{"id":35780,"date":"2013-05-23T07:00:59","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T11:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35780"},"modified":"2013-05-23T05:59:36","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T09:59:36","slug":"irs-scandal-update-23-may-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35780","title":{"rendered":"IRS Scandal Update &#8211; 23 May 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Update on events in the ongoing IRS scandal over the last 24 hours:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The current head of the IRS Tax Exempt Divison, Lois Lerner, i<a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2013\/05\/22\/top-irs-official-refuses-to-testify-at-hearing-invokes-5th-amendment\/\">nvoked the 5th Amendment<\/a> in testifying in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday \u2013 but did so <em>after<\/em> making an opening statement giving her side of the story.<\/li>\n<li>Making that statement may well have been a mistake, though.\u00a0 There is substantial thought in legal circles that making an opening statement during testimony constitutes a waiver of 5th Amendment rights.\u00a0 On further consideration, Chairman Dan Issa of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee apparently agrees.\u00a0 He <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/story\/2013\/05\/darrell-issa-irs-lois-lerner-91755.html\">plans to recall Lerner to testify again<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Lerner\u2019s conduct some 15 years or so ago as a chief of enforcement for the Federal Election Commission is now also getting fresh scrutiny.\u00a0 The conduct of her subordinates then is also troubling, and may be relevant to the current IRS scandal.\u00a0 In the 1990s, lawyers working for Ms. Lerner in one investigation of a conservative Christian group <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2013\/05\/22\/irs-official-who-refused-to-testify-facing-more-scrutiny-over-scandal-past\/\">asked some irrelevant and troubling questions about religion and prayer<\/a> while taking depositions.\u00a0 Sound familiar?<\/li>\n<li>The IRS\u2019s internal investigation into discrimination against conservative groups by the Tax Exempt division was completed in May 2012, but <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2329067\/Congress-hosts-IRS-bloodbath-slamming-tax-authorities-partisan-targeting-conservatives-official-refuses-answer-questions.html\">apparently was deliberately concealed from Congress until after the 2012 elections<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was briefed in general terms about the pending Treasury IG investigation of the scandal in late April 2013, and shared that information informally with the White House Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough and some others on the senior staff.\u00a0 Senior White House staff had further discussions with Treasury department officials concerning the matter afterwards.\u00a0 However, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/with-more-clarity-white-house-adds-to-confusion-on-irs\/2013\/05\/21\/a40c54f2-c24d-11e2-8c3b-0b5e9247e8ca_story.html\">supposedly no one told the POTUS anything for about two weeks<\/a> &#8211; <em>allegedly because Ruemmler and McDonough agreed it wasn&#8217;t something that should be brought to the POTUS&#8217;s attention<\/em>. (For what it&#8217;s worth, at least one person who&#8217;s previously worked in the White House Chief of Staff&#8217;s office for two years says the claim that the White House Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel would agree to keep the POTUS in the dark on such an issue &#8220;very odd&#8221;, going so far as to call that claim &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/post-partisan\/wp\/2013\/05\/22\/the-insiders-a-special-prosecutor-in-the-irs-matter-is-inevitable\/\">the most curious whopper I\u2019ve heard so far&#8221;<\/a> about the scandal.)<\/li>\n<li>Even Democratic Representatives appear to be losing patience.\u00a0 Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, D-MA, indicated during the hearings yesterday that withholding information or dancing around questions <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2013\/may\/22\/rep-issa-accuses-irs-misleading-congress-and-ameri\/\">would result in \u201chell to pay\u201d<\/a> and also stated:\u00a0 \u201cWe know where that will lead. It will lead to a special prosecutor.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Oh well.\u00a0 Bottom line:\u00a0 it seems like nothing much happened yesterday except for rather infuriating obfuscation and tap-dancing on the part of Administration officials.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d swear I\u2019ve seen something like this before.\u00a0 When was it?\u00a0 What was that quote . . . ?<\/p>\n<p>Oh, yeah \u2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.time.com\/time\/magazine\/article\/0,9171,942925,00.html\">I remember now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i>&#8220;I don&#8217;t give a shit what happens. I want you all to stonewall it, let them plead the Fifth Amendment, cover up or anything else if it&#8217;ll save it \u2013 save the plan. That&#8217;s the whole point . . . We&#8217;re going to protect our people, if we can.&#8221;<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But remember:\u00a0 nothing to see here, folks.\u00a0 Everything is fine; everything&#8217;s under control.\u00a0 Move along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update on events in the ongoing IRS scandal over the last 24 hours: The current head &hellip; <a title=\"IRS Scandal Update &#8211; 23 May 2013\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35780\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">IRS Scandal Update &#8211; 23 May 2013<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,185,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-crime","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}