give Hill testimony on IRS scandal

Erod said:

This type of intimidation politics has ruled Chicago for years and years, and now its in Washington. This is all these people know.

Now, Rahm Emanuel is considering a run for president to keep the mob party going. That's almost literally akin to electing John Gotti.

Click to expand...

That's an over generalization. They make poor arguements. And no, the comparison doesn't work at all. It's just exaggeration.

Looks like Issa's little blow up last week may have some ramifications for Issa's plan to hold Lerner in Contempt.

The hasty way he adjourned the meeting, not allowing Cummings to offer a proffer to the lawyer (which, as I remarked earlier was Cumming intention of asking to speak -- when Issa cut his microphone) and the correct procedure needed to be used when a witness takes the Fifth and Contempt charges pending was something Issa ("I have an in IQ of a little over a 100") didn't bother to concern himself with.

"Cummings, citing opinions from two legal experts and “Supreme Court case law,” said Republicans cannot pursue contempt charges against Lerner because of how the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), abruptly adjourned a hearing with the former official last week."

Cummings says Issa killed chances for Lois Lerner contempt proceedings

The lawyers who wrote the opinion have some cred: Morton Rosenberg, was formerly with the Congressional Research Service, and Stan Brand, b formerly the House of Representatives General Counsel -- and they both say Issa dropped the ball on this one.

Here's the letter sent to Boehner: http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/uploads/2014-03-12%20EEC%20to%20Speaker%20Boehner.pdf


Issa “failed to take the basic — but Constitutionally required — steps necessary to hold [Lerner] in contempt."

Of course Issa's folks reject the legalities presented. Boehner hasn't commented, and it's a new ride and another wicked twist in the How Inept Is Issa Saga.

Paperview said:

Looks like Issa's little blow up last week may have some ramifications for Issa's plan to hold Lerner in Contempt.

The hasty way he adjourned the meeting, not allowing Cummings to offer a proffer to the lawyer (which, as I remarked earlier was Cumming intention of asking to speak -- when Issa cut his microphone) and the correct procedure needed to be used when a witness takes the Fifth and Contempt charges pending was something Issa ("I have an in IQ of a little over a 100") didn't bother to concern himself with.

"Cummings, citing opinions from two legal experts and “Supreme Court case law,” said Republicans cannot pursue contempt charges against Lerner because of how the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), abruptly adjourned a hearing with the former official last week."

Cummings says Issa killed chances for Lois Lerner contempt proceedings

The lawyers who wrote the opinion have some cred: Morton Rosenberg, was formerly with the Congressional Research Service, and Stan Brand, b formerly the House of Representatives General Counsel -- and they both say Issa dropped the ball on this one.

Here's the letter sent to Boehner: http://democrats.oversight.house.gov/uploads/2014-03-12%20EEC%20to%20Speaker%20Boehner.pdf


Issa “failed to take the basic — but Constitutionally required — steps necessary to hold [Lerner] in contempt."

Of course Issa's folks reject the legalities presented. Boehner hasn't commented, and it's a new ride and another wicked twist in the How Inept Is Issa Saga.

Click to expand...

Good luck with that.

Lerners still going to be held in contempt eventually and Issa really didn't do anything wrong.

Let's go with what you imagine is going to happen -- she *is* held in Contempt. ( This has to be voted on by the full House)

What do you think will happen to her next?

Flash from the Wayback Machine (well, not that way back)
[h=1]House Votes to Issue Contempt Citations[/h] Doug Mills/The New York Times

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, at lectern, led Republicans out of the House in protest

Published: February 15, 2008
WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to issue contempt citations against the White House chief of staff and a former White House counsel for refusing to cooperate in an investigation into the mass firings of federal prosecutors.
[h=2]House Vote on Contempt Is Expected Soon[/h]


The vote to hold Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, the former counsel, in contempt of Congress followed bitter partisan wrangling on the House floor, including a Republican walkout from the chamber, and moved House Democrats closer to a constitutional showdown with President Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/washington/15contempt.html?hp

In Retrospect Money Quote:

“We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition but not space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican House leader.

Mr. Boehner then instructed other Republicans to exit the chamber in protest. “Let’s just get up and leave,” Mr. Boehner said before walking out with scores of his party’s members.

