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Re: Issa uncovers the smoking gun int he IRS targeting of conservatives
i brought it up once i will bring it up again.
Darrell Issa Tries Tactic In IRS Probe Last Used In McCarthyism
i brought it up once i will bring it up again.
But there seems to a serious hitch in the drive to punish Lerner. According the records retrieved by the Congressional Research Service, no American has been successfully prosecuted for invoking their Fifth Amendment rights before Congress.
Congress brought contempt cases 11 times from 1951 to 1968, according the the CRS. Only two of those cases that involved documents -- not personal testimony -- were upheld by the courts.
Most of the cases involved the House Un-American Activities Committee and its communist witch-hunts in the 1950s. But one that is particularly instructive involves a Buffalo, N.Y., woman named Diantha Hoag, who was fired from her factory job after Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wis.) and his Senate Committee on Government Operations accused her of being a communist and she pleaded the Fifth.
In that case, Hoag answered many more questions than Lerner did. She listed several places where she had lived, said she worked at a Westinghouse plant, and told committee members that she knew Westinghouse contracted with the military. Lerner never went beyond a short opening statement professing her innocence.
Hoag flatly refused to answer questions about her associates and any communist connections she may have had.
When McCarthy attempted to compel her testimony through the courts, as Issa is now threatening, a judge did not look kindly on the bid, declaring: “I reach the conclusion that the defendant did not waive her privilege under the Fifth Amendment and therefore did not violate the statute in question in refusing to answer the questions propounded to her. Therefore, I find that she is entitled to a judgment of acquittal on all counts.”
Darrell Issa Tries Tactic In IRS Probe Last Used In McCarthyism