Would the Real Lois Lerner Please Stand Up.

Unless you were applying with the IRS for 501 4c tax-exempt status, most of us had no idea who Lois Lerner was until this week.  Even then, you probably would not have known about her unless your application was one of those given heavy scrutiny by her department at the IRS.  However, now people will remember Lois Lerner as the woman who appeared before Congress, pled the fifth, and botched it.

It came as no surprise to most of us that when appearing before Congress on May 22, 2013 Lois Lerner planned to plead the fifth for she had made her plans public prior to her testimony.  For this reason, the committee had Neal Wolin, the Treasury Department’s deputy secretary also scheduled to testify after Ms., Lerner.  (1)  The members of the committee expected that Ms. Lerner would come before the committee, tell them her intention not to say anything, and leave. 

The surprising event was when Ms. Lerner began by making a statement declaring her innocence of any wrongdoing and them pleading the fifth.  This led to an accusation by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C. that in doing so Ms. Lerner had waived her Fifth Amendment right and was not required to testify.  (2) The thinking by Rep. Gowdy was that once you appear and state your innocence, you have opened the door to questioning so you can defend your position. 

This led committee chairman Darrell Issa to dismiss Ms. Lerner but rather than adjourning the committee, he recessed the committee, which leaves open the possibility Ms. Lerner will be called back, and have to testify, or face a contempt of congress charge.  (3) The question we must ask now is whether Ms. Lerner is indeed innocent of any wrongdoing.  In my research into Ms. Lerner I have discovered that this is not the first time she has used her authority as a government official to target Conservative and religious organizations.

I discovered that in the late 1990’s, while working as head of the Enforcement Office of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Ms. Lerner was also involved in the political harassment of the Christian Coalition and Colonel Oliver North.  (4) According to James Bopp Jr. the lead counsel for the Christian Coalition at the time said, "We felt we were being singled out, because when you handle a case with 81 depositions you have a pretty good argument you're getting special treatment. Eighty-one depositions! Eighty-one! From Ralph Reed's former part-time secretary to George H.W. Bush. It was mind blowing," (4)

In Mr. Bopp Jr.’s testimony to the congressional Committee on House Administration in 2003 he said, “The FEC conducted a large amount of paper discovery during the administrative investigation and then served four massive discovery requests during the litigation stage that included 127 document requests, 32 interrogatories, and 1,813 requests for admission. Three of the interrogatories required the Coalition to explain each request for admission that it did not admit in full, for a total of 481 additional written answers that had to be provided. The Coalition was required to produce tens of thousands of pages of documents, many of them containing sensitive and proprietary information about finances and donor information. Each of the 49 state affiliates were asked to provide documents and many states were individually subpoenaed. In all, the Coalition searched both its offices and warehouse, where millions of pages of documents are stored, in order to produce over 100,000 pages of documents.

Furthermore, nearly every aspect of the Coalition’s activities has been examined by FEC attorneys from seeking information regarding its donors to information about its legislative lobbying. The Commission, in its never-ending quest to find the non-existent “smoking gun,” even served subpoenas upon the Coalition’s accountants, its fundraising and direct mail vendors, and The Christian Broadcasting Network.” (4)

In their investigation of the FEC it was discovered that they made inquiries about what occurred at Christian Coalition prayer meetings, not much different than allegations being made today by one organization that they were asked to provide the IRS with the content of their prayers. (5)  We now see that these types of investigations are typical of organizations headed by Lois Lerner. 

In my opinion, it would be wise for Ms. Lerner to come clean about the methods used to target out Tea Party organizations singled out during her tenure at the IRS.  In her testimony before the committee, she should blow the whistle any of her superiors that ordered or encouraged her to conduct these investigations.  Failure to do this will allow the administration to assert that she was acting on her own.  They will then throw her under the bus and the investigation will stop. 

These investigations by the IRS were totally out of line and are a violation the rights of these organizations to free speech and the free practice of their religions granted by the First Amendment.  It is no business of the IRS to inquire into the content of prayers by any religious organization.  Therefore, I urge you Ms. Lerner to come back before the committee and reveal the truth behind what was going on at the IRS.

1. Alan Fram, Stephen Ohlemacher. Star witness to stay mum for House hearing on IRS. apnews.myway.com. [Online] Associated Press, May 22, 2013. [Cited: May 25, 2013.] http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130522/DA6E7MA81.html.

2. Parkinson, John. Did Lois Lerner Botch Fifth Amendment Rights? abcnews.go.com. [Online] ABC News, May 22, 2013. [Cited: May 25, 2013.] http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/did-lois-lerner-botch-fifth-amendment-rights/.

3. Hoffman, Bill. Alan Dershowitz: IRS Chief Lerner 'Can Be Held in Contempt'. www.newsmax.com. [Online] Newsmax, May 22, 2013. [Cited: May 25, 2013.] http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/lerner-irs-held-contempt/2013/05/22/id/505922.

4. Hemingway, Mark. IRS's Lerner Had History of Harassment, Inappropriate Religious Inquiries at FEC. www.weeklystandard.com. [Online] The Weekly Standard, May 20, 2013. [Cited: May 25, 2013.] http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/irss-lerner-had-history-harassment-inappropriate-religious-inquiries-fec_725004.html.

5. Spiering, Charlie. Congressman: IRS asked pro-life group about 'the content of their prayers'. washingtonexaminer.com. [Online] The Washington Examiner, May 17, 2013. [Cited: May 17, 2013.] http://washingtonexaminer.com/congressman-irs-asked-pro-life-group-about-the-content-of-their-prayers/article/2529924.