Politico has an interview with Lois Lerner (cached version here; no links for thugs). It’s the type of soft-soap puff piece you would expect from Politico, complete with any truly tough questions being off-limits (i.e. don’t ask her about her political opinions!). This bit of rank dishonesty jumped out at me:

Lerner scoffed at the notion that she would crash her own computer to hide emails: “How would I know two years ahead of time that it would be important for me to destroy emails, and if I did know that, why wouldn’t I have destroyed the other ones they keep releasing?”

Oooh! Oooh! Call on me! I can answer that!

I think it’s time to remind you of something I quoted for you in June, from the Daily Caller, explicating the timing of all this:

Lois Lerner’s computer allegedly crashed in June 2011, just ten days after House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp first wrote a letter asking if the IRS was engaging in targeting of nonprofit groups. Two months later, Sonasoft’s contract ended and the IRS gave its email-archiving contractor the boot.

So it wasn’t “two years ahead of time” that your emails were destroyed, Ms. Lerner. It was ten days after you were told Congress was sniffing around. Then your hard drive crashed and your Blackberry was wiped. And the IRS archiver’s multi-year contract suddenly ended.

These facts are not noted, of course, in the Politico piece. You have to come here, to Patterico.com, for that particular bit of analysis.

[guest post by Dana]

So, these Lois Lerner emails are making the rounds today, and it seems pretty clear that Conservatives are not her favorite people.

Lois Lerner emails show she was not much of a fan of conservatives. pic.twitter.com/Cv1bNZZ3JK

— Bill Murphy (@billmurphy) July 30, 2014

Of course, this brings to mind President Obama’s assurances about the IRS: …not even a smidgen of corruption…

–Dana

[post by Dana]

Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman is done waiting for the Justice Dept. to answer calls to prosecute Lois Lerner over the IRS scandal targeting conservative non-profit groups. As such, he has filed a resolution for her arrest:

“Asking the Justice Department to prosecute Lois Lerner for admittedly illegal activity is a joke,” Stockman said. “The Obama administration will not prosecute the Obama administration. How much longer will the House allow itself to be mocked? It is up to this House to uphold the rule of law and hold accountable those who illegally targeted American citizens for simply having different ideas than the President.”

Although infrequently used, Congress does have the power to arrest individuals held in contempt.

Further:

Stockman’s resolution accuses Lerner of “refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena duly issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, thereby obstructing the Congress in the lawful exercise of its constitutionally mandated legislative powers,” calling her behavior “an insult to the dignity of the House of Representatives [and] an attack upon the integrity of its proceedings, [which] works violence upon the rights of the House collectively, and therefore implicates the long-recognized inherent power of the House to punish and commit for contempt, privileged under the Constitution.”

–Dana

The testimony is on video.

IRS Commissioner testified in March Lois Lerner emails were archived. Here is the video #IRS http://t.co/M6Zbl8Hgqc

— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) June 13, 2014

Oh, also, this:

IRS is a MS Outlook/Exchange site which means all email resides on servers (unless sent via web client). http://t.co/KlDi5K1054

— Morgen (@morgenr) June 13, 2014

And this:

Near-zero chance that a hard drive crash took out Lerner's emails. Redundant storage tech (RAID) has been around for 20+ yrs.

— Morgen (@morgenr) June 13, 2014

Alternatively, I guess you could get them from the NSA. They have everything, right?

So, busy as I have been, I have not yet had a chance to comment on the House Oversight Committee’s report on Lois Lerner. You’ve probably all read about it already, but if not, John Sexton has an excellent summary at Breitbart. The report alleges several ways in which Lerner appears to have misled the committee. That said, the various accusations in the report are likely to be dismissed by many as partisan, and even though I think the report is dead on, I am also quite sure nothing will come of any of it.

But here’s a fact that caught my attention — and it’s tough to get around this. From Sexton’s summary:

And there is no doubt Lerner was aware who was being scrutinized. In July 2012, Lerner was notified by email that of the 199 501(c)(4) cases which had been set aside “approximately 3/4 appear to be conservative leaning while fewer than 10 appear to be liberal/progressive leaning groups…”

Sexton is dead on. I read the email myself.

For the math-challenged among you, 3/4 of 199 is right around 150. That’s 150 conservative leaning (c)(4) groups, vs. fewer than 10 liberal/progressive groups.

I will add that, according to the email, of the 84 bucketed (c)(3) cases, over half were conservative-leaning groups whereas no others had obvious political leanings. That’s over 42 conservative (c)(3) groups vs. zero lefty groups.

