Lerner's Testimony is probably for sale - Just ask her price.

"... the fact that Lerner decided to plead the Fifth suggests that an “every man (or woman) for themselves” mentality may be taking over for those implicated in the IRS scandal. That’s trouble due to a simple reality: What’s good for Lois Lerner is not necessarily good for the broader Obama Administration. What’s best, politically speaking, for the White House is to have everyone singing off the same song book: We made mistakes. Those mistakes were the result of haste and bad decision-making. Partisanship didn’t enter into it. While that may also be best for Lerner at the moment, it might not always be. "  Washpost

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I have asked Harper to write us something in depth concrening the present IRS revelations.  In preparation for that I would say that you plead the fifth Amendment against the possibility of criminal self incrimination.  If there was not a perceived threat of prosecution, there would not be a plea.

Therefore, one must conclude that Lerner is susceptible to an offer of immunity in return for her testimony before Ways and Means.

She is a career civil servant with more than thirty years service.  The White House should fear her desire to be "home free."  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/05/22/lois-lerner-didnt-say-anything-today-why-thats-a-bad-thing-for-the-obama-administration/

http://www.investingchannel.com/article/232821/IRS-Lois-Lerner-Re-Subpoenaed-After-Accidentally-Waiving-Her-Right-To-Plead-The-Fifth#.UZ5HVoeTjng

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

AG Holder and DoJ have stated they intend to investigate!I would argue enough evidence on the record so that a Special Prosecutor should be named and a Grand Jury impaneled!

Strange as it may seem the question of examination of 501(c)(4)s or their non-examination may well extend back over a decade.

[r whitman]

The biggest enemy of the Tea Party is the regular Republicans who they have been knocking off the primary ballots. The Democrats are secondary.

If you are looking for culprits who might have influenced the Cincinnati IRS try the regular Ohio Republican mafia. Regular Repubs had the most to gain, not the Dems. Do you really think the Dems are smart enough to think up something like this?

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

After pleasing the Elite and dealing with Congress, the job of the Senior Executive Service appointee is to avoid scandals like the IRS one. The only thing that would make sense is that the IRS looked at Tea Party groups as bottom feeding outsiders who don’t have tax lawyers or networked with the Cincinnati IRS office.

Their error was not treating the hoi polloi all the same but choosing easy search terms like “911” or “Tea” associated with conservative groups. They should have thrown in “occupy” or “green”. Except, these terms probably wouldn’t get any hits. The Environmental Defense Fund, for example, supports fracking for shale gas and is a member in good standing in the Elite Network. Occupy movement members don't have jobs period.

What is significant is how the Obama Administration is screwing Federal Workers by the furloughs and throwing IRS employees to the Congressional wolves. Democrats can’t expect to continue winning elections by messing with their base.

Propaganda and Republican talking points have become the new reality; both parties have said the hell to working Americans.

[Tyler]

So we have this, along with the Obama Administration claiming the right to kill anyone anywhere at any time under the 'global battlefield' doctrine. In an Orwellian twist, the headline reads that Obama is 'limiting drone strikes' while he orders sky executions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/us/us-acknowledges-killing-4-americans-in-drone-strikes.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&

Open question for the leftists around here who voted for Obama: When is it going to be 'too far'? When he declares himself king?

[Fred]

Representative Issa never should have allowed her to make a ‘statement’ then plead the fifth, that’s just contempt of Congress.

Wouldn’t there be written procedures for determining tax exempt status application; periodic (minimally annual) training of agents with written documentation thereof? An audit process of the agents, a periodic rotation to prevent over-familiarization (and subsequent possibility of conflicts of interest) of agents? A period review and update to procedure? Aren’t these public documents? What’s the process of re-review of exempt organizations to ensure the meet current law? What’s the appeals process?

These are all procedure based questions. Either the written procedures exist or they don’t. You’re either following the written process or you are not. Work-load assignment and rotation of people/types of organizations one reviews would be the potential issues for the very suspect conduct of agent(s).