Paperview said:

Flash from the Wayback Machine (well, not that way back)
[h=1]House Votes to Issue Contempt Citations[/h]

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, at lectern, led Republicans out of the House in protest

Published: February 15, 2008
WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to issue contempt citations against the White House chief of staff and a former White House counsel for refusing to cooperate in an investigation into the mass firings of federal prosecutors.
[h=2]House Vote on Contempt Is Expected Soon[/h]


The vote to hold Joshua B. Bolten, the chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, the former counsel, in contempt of Congress followed bitter partisan wrangling on the House floor, including a Republican walkout from the chamber, and moved House Democrats closer to a constitutional showdown with President Bush.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/washington/15contempt.html?hp

In Retrospect Money Quote:

“We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition but not space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican House leader.

Mr. Boehner then instructed other Republicans to exit the chamber in protest. “Let’s just get up and leave,” Mr. Boehner said before walking out with scores of his party’s members.

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Seems like your'e pretty convinced Lerner will be able to keep her mouth shut.

So you agree there was illegal targeting based on ideology ?

And you have no problem with it ?

I agree with the findings by the committee and the Inspector General: There was mismanagement at the IRS, but that it was not politically motivated.

Too bad Issa screwed it up so bad. I wanted to hear from lerner. had he allowed the proffer, we could have gotten more information from Lerner.''

Issa was too interested in making a spectacle - and now it's bit him.

Expert Opinion on Issa Contempt

So....what will Issa's next step be...?

ICYMI:

More Experts Now Agree That Issa Botched Contempt

March 13, 2014 Washington, D.C. (Mar. 13, 2014)—Yesterday, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner transmitting an independent legal analysis from two of the nation’s preeminent experts in Constitutional law and congressional contempt proceedings concluding that Committee Chairman Darrell Issa compromised any House contempt action against Lois Lerner when he rushed to adjourn the Committee’s hearing last Wednesday.
The analysis was authored by Morton Rosenberg, who served for 35 years as a Specialist in American Public Law at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), and was joined by Stan Brand, who served as House Counsel from 1976 to 1983 and “fully subscribes” to Mr. Rosenberg’s legal analysis and conclusions.
Since these experts provided their analysis, additional legal experts have come forward to agree with their conclusions and have identified defects in Issa’s contempt proceedings:

Joshua Levy, a partner in the firm of Cunningham and Levy and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center who teaches Congressional Investigations, said:

“Contempt cannot be born from a game of gotcha. Supreme Court precedents that helped put an end to the McCarthy era ruled that Congress cannot initiate contempt proceedings without first giving the witness due process. For example, Congress cannot hold a witness in contempt without directing her to answer the questions being asked, overruling her objections and informing her, in clear terms, that her refusal to answer the questions will result in contempt. None of that occurred here.”

Julie Rose O’Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor and law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and current a Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said:
“The Supreme Court has spoken—repeatedly—on point. Before a witness may be held in contempt under 18 U.S.C. sec. 192, the government bears the burden of showing ‘criminal intent—in this instance, a deliberate, intentional refusal to answer.’ Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 165 (1955). This intent is lacking where the witness is not faced with an order to comply or face the consequences. Thus, the government must show that the Committee ‘clearly apprised [the witness] that the committee demands his answer notwithstanding his objections’ or ‘there can be no conviction under [sec.] 192 for refusal to answer that question.’ Id. at 166. Here, the Committee at no point directed the witness to answer; accordingly, no prosecution will lie. This is a result demanded by common sense as well as the case law. ‘Contempt’ citations are generally reserved for violations of court or congressional orders. One cannot commit contempt without a qualifying ‘order.’”

Samuel W. Buell, a former federal prosecutor and current Professor of Law at Duke University Law School, said:
“[T]he real issue for me is the pointlessness and narrow-mindedness of proceeding in this way. Contempt sanctions exist for the purpose of overcoming recalcitrance to testify. One would rarely if ever see this kind of procedural Javert-ism from a federal prosecutor and, if one did, one would expect it to be condemned by any federal judge before whom such a motion were made.
In federal court practice, contempt is not sought against grand jury witnesses as a kind of gotcha penalty for invocations of the Fifth Amendment privilege that might turn out to contain some arguable formal flaw. Contempt is used to compel witnesses who have asserted the privilege and then continued to refuse to testify after having been granted immunity. Skirmishing over the form of a privilege invocation is a wasteful sideshow. The only question that matters, and that would genuinely interest a judge, is whether the witness is in fact intending to assert the privilege and in fact has a legitimate basis to do so. The only questions of the witness that therefore need asking are the kind of questions (and a sufficient number of them) that will make the record clear that the witness is not going to testify. Usually even that process is not necessary and a representation from the witness’s counsel will do.

