Watch this to get some idea.

Lois Lerner didn’t just take the Fifth. She gave a little speech first saying she had done nothing wrong. That certainly opens her up to some questions, although the extent to which it does is debatable.

Imagine the following sequence of questions:

1) Did you do anything wrong?

2) Do you think that it would be wrong to target conservative groups because of their ideology?

3) Did you target conservative groups because of their ideology?

Given that Lois Lerner gave an opening statement in which she said that she had not done anything wrong, it would be interesting to see where along this group of three questions she decided to take the Fifth.

Would she, having declared that she did nothing wrong, refuse to answer a question asking her whether she had done anything wrong? Refusing to answer a question simply asking her to reaffirm something she already said would not only be legally improper, in my view, it would also look like game playing.

Would she declare that she had done nothing wrong, but refuse to answer questions about whether targeting conservative groups for their political views is wrong? Even though that question does not directly ask anything about what she did? That would probably blunt the force of her declaration that she did nothing wrong.

Or would she declare that she did nothing wrong, and agree that targeting conservative groups is wrong — but refuse to say whether she targeted conservative groups?

I hope that when they bring her back before the committee they ask questions like this.

There are going to be a certain number of questions that are designed for the cameras. Did you target conservative groups? Did President Obama tell you to target conservative groups? Did you kill Grandma and bury her body out behind the woodshed? Congressman will ask her questions like this in order to get her to respond by taking the Fifth, hoping that it will make her look guilty.

But a more targeted group of questions that relate directly to the content of her opening statement would be more advisable in my opinion. At the very least, they should follow up each question they ask concerning her actions with the question: “Would it be wrong to do that?”

Either she will refuse to answer questions about whether obviously wrong actions are wrong — or, having declared she did nothing wrong, she will be required to answer questions about whether she took these actions.

I hope someone on Rep. Issa’s staff sees this post.

[Guest post by JD]

Ezra Klein and Joshua Marshall are good little foot soldiers, and shapers of leftist narratives.

Yesterday, it was reported that the White House had summoned their ideologically allied bloggers to the White House for a session in shaping the narrative of the multiple scandals enveloping Teh One’s transparent administration. This is not the first time they have done so.

Today, both Wunderkind Ezra and JoshTPM strike out some bold territory where they focus all of the IRS scandal on Ms Lerner, while maintaining the narrative that this was an isolated non-political incident, and far removed from the White House, as is everything.

Ezra is apparently worried about having his emails and phone records searched.

Teh next narrative is emerging.

—JD

He is running:

NEW YORK Anthony Weiner has tossed his hat into the race for New York City mayor, joining a crowded field and formally beginning an attempt to come back from a scandal that forced him to resign from the House of Representatives.

After weeks of speculation, the disgraced former congressman made it official with a YouTube video.

I have a few questions I think he should be asked. Start with the DMs he sent to a high school girl in Delaware, and the creepy “cape and tights” line that he used with her — a line he also used with an adult woman with whom he exchanged sexually explicit messages.

As I noted in a June 11, 2011 blog post titled Weinergate: Five Is Not Two:

• On Wednesday, June 8, the New York Post was told that the girl was telling her mother that there had been only two G-rated messages:

  The girl’s mother, whose name is being withheld, told The Post Wednesday that Weiner sent nothing obscene — and sent only two brief messages to her daughter about seeing him during an April school trip to the Capitol. . . . The mom said she pointedly questioned her daughter about whether Weiner sent her anything obscene, and the girl swore it was all G-rated.

  Note: this is not a claim that she showed her mom messages, but that she had told her mom the messages were G-rated. And that there were only two.

• On Thursday, June 9, 2011, this blog published proof that Weiner had sent the girl the second message quoted at the top of this post: a reference to Weiner being a Superman in cape and tights. This direct message seemed especially creepy given that Weiner had employed identical “cape and tights” imagery as a grooming line for a woman with whom he had exchanged explicit sexual messages…

• On Friday, June 10, 2011, now that the “cape and tights” line was out of the bag, all of a sudden we were being told that there had been five direct messages, and not two. Their alleged content was described in the New York Times, and the creepy line “I came back strong. Large. In charge. Tights and cape shit …” was edited to read: “I came back strong … Large. Tights and cape. …” Readers were not informed that Weiner had included an expletive in his message to the 17-year-old high school junior — much less that the “[t]ights and cape shit” line resembled a line that Weiner had used with an adult woman with whom he had sexted.

