Why Did Lois Lerner Take the Fifth?

- Perhaps to protect herself from Obama.

By JAMES TARANTO

~~~~ snip to end ~~~~~

The White House seems to have an inkling it can't fire Lerner: Klein as well as Marshall emphasized the stringency of civil-service rules. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...oll-at-the-irs/) But encouraging the public to draw adverse conclusions from her assertion of her rights under the Fifth Amendment would have a similar effect of turning her into a scapegoat.

The American people have a right to know both how deep and how high the corruption of our government runs. The White House has an interest in minimizing the scandal, and surely that is Obama's objective if he is trying to throw Lerner under the bus. Let's reserve judgment on her and make sure not to let off the hook the man whose re-election the IRS's abuse of power helped to advance.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...IDDLETopOpinion

Zitat

---

If Sargent's yapping doesn't convince you, he's got a big dog to back him up: "Now we have a longtime respected nonpartisan observer, Charlie Cook, arguing that this possibility is very real." Here's National Journal's Cook:

The simple fact is that although the Republican sharks are circling, at least so far, there isn't a trace of blood in the water. A new CNN/ORC survey of 923 Americans this past Friday and Saturday, May 17-18, pegged Obama's job-approval rating at 53 percent, up a statistically insignificant 2 points since their last poll, April 5-7, which was taken before the Benghazi, IRS, and AP-wiretap stories came to dominate the news and congressional hearing rooms. His disapproval rating was down 2 points since that last survey.

In Gallup's tracking poll, Obama's average job-approval rating so far this year is 50 percent. For this past week, May 13-19, his average was 49 percent, the same as the week before. The most recent three-day moving average, through Sunday, May 19, was also 49 percent. Over the past two weeks, even as these three stories/scandals have dominated the news, they have had precisely zero effect on the president's job-approval numbers. His ratings are still bouncing around in the same narrow range they have been for weeks. . . .

Republicans and conservatives who are so consumed by these "scandals" should ask themselves why, despite wall-to-wall media attention and the constant focus inside the Beltway--some are even talking about grounds for impeachment--Obama's job-approval needle hasn't moved.

---

First off, Cook is a Leftist. He is a partisan. Secondly, Zeros numbers collapsed this week. The weekend polls the MSM and this fat asshat Cook are clinging to are reliably tilted Pro Rat.

So what does does your polls (which your telling me are not correct) have to do with my article ??

Quote: W-Girl wrote in post #3

---

So what does does your polls (which your telling me are not correct) have to do with my article ??

---

WE MUST HAVE A MISUNDERSTANDING GOING !!

HERE IS THE ENTIRE ARTICLE, I POSTED FROM. (There is no polls in my article) ......


Among the criteria by which the Internal Revenue Service selected groups for its political targeting program in 2012 was "educating on the constitution and bill of rights" (lowercase in original), according to the Inspector General's Report. Lois Lerner, who directs the office at the center of that effort, has received her own education in the Constitution.

This morning Lerner made a brief appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Here's her testimony:

Members of this committee have accused me of providing false information when I responded to questions about the IRS processing of applications for tax exemption. I have not done anything wrong, I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules and regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee.

And while I would very much like to answer the committee's questions today, I've been advised by my counsel to assert my constitutional right not to testify or answer questions related to the subject matter of this hearing. After very careful consideration, I have decided to follow my counsel's advice and not testify or answer any of the questions today.

Because I'm asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I have done something wrong. I have not. One of the basic functions of the Fifth Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection I am invoking today.

By the time this is all over, one hopes she'll understand the First Amendment too.

Lerner is quite right that one cannot read her refusal to testify as an admission of criminal wrongdoing. Blogger Doug Mataconis quotes the U.S. Supreme Court's 1956 decision in Slochower v. Board of Higher Education:

We must condemn the practice of imputing a sinister meaning to the exercise of a person's constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment. The right of an accused person to refuse to testify, which had been in England merely a rule of evidence, was so important to our forefathers that they raised it to the dignity of a constitutional enactment, and it has been recognized as "one of the most valuable prerogatives of the citizen."

Josh Marshall, proprietor of TalkingPointsMemo.com, concedes that Lerner "has every right" to invoke the Fifth Amendment "and may be wise to do so. But that's a decision that simply is not consistent with her remaining in her job. Whether or not she should be fired for whatever she did in the scandal itself, deciding to take the fifth means she needs to be removed from her position."

Well, here's a constitutional lesson for Marshall. The Fifth Amendment protects against more than just criminal convictions. Slochower struck down a provision of the New York City Charter that provided: "Whenever an employee of the City utilizes the privilege against self-incrimination to avoid answering a question relating to his official conduct, his term or tenure of office or employment shall terminate and such office or employment shall be vacant, and he shall not be eligible to election or appointment to any office or employment under the city or any agency."

Marshall writes that he "was chatting with people yesterday" who said civil service rules may make it "extremely difficult or even impossible" to fire Lerner. Doing so because she exercised her rights under the Fifth Amendment would be unconstitutional.

Now, who were these "people" with whom Marshall was "chatting" yesterday? Might they have had an interest in the case? The Weekly Standard takes note of a tweet from NPR's Ari Shapiro at 3:25 ET yesterday afternoon: "Spotted: @joshtpm @CapehartJ @ezraklein & other lefty columnists headed into the West Wing as a group. POTUS coffee? Carney meeting? Anyone?"

Those Twitter IDs belong, respectively, to Marshall, Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post and Journolist founder Ezra Klein, also of the Post. Marshall's post calling for Lerner's defenestration appeared at 10:15 this morning. Exactly half an hour earlier, Klein had a post along similar lines: "Yes, Heads Should Roll at the IRS." Capehart is busy with another topic, "Gay Inclusion." But the similarity between Marshall's and Klein's posts suggests that they may be acting in the capacity of unofficial White House spokesmen.

The White House seems to have an inkling it can't fire Lerner: Klein as well as Marshall emphasized the stringency of civil-service rules. But encouraging the public to draw adverse conclusions from her assertion of her rights under the Fifth Amendment would have a similar effect of turning her into a scapegoat.

The American people have a right to know both how deep and how high the corruption of our government runs. The White House has an interest in minimizing the scandal, and surely that is Obama's objective if he is trying to throw Lerner under the bus. Let's reserve judgment on her and make sure not to let off the hook the man whose re-election the IRS's abuse of power helped to advance.

I read the entire Taranto piece. Even the parts about the Onion comparison to a race crash.

Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #6

---

I read the entire Taranto piece. Even the parts about the Onion comparison to a race crash.

---

Quote: W-Girl wrote in post #7

---

Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #6

---

I read the entire Taranto piece. Even the parts about the Onion comparison to a race crash.

---

OK, great !!

Glad we cleared that up.

Taranto writes on several subjects - I only read what I am interested in (you know closed minded - OCD over these scandals) -lol !!

---

Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #8

---

No. That was my fault. I didn't catch the new title header because it was all on the same topic. I just kept reading until I got to something that got me angry.

---

Boy. This looks like gut place.

Quote: Heisenberg Is A Mod! wrote in post #10

---

Boy. This looks like gut place.

---

Why? 'Cause she's built a career hectoring the right, because she's up to her a*s in this mess, because she's probably guilty of a variety of felonies, and because the Paltroon in Chief is going to throw her under the bus?

Quote: Justme wrote in post #14

---

Like everything else in this administration since the beginning, she acted like she's untouchable. Well, she's not and they're not any more. He is now lame duck and protecting them protecting him may be waning thin

I understand her husband is a lawyer too. They are all just so arrogant

---