Making an under-oath opening statement proclaiming one’s innocence and then immediately taking the fifth? That’s contempt of Congress if not a waiver of one’s rights. As Representative Growdy of S.C. protested to Issa - she should have been forced to sit there, listen to each question and take the fifth each time. How can you have fear of criminal prosecution if you were following a written instruction (that should have been in place for many, many years) – or did she facilitate the discriminatory conduct by employee assignment or changes to procedures?

[PStu]

The DOJ has said it would open an inquiry about possible crimes in this case, so I can't blame her lawyer for telling her to shut up. If my boss and Congress were both baying for scalps, I'd be scared about being railroaded, regardless of the facts.

[Richard Armstrong]

I know they are kind of rare, however there is a subset of folks that might actually find the IG's report to be of interest. The IG Report can be found here:

http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201310053fr.pdf

[Fred]

Maybe, but you don't make opening remarks then plead the fifth. Meanwhile the revelations of IRS agents exceeding thier legal authority proceeds apace:

http://tinyurl.com/o4mltuu

http://tinyurl.com/p5nfc5b

What did Ms. Lerner authorize her staff to do? What did she know and when did she know it?
Yep, lawyer up indeed. (Yes, she's a lawyer herself, too.)

[oth]

There are all sorts of procedures for non-profit applications, there was not a procedure to deal with a truckload of TP applications landing on their desks. Browse the form:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1023.pdf

Now imagine your average TP guy filling one out under the guise of being a social welfare group. Rinse and repeat a few thousand of these.

I've worked taxes and in a Service Center. Just because LBJ, Tricky DIck and a few others screwed X, Y and Z with audits, nobody gave a general order to harass eleventh-billion applicants. Nobody is that stupid. Tax Specialist probably got tired after form 100 and would search for a easiest out of the stack on their desks.

[Fred]

Great, they were not ordered to do this, no S*%$? As if I really expected that. But of course after years of reviewing just such forms these employees got slower not faster and of course they just happened to drag their feet on these particular groups. And of course anti-abortion groups:

http://news.yahoo.com/gop-questions-irs-scrutiny-anti-abortion-groups-071630476.html

BTW thanks for the link to the application, which is of course not the procedure for reviewing the applications. But as the WAPO pointed out:

" She said she became director of the IRS’s tax-exempt unit in 2006, making her responsible for .... 900 ­employees, who process more than 60,000 applications for tax-exempt status annually."

60,000/900 is 66.6. But of course there's plenty of managers and non-reviewers so let me guess: 60,000/450 = 120.

That's one application review every two work days. Maybe there aren't 220 work days in the IRS tax-exempt unit. Maybe less than half of these employees actually review applications. At the very least there seems to be one hell of allot of incompetence if not outright malfeasance on the part of employees at multiple levels.

"Tax Specialist probably got tired after form 100 and would search for a easiest out of the stack on their desks."

They 'got tired after form 100" ? You mean halfway into year two or so? According to the IRS : "Tax Law Specialists have GS-5/7/9/11 career ladders" A step 5 GS 9 in Cincinnati is making $56K. These people make more in an hour than the new UAW members my company just hired make in two. Time to see about outsourcing this whole department. Maybe that will motivate some 'work' out of people making $50K or more a year.

[Stephanie]

"Maybe, but you don't make opening remarks then plead the fifth"

I don't see why not. I'm told you can take the Fifth even if you've begun answering questions in good faith, if you see that matters are going against you. Whatever Lerner did or did not do, she's clearly being set up to take a fall. If she can deny Issa and his grandstanding colleagues of both parties their pound of flesh, bully for her.

[Alba Etie]

Col Lang
Happy Memorial Day .
I have learned to value your insight here at SST . Why exactly would Mrs Lerner's testimony be for sale , to whom , & for what purpose?

[turcopolier]

Alba Etie

She is an obvious target for scapegoating in this mess especially in the context of the DOJ criminal investigation. 5th Amendment exemption from self-incrimination can only be claimed in the context of possible CRIMINAL liability. Issa and the Republicans want to connect the Cincinnati "mob" to the WH. She undoubtedly knows something that would be useful in that quest. pl

[Fred]

She's being set up to take the fall? She was in charge of the department for two years. She IS responsible for the professional conduct the that department and its employees for the time she was in that position. What is already come out in public is the low level employees routinely stonewalled applications due to their personal political views. 'Grandstanding' by congress didn't cause these IRS employees to abandon their personal and professional integrity for advancement of their personal political views.