Again, contempt sanctions are on the books to serve a simple and necessary function in the operation of legal engines for finding the truth, and not for any other purpose. Any fair and level-headed judge is going to approach the problem from that perspective. Seeking contempt now on this record thus could accomplish nothing but making the Committee look petty and uninterested in getting to the merits of the matter under investigation.”

Robert Muse, a partner at Stein, Mitchell, Muse & Cipollone, LLP, Adjunct Professor of Congressional Investigations at Georgetown Law, and formerly the General Counsel to the Special Senate Committee to Investigate Hurricane Katrina, said:
"Procedures and rules exist to provide justice and fairness. In his rush to judgment, Issa forgot to play by the rules."

Professor Lance Cole of Penn State University’s Dickinson School of Law, said:
“I agree with the analysis and conclusions of Mr. Rosenberg, and the additional comments by Mr. Brand. I also have a broader concern about seeking criminal contempt sanctions against Ms. Lerner. I do not believe criminal contempt proceedings should be utilized in a situation in which a witness is asserting a fundamental constitutional privilege and there is a legitimate, unresolved legal issue concerning whether or not the constitutional privilege has been waived. In that situation initiating a civil subpoena enforcement proceeding to obtain a definitive judicial resolution of the disputed waiver issue, prior to initiating criminal contempt proceedings, would be preferable to seeking criminal contempt sanctions when there is a legitimate issue as to whether the privilege has been waived and that legal issue inevitably will require resolution by the judiciary. Pursuing a criminal contempt prosecution in this situation, when the Committee has available to it the alternatives of either initiating a civil judicial proceeding to resolve the legal dispute on waiver or granting the witness statutory immunity, is unnecessary and could have a chilling effect on the constitutional rights of witnesses in congressional proceedings.”


- See more at: Committee on Oversight & Government Reform : Press Releases : More Experts Now Agree That Issa Botched Contempt

When this IRS thing first burst on the scene, I thought it was interesting as I knew utilizing the IRS to punish political enemies goes back all the way to LBJ. Then I didn’t give it much thought until this Learner gal testified for the first time. She took the fifth after reading her statement that she had done nothing wrong. That made me think something was there, but as these things go, what it is/was wouldn’t come out until many years after the main players passed from the scenes. This took a back seat to other issues of the day.

Then here comes Learner to testify again. Once again taking the fifth. In my mind, now I know there is a there there. But I still think we will not know until after all the main players are out of office, that is how these things work at times. Very seldom is the smoking gun found while the people responsible are in office, Watergate being the big exception along with a couple of other minor instances. Someone will get rich later on a book about the targeting done by the IRS. It always happens.

So perhaps the main question should be, when the book hits the streets will it tarnish President’s Obama image and/or throw some doubt over the 2012 election. It didn’t hurt LBJ when the facts of his abuse of using the IRS came to light some 20 or so years ago. But he had great accomplishments, the civil rights act, Medicare, voting rights act and he also had Vietnam. This president does not have his accomplishments, the ACA is no Medicare and unlike Medicare, the majority of Americans do not like it. So time will tell, check back in 20 or so years for the truth on the IRS targeting of Conservative groups. We probably won’t know it until them. So why worry about it.

Paperview said:

Joshua Levy, a partner in the firm of Cunningham and Levy and an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center who teaches Congressional Investigations, said:

“Contempt cannot be born from a game of gotcha. Supreme Court precedents that helped put an end to the McCarthy era ruled that Congress cannot initiate contempt proceedings without first giving the witness due process. For example, Congress cannot hold a witness in contempt without directing her to answer the questions being asked, overruling her objections and informing her, in clear terms, that her refusal to answer the questions will result in contempt. None of that occurred here.”

