From the report:
A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.
Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening – or why she didn’t reveal it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor 3rd.Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight committee Wednesday.
“She has not committed any crime or
made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice
but to take this course,” Taylor said in a letter addressed to
committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, R-Calif.
Her lawyer said that the DOJ has
“launched a criminal investigation,” and that the House committee has
asked Lerner to explain why she provided “false or misleading
information” to the committee four times last year, the L.A. Times
notes.
But because Lerner has decided to
remain silent on the subject, her lawyer has asked that she be excused
from Wednesday’s hearing because it would “have no purpose other than to
embarrass or burden her.”
As of this writing, it’s not clear whether the committee will agree to Lerner’s request.
Lerner discovered in June 2011 that
the IRS was targeting groups that used terms like “Tea Party” and
“Patriots,” according to the IG’s report.
However, Lerner failed to mention the political intimidation in 2012 when she participated in several Congressional hearings.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/21/irs-official-who-broke-the-political-targeting-scandal-will-plead-the-fifth/
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