House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI) announced Friday that, after months of discussions, the IRS has agreed to turn over Lois Lerner emails and documents to the committee.
More from The Hill:
The Internal Revenue Service has agreed to turn over emails and other documents from Lois Lerner, a core player in the agency’s targeting controversy, the House Ways and Means Committee said Friday.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) threatened last month to subpoena those documents after criticizing the IRS for failing to comply with his request.
“This is a significant step forward and will help us complete our investigation into the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups,” Camp said in a statement.
This news follows a House Oversight committee hearing earlier this week during which Lerner again invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and did not answer any questions.
In February, Camp sent a letter to the new IRS Commissioner, John Koskinen, in which he reiterated a request for documents, including all Lois Lerner emails starting from January 1, 2009. Some documents had previously been provided to the committee, but they were limited in scope, according to the letter.
It has been almost eight months since I wrote Acting Commissioner Werfel to request, among other things, all Lois Lerner e-mails starting from January 1, 2009. To date, the committee has received only those Lerner documents from this period that include one or more search terms and limited to the determinations process. Given emerging evidence of Lerner’s central role in targeting not just through the determinations process, but also in the examinations, appeals and rulemaking processes, all Lerner documents during this time period are pertinent to the investigation.
While Lerner didn’t answer any questions for Congress this week, her attorney said Wednesday that the former IRS official has provided a full interview to the Justice Department, reported the Wall Street Journal.
In a press conference Wednesday, lawyer William Taylor III said Ms. Lerner had given a lengthy interview to Justice Department prosecutors within the last six months, as part of the agency’s investigation into IRS targeting of conservative tea-party groups for burdensome special scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status.
Some legal experts said it can be risky to expose a client to Justice Department interviews without a grant of immunity. Ms. Lerner’s lawyers said she got no immunity from DOJ.
Her lawyers decided to let her talk to DOJ prosecutors because they have “every confidence” that they are fair-minded and haven’t prejudged the facts, Mr. Taylor said. GOP committee members, by contrast, intended only to “vilify” Ms. Lerner, he said.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
It likely will all be heavily redacted down to ‘of’ and ‘the’.
Yet the question for me is, “Can I.R.S. be trusted to comply with total disclosure or continue to C. Their A’s ?”
“Ms. Lerner’s lawyers said she got no immunity from DOJ.”
Sure she did. They all lie like the carpeting in a feed-lot.
Excuse me, but you left out the phrase ‘heavily redacted, almost incomprehensible’ between the words ‘over’ and ‘Lerner’ in your headline.
And I thought the redactions we’re coming after the elections.
The few emails the committee already has are damning enough, which is why the Elijah Cummings misdirection play is so disgusting. The remaining emails could turn out to be very interesting.
The damning emails have already been trashed and Cummings set the stage for proof of the repub “witchhunt” against Lerner with his hissy fit at Issa’s Hearing.
Nothing to see here, move along. /s
let us find out if there are email by her under ANOTHER NAME on OTHER sources
Of course, Congress will not be able to ask her whether she conducted any business using a private email account as was the wont of many high up in the Obama administration.
So, let me get this straight. DOJ has interviewed the perp, has NOT interviewed the victims and the Obama donor in charge determined that no crime was committed? No wonder her lawyers are saying that DOJ is “fair-minded”!
Copper: Hey Tommy, did you kill that woman?
Tommy: Nope!
Copper: Case closed!
I really have no idea how oversight works regarding the bureaucracies, but it appears (at least to this non-lawyer/non-legal expert) that if the congress has power to investigate Major League Baseball, it should have the power to investigate bureaucracies wielding power against American citizens. We as citizens should have the option of stalling and fighting subpoenas, but a federal agency doing the same when confronted by requests from elected representatives seems wrong on many levels.
Lerner, an American citizen, should have the option, but the IRS denying information requests from Congress? I don’t care if it is an entirely partisan witch hunt, if the IRS doesn’t feel the need to answer to Congress, to whom does the IRS feel it should be held accountable?
Question: Lois Lerner takes the fifth in front of Issa, but as reported by Fox, she’s talking to DOJ. Can one us the fifth in one venue while talking on the same issue in another ?
ie,if I punch Issa in the nose does the law allow me to take the fifth while being questioned by the Capitol Police while at the same time telling all to the Secret Service?
Agreed, how is it possible to selectively take the fifth with officers of the courts ?
Q: What assurances do we have that the emails produced are *really* all of her emails? A: None.
Q: How redacted will these emails be? A: Heavily.
Q: Will another personal email account that she used to deceive congressional investigators be revealed? A: Not if they do a good job with the redaction.
Q: Will the Republicans roll over and let the administration get away with this? A: Of course.
Q: Is the same process that attempted to squash the Tea Party organizations still ongoing at the IRS? A: Of course.
Q: Will the DOJ prosecutors decide to prosecute? A: Depends if they can find a Republican to blame.
The Fifth Amendment may protect her with respect to testifying before Congress. What gives her the right to continue to be employed by the federal government. Why have termination proceedings not been initiated against her?
Yep, most people already figure her files have been scrubbed. Just throw her in jail for contempt and see how she likes it.