Julie Rose O’Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor and law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and current a Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, said:
“The Supreme Court has spoken—repeatedly—on point. Before a witness may be held in contempt under 18 U.S.C. sec. 192, the government bears the burden of showing ‘criminal intent—in this instance, a deliberate, intentional refusal to answer.’ Quinn v. United States, 349 U.S. 155, 165 (1955). This intent is lacking where the witness is not faced with an order to comply or face the consequences. Thus, the government must show that the Committee ‘clearly apprised [the witness] that the committee demands his answer notwithstanding his objections’ or ‘there can be no conviction under [sec.] 192 for refusal to answer that question.’ Id. at 166. Here, the Committee at no point directed the witness to answer; accordingly, no prosecution will lie. This is a result demanded by common sense as well as the case law. ‘Contempt’ citations are generally reserved for violations of court or congressional orders. One cannot commit contempt without a qualifying ‘order.’”

Samuel W. Buell, a former federal prosecutor and current Professor of Law at Duke University Law School, said:
“[T]he real issue for me is the pointlessness and narrow-mindedness of proceeding in this way. Contempt sanctions exist for the purpose of overcoming recalcitrance to testify. One would rarely if ever see this kind of procedural Javert-ism from a federal prosecutor and, if one did, one would expect it to be condemned by any federal judge before whom such a motion were made.
In federal court practice, contempt is not sought against grand jury witnesses as a kind of gotcha penalty for invocations of the Fifth Amendment privilege that might turn out to contain some arguable formal flaw. Contempt is used to compel witnesses who have asserted the privilege and then continued to refuse to testify after having been granted immunity. Skirmishing over the form of a privilege invocation is a wasteful sideshow. The only question that matters, and that would genuinely interest a judge, is whether the witness is in fact intending to assert the privilege and in fact has a legitimate basis to do so. The only questions of the witness that therefore need asking are the kind of questions (and a sufficient number of them) that will make the record clear that the witness is not going to testify. Usually even that process is not necessary and a representation from the witness’s counsel will do.

Again, contempt sanctions are on the books to serve a simple and necessary function in the operation of legal engines for finding the truth, and not for any other purpose. Any fair and level-headed judge is going to approach the problem from that perspective. Seeking contempt now on this record thus could accomplish nothing but making the Committee look petty and uninterested in getting to the merits of the matter under investigation.”

Robert Muse, a partner at Stein, Mitchell, Muse & Cipollone, LLP, Adjunct Professor of Congressional Investigations at Georgetown Law, and formerly the General Counsel to the Special Senate Committee to Investigate Hurricane Katrina, said:
"Procedures and rules exist to provide justice and fairness. In his rush to judgment, Issa forgot to play by the rules."

Professor Lance Cole of Penn State University’s Dickinson School of Law, said:
“I agree with the analysis and conclusions of Mr. Rosenberg, and the additional comments by Mr. Brand. I also have a broader concern about seeking criminal contempt sanctions against Ms. Lerner. I do not believe criminal contempt proceedings should be utilized in a situation in which a witness is asserting a fundamental constitutional privilege and there is a legitimate, unresolved legal issue concerning whether or not the constitutional privilege has been waived. In that situation initiating a civil subpoena enforcement proceeding to obtain a definitive judicial resolution of the disputed waiver issue, prior to initiating criminal contempt proceedings, would be preferable to seeking criminal contempt sanctions when there is a legitimate issue as to whether the privilege has been waived and that legal issue inevitably will require resolution by the judiciary. Pursuing a criminal contempt prosecution in this situation, when the Committee has available to it the alternatives of either initiating a civil judicial proceeding to resolve the legal dispute on waiver or granting the witness statutory immunity, is unnecessary and could have a chilling effect on the constitutional rights of witnesses in congressional proceedings.”


- See more at: Committee on Oversight & Government Reform : Press Releases : More Experts Now Agree That Issa Botched Contempt

Click to expand...

Doesn't matter you shouldn't be able to penalize someone for contempt if all they did was plead the fifth.

Unless they have hard evidence of a crime here, that Lerner is guilty, they need to give her immunity. If nothing else her testimony while immune can be used against the Democrats in the next election.

Paperview said:

I agree with the findings by the
committee and the Inspector General: There was mismanagement at the IRS, but that it was not politically motivated.

Too bad Issa screwed it up so bad. I wanted to hear from lerner. had he allowed the proffer, we could have gotten more information from Lerner.''