[oth]

According to google, there are a couple million non-profits in the US and they all file annually. It's likely they back up regular filing crunch also. NP, like small business filers has a high ratio of Q&A as you're dealing with a lot of people who can't afford a CPA.

The IRS could be a lot more automated, but Congress often doesn't really like giving them computers to catch people. I saw a pilot program that generated >$100M in revenue in one region for large business underreporters. Businesses complained to their Congressfolks. Took years for the program to get funded. If anything, I was amazed how much they got down with as little automation as they had.

That said, they have big IT boondoggles, but pretty minor compared to DoD and other agencies.

[Mark Logan]

Colbert's bit this week with his PAC lawyer opened me to the idea this might be nothing. He wondered why he had not been targeted and the explanation was they never filed for a tax exemption, as it isn't required. Therefore, as a method of stifling the Tea Party it's so lame the question of why anyone would bother crops up. I wonder if "media" addiction to scandal-ratings is the reason why so much is printed and said that doesn't qualify as journalism.

I would like Obama to put a special prosecutor on this anyway. This is the political money-laundering operation, it should be highlighted. Politicians and the media are strongly interested parties. Let a Fitzpatrick loose on this, please.

[Tyler]

Fred, you make a lot of great point but the true believers on here are going to blame everything and anything other than Obama slamdancing his political opponents.

Look at oth below us. "Congress won't authorize computers!" Like that had anything to do with a concerted effort to target groups in opposition to Obama, but any port in a storm.

[Tyler]

Mark, that sounds a lot like Nate Silver 'proving' the audits weren't uncommon based off of statistics, while refusing to even acknowledge the fact that all these groups were in opposition to Obama's policies.

Just more par for the course Talmudic arguing of black into white.

[Alba Etie]

So perhaps Mrs Lerner can 'sale ' her knowledge of any criminal wrong doing to the DOJ or Chairman Issa for immunity ? My concern if there is indeed crimes committed the Troglodytes on Issa committee will muddy the waters so as to impede or even derail the DOJ investigation .

[Fred]

The official statement of the IRS is not 'google says'. The IRS stated 900 employees and 60,000 applications per year. You do the math. You should re-read the news. They file a tax return, not an application. This unit reviews the initial applications for exemptions, not the returns made after they receive the application.

[Fred]

Tyler," facts are stubborn things" as future President John Adams said during the trial of those British soldiers charged with murder during the Boston Massacre. According to the news article Lerner learned about this in June 2011 and ordered it stop. All that happened is that it increase:

"it finally stopped in May 2012, when top agency officials say they found out and ordered agents to adopt appropriate criteria for determining whether tax-exempt groups were overly political."

Tax exempt groups have been around for decades. The IRS has no criteria "determining whether tax-exempt groups were overly political." I doubt they just went by individual tax specialists feelings for decades; but they apparently ignored the instructions of the department director - in-fact expanded their activities to include even more groups they personally didn't agree with? I'm sure Lerner won't be the only senior executive to plead the fifth. Undoubtably the DOJ in the end fry a couple of GS-7s and proclaim the issue closed.

Those true believers (and any Massachusetts residents reading the blog) ought to remember their heritage a little better. Don't you remember hundreds of armed police doing door-to-door searches in Watertown with neither probably cause or search warrants. If that is now the acceptable conduct of agents of government will it be okay for the VA doctors to stop providing care to patients because of their personal beliefs?

[oth]

There is no official statement that all the EO unit does is application reviews. Your assumptions are incorrect. They perform over 10000 audit/examinations among other duties.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/FY2012_EO_AnnualRpt_2013_Work_Plan.pdf

also,

"Exempt Organization taxpayers represent more than 1.6 million tax exempt organizations — including about 400,000 religious organizations — with approximately $2.4 trillion in assets"

Audits are non-trivial on orgs reaching this size, some of which are larger than many multi-nationals.