DOJ: No contempt charges for former IRS official Lois Lerner

[Valin]

Politico:

John Bresnahan and Rachael Bade

4/1/15

 

The Justice Department will not seek criminal contempt charges against former IRS official Lois Lerner, the central figure in a scandal that erupted over whether the tax agency improperly targeted conservative political groups.

 

Ronald Machen, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in a seven-page letter this week that he would not bring a criminal case to a grand jury over Lerner’s refusal to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March 2014. The House approved a criminal contempt resolution against Lerner in May 2014, and Machen’s office has been reviewing the issue since then.

 

Lerner and other IRS officials, however, are still under investigation by the FBI for the tea party targeting matter — which is a separate probe entirely.

 

(Snip)

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

Moved

 

Ace of Spades

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WILL, GET THIS, NOT SEEK CONTEMPT CHARGES AGAINST LOIS LERNER

April 01, 2015

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT WILL, GET THIS, NOT SEEK CONTEMPT CHARGES AGAINST LOIS LERNER —Ace

The masks are all off now.

 

The DoJ won't press contempt charges against her for her busted attempt to plead the fifth (Here Is a Statement of Alleged Facts I Want to Introduce Into the Record/Having Done That, I Now Say I Don't Want to Speak for the Record).

 

[Valin]

Making the Lois Lerner Problem Disappear

U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen decides not to send her contempt citation to a federal grand jury.
Hans A. von Spakovsky

April 3, 2015

 

On March 31, Ronald Machen, the outgoing U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, wrote Speaker John Boehner to inform him that the Justice Department would not present Lois Lerner’s contempt citation to a federal grand jury. The letter explaining his decision is an exercise in misdirection — the kind of misdirection that magicians use to fool an audience. Why? Because at no point in his detailed, seven-page legal analysis does Machen mention the most important point demonstrating that Lois Lerner did, in fact, waive her Fifth Amendment right.

Although this is debatable from a legal standpoint, and lawyers can disagree on whether Lerner’s declaration of innocence at the public hearing was or was not testimony that waived her Fifth Amendment privilege, what is not debatable is that there is a gaping hole in Ronald Machen’s recitation of the facts and his legal analysis.

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, right after Lerner’s frustrating March 5, 2014, appearance before the House committee, her lawyer, William Taylor III, told reporters at a press conference that Lerner had given a “lengthy interview” to Justice Department prosecutors “within the last six months, as part of the agency’s investigation into IRS targeting of conservative tea-party groups.” Taylor even admitted that Lerner had freely given DOJ her testimony without getting any promise of immunity from prosecution.

 

Why is this significant? Because, if Taylor is to be believed, Lerner obviously did not assert her Fifth Amendment privilege when she gave Justice prosecutors a “lengthy interview” about the very subject she had been subpoenaed to discuss with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. While the prevailing rule in most federal courts is that a waiver of the Fifth Amendment privilege at one proceeding does not carry through to another proceeding, that is not the rule in the District of Columbia.

 

(Snip)