Issa was too interested in making a spectacle - and now it's bit him.

Click to expand...

Oh I dont think Issa screwed anything up.

By most Liberals account, his daring to question the acts of the regime were enough to qualify him as a partisan hack.

But for the rest of us, who know that you dont counter a " witch hunt " with 24 Consecutive 5th ammendment pleas, we know he will eventually uncover a unprecedented level of corruption.

There are also private law suites that are gathering information on this targeting too.

Im patient and convinced thie went all the way to the WH.

Slyhunter said:

Doesn't matter you shouldn't be able to
penalize someone for contempt if all they did was plead the fifth.

Unless they have hard evidence of a crime here, that Lerner is guilty, they need to give her immunity. If nothing else her testimony while immune can be used against the Democrats in the next election.

Click to expand...

IF she broke the law she should be held accountable.

Fenton said:

Oh I dont think Issa screwed anything up.

By most Liberals account, his daring to question the acts of the regime were enough to qualify him as a partisan hack.

But for the rest of us, who know that you dont counter a " witch hunt " with 24 Consecutive 5th ammendment pleas, we know he will eventually uncover a unprecedented level of corruption.

There are also private law suites that are gathering information on this targeting too.

Im patient and convinced thie went all the way to the WH.

Click to expand...

I'm sure you are, but then again, you're easily convinced that anything nefarious comes from the White House. Think about it again: Is Obama politically naive? Is he really naive enough to have thought that using the IRS to target "conservative" groups wouldn't blow up in his face?

Slyhunter said:

Doesn't matter you shouldn't be able to penalize someone for contempt if all they did was plead the fifth.

Unless they have hard evidence of a crime here, that Lerner is guilty, they need to give her immunity. If nothing else her testimony while immune can be used against the Democrats in the next election.

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Are you genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of this very important issue or are you more concerned that the reputation of some Democrats might be damaged?

Grant said:

Are you genuinely interested in getting to the bottom of this very important issue or are you more concerned that the reputation of some Democrats might be damaged?

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The truth at any cost.

Slyhunter said:

The truth at any cost.

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Great! Here's an interesting take. The Lois Lerner Defense :: SteynOnline

Dittohead not! said:

I'm sure you are, but then again, you're easily convinced that anything nefarious comes from the White House. Think about it again: Is Obama politically naive? Is he really naive enough to have thought that using the IRS to target "conservative" groups wouldn't blow up in his face?

Click to expand...

Many questions of Obama being inept have arisen over the past 12 to 18 months on a range of things...It could very well be the case that he thought he could demagogue the issue enough to get away with it...

j-mac said:

Many questions of Obama being inept have arisen over the past 12 to 18 months on a range of things...It could very well be the case that he thought he could demagogue the issue enough to get away with it...

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Not really likely, but you prove his point. You are easily convinced, . . . Too easily.

Dittohead not! said:

I'm sure you are, but
then again, you're easily convinced that anything nefarious comes from the White House. Think about it again: Is Obama politically naive? Is he really naive enough to have thought that using the IRS to target "conservative" groups wouldn't blow up in his face?

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Is he Naive ?

He's a liberal. What better definition is there ?

And yes, I believe he would use the IRS to target innocent Americans for their beliefs.

Primarily because it wasn't JUST the IRS tha t targeted these groups.

It was OSHA, and a handful of other Federal agencies thaf descended down on these people.

Boo Radley said:

Not really likely, but you prove his point. You are easily convinced, . . . Too easily.

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This post is irrelevant to the topic.

j-mac said:

Many questions of Obama being inept have arisen over the past 12 to 18 months on a range of things...It could very well be the case that he thought he could demagogue the issue enough to get away with it...

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Inept, maybe. Inexperienced, yes. Naive? Not so much. No, Obama is a politician, and he knows what is likely to happen should he use the IRS to target the opposition.

Dittohead not! said:

Inept, maybe. Inexperienced, yes. Naive? Not so much. No, Obama is a politician, and he knows what is likely to happen should he use the IRS to target the opposition.

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He also may think he can be insulated from the fall out of that, which I would place in the naive category.

j-mac said:

He also may think he can be insulated from the fall out of that, which I would place in the naive category.

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If he believes that he is another teflon president, then that would be naive.

But, I don't think he got where he is by being naive.