Why do I bring this up? Because, remember our good friend Robin Abcarian? Yeah, she’s the one who said:

[C]onservatives went crazy after the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration’s famous May 2013 audit found the IRS may have flagged groups with “tea party” in their names for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

But that’s because Issa had asked the inspector general to look only at how tea party-affiliated groups were treated. He didn’t care to know, as we later found out thanks to Democrats on his committee, that the IRS was also flagging applications from liberal groups that used terms such as “progressive,” “medical marijuana” or “healthcare legislation.”

The IRS, see, was trying to prevent groups whose work is mainly political from receiving inappropriate tax-exempt status.

150 (c)(4) conservative groups vs. fewer than 10 lefty groups, Ms. Abcarian. 42 (c)(3) conservative groups vs. zero lefty groups. And that’s from an internal email. Not from the dreaded inspector general. It had nothing to do with Issa’s request. See page 45 of the appendix to the report linked above to read the email.

Go ahead, Robin Abcarian. Ignore this passage in the report. Ignore this post. Confirm our impression of you as a haughty Big Media elitist who doesn’t need to worry about pesky things like facts.

Go ahead.

Who is surprised, besides Darrell Issa?

A former IRS official at the center of the agency’s improper targeting of conservative groups refused Wednesday to testify on her supposed role in the scandal.

Lois Lerner repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during the House Oversight Committee’s hearing, prompting Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to adjourn the meeting.

So what are you gonna do about it, Issa?

My bold prediction: nothing.

Congress has no real power any more.

To testify, that is. Lois Lerner has been told to come back to the Hill. The House Oversight Committee has said “no go” to her Fifth Amendment privilege, ruling that when she opened her big yap to make a comment about the controversy, she waived the privilege:

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is hauling Lois Lerner back to Congress.

Issa told Lerner’s attorney in a Tuesday letter that he expected the retired IRS official to appear before his committee on March 5.

Lerner, the official at the center of the IRS targeting controversy, invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination at a May 2013 hearing, just days after she apologized for the agency’s treatment of Tea Party groups.

But the Oversight Committee later ruled that Lerner waived her rights by making an opening statement, setting the stage for her recall next week.

In his letter to William Taylor, Lerner’s attorney, Issa said that her testimony “remains critical to this committee’s investigation.”

“Because the committee explicitly rejected her Fifth Amendment privilege claim, I expect her to provide answers when the hearing reconvenes on March 5,” Issa wrote.

Unconfirmed rumors from an anonymous source sitting in this room say that she plans to waive her privilege long enough to say:

“WHAT DIFFERENCE, AT THIS POINT, DOES IT MAKE?!?!?!?!”

You tell ’em, Lo!

P.S. Got anything you want me to affirm on my tax statement, Lo?

A reader directs me to another unearthed quote from Lois Lerner, from this 2009 Wall Street Journal article:

Ms. Lerner urged charities to make certain governance practices public, to assure Americans they’re using their tax-exempt money appropriately. The tax-exempt sector’s stability “demands the public trust,” she said. “If we lose the public’s confidence in the sector, we’ve lost it all,” she said.

You could say the same thing about the IRS, Ms. Lerner.

P.S. The total lack of Big Media curiosity concerning Lerner has created a situation where newsworthy facts about Ms. Lerner and the way she ran her operation have not been reported since this scandal broke.

Yet.

Keep an eye on this space in coming days. As usual, if Big Media won’t do its job, we’ll do it for them.

A reader sends a very interesting tidbit buried in a November 17, 2011 Businessweek.com article about the IRS and not-for-profit universities. The article is about the IRS making inquiries into “whether schools improperly claimed tax-exempt status for taxable businesses.” At the end of the article is this fascinating quote:

Lois Lerner, the IRS’s director of tax-exempt organizations who is overseeing the investigation, says many schools are rethinking how and what they report to the government. Receiving a thick questionnaire from the IRS, she says, is a “behavior changer.”

Above: Lois Lerner, Behavior Changer

Freedom Works had a timeline of the IRS scandal here, and it’s interesting to see how Lerner’s quote fits into the beginning of that timeline. The entry in bold is my personal addition to the timeline based on the quote above:

1 March, 2010 – IRS officials start targeting organizations with “tea party”, “patriot”, and “9-12” in their names.

27 June, 2011 – Lois Lerner, Director of Exempt Operations, learns of the inappropriate targeting. She initiates an audit of the office involved, but the targeting continues.

17 November, 2011 – Lois Lerner, Director of Exempt Operations, tells Businessweek that receiving a thick questionnaire from the IRS is a “behavior changer.”

Staffers preparing for the return of Lois Lerner to the witness chair in Congress, please take note.

Paid administrative leave, that is. Otherwise known as vacation.

Dershowitz says she has waived her Fifth Amendment rights, by the way.

UPDATE: So, Ms. Lerner, you did nothing wrong, you say. Is it wrong to send intrusive requests to conservative groups after you learn they have been targeted?