It is an open question whether Weiner went down the same road with the high school girl that he went down with the Vegas blackjack dealer — or whether he would have, at some point, if he had not been found out.

I think it’s high time these questions were explored.

I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation. I mean, it’s not like the White House is going to target reporters for investigation just because they report stories that embarrass them!

Doesn’t mean that she’s guilty of anything, of course. But it is bound to make voters wonder.

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.

So: we already know Obama’s Chief of Staff knew about the targeting, but amazingly did not tell Obama (so we are told). The linked post has a link to another piece that shows Carney revealing White House involvement in orchestrating the reveal:

There was “discussion about the possibility of a speech” by Lois Lerner, who oversaw the IRS’s work on tax-exempt groups, Carney said, and conversation about testimony by the acting commissioner of the agency and “what he would say” if asked about the issue…

The press secretary said the Treasury Department worked with Mark Childress, a deputy White House chief of staff.

But Obama didn’t know. That’s their story and they’re sticking with it.

Sticking with it . . . or taking the Fifth when asked more probing questions.

UPDATE: I like DaTechGuy’s take:

Nothing says “this was just rogue agents in cinncy” like the top #irs official taking the 5th #isitnixonyet #teaparty #tcot #p2 #tlot

— Peter Ingemi (@DaTechGuyblog) May 21, 2013

A correspondent sends a link to this piece quoting a critic of the immigration bill:

Additionally, Palinkas argues that the bill does not fix current administration policy that treats immigrants applying for entry into the United States as “customers” of the American government.

“A new USCIS computer system to screen applications known as ‘Transformation’ has proven to be a disaster as the agency has spent upwards of $2 billion for a system that would eventually allow an alien–now referred to as a ‘customer’ under current USCIS policy–to upload their own information via the internet for adjudication purposes,” Palinkas said. “To date, only one form can be accepted into the program that has been in the making for close to 10 years.”

My correspondent sardonically adds:

In related news, prisoners will be referred to as “overnight guests” and criminals will be “Obama voters.”

Language drives policy.

PJ Media:

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon.

. . . .

The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in two areas — what Ambassador Chris Stevens was actually doing in Benghazi and the pressure put on General Carter Ham, then in command of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and therefore responsible for Libya, not to act to protect jeopardized U.S. personnel.

Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of the high risk involved in arming “insurgents” with powerful weapons that endanger civilian aircraft.

Hillary Clinton still wanted to proceed because, in part, as one of the diplomats said, she wanted “to overthrow Gaddafi on the cheap.”

Big Media is ready with its angle: When will these damned Republicans finally stop their partisan witch hunt?

The Washington Post reports that the Obama Justice Department targeted FOX News reporter James Rosen for investigation after Rosen attempted to obtain leaks from the Obama administration. Rosen’s case is different from that of the Associated Press in a notable and quite remarkable way: Rosen was treated as a suspect in the investigation:

In the documents, FBI agent Reginald Reyes described in detail how Kim and Rosen moved in and out of the State Department headquarters at 2201 C St. NW a few hours before the story was published on June 11, 2009. …

Reyes wrote that there was evidence Rosen had broken the law, “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.” That fact distinguishes his case from the probe of the AP, in which the news organization is not the likely target.

From the available facts, James Rosen does not appear to have aided and abetted any violations of the laws against disclosing classified information, any more than the buyer of illegal narcotics aids and abets the sale of those narcotics by purchasing them. If there are laws against receiving classified information — something I don’t know about, as I am no expert in federal criminal law — Rosen may well have violated those laws . . . along with dozens to hundreds of other reporters and editors at media outlets across the nation. Let the overbearing prosecutions begin!