Tune in to watch Lois Lerner take the Fifth. The fun starts at 9:30 eastern time.
I’ll be DVRing the festivities in case I forget to wake up on time.
(Graphic courtesy of Legal Insurrection)
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House Oversight Committee IRS Hearing Live Blog
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The Crawdad Hole 
There is finally something interesting on TV.
It’s OK if the White House sets a precedent of the IRS, the EPA, and OSHA targeting people who disagree with them, because doncha know there’s never going to be another Republican president.
And you know the Republicans will double down on these opportunities 😉
It may be almost 9:30 back east, but here on the left coast it’s the hairy buttcrack of dawn.
When you’ve lost the NYT editorial board ……
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/another-chilling-leak-investigation.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=1&
NYT only cares about the AP/reporter story, cuz it might affect them. They’re right up The One’s butt on all the other scandals.
For those of you with cable or satellite, the hearing is scheduled to be on C-Spam3
Live Stream: http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/
I could do without the ceremonial speechifying.
Give the poor overworked Issa a break . 😉
“The power to tax is the power to destroy.”
a-yup.
GMTA!
Amen!!! 😦
“This is more important than any one election….The power to tax is the power to destroy.” – @DarrellIssa
Yup
Gah, I’m twitmod already
Oh, no!
I’m a habitual offender. LOL.
Cuz you’re too quick on your feet smartypants 😀
yikes, just reading about Pigford. late to the party I know, but what in the f?
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/how-did-progressive-journalists-get-pigford-so-wrong/275593/
Yes the IG report was in fact the bare minimum. A family member happens to know a retired IG and he was telling them that there are levels of investigation.
I know a lot of people think highly of the IG in this case, but the retired IG doesn’t and he worked with him! The retired IG got frustrated with the hearings because he says the congresscritters don’t know the right questions to ask……you have to know the lingo.
He did say the IG in question will cover his own ass above all else though. He thought there were certain lines he wouldn’t cross.
Worth repeating from yesterday:
There’s almost surely a bigger scandal this limited IG report is covering, and at the IRS. Congress better get the right questions to ask if they want to uncover that.
Agree. They did it as a minimum audit. It was not an investigation. The audit was to figure out how to cover it up.
I’m glad you all will be live blogging this so I can keep up with what is going on. I have the grandbaby again today so I can only pop in and out. Where is Lulu? I enjoyed her comments yesterday she cut to the chase and did so with wonderful humor!
Elijah Cummings has a huge head.
eLIEjah Cummings
Good GAWD.
Like Hicks was not told to meet with Chaffetz alone
Hah, I knew it, Cummings blaming Citizens United & Bush right now.
Now he’s urging the committee members not to make it a partisan isssue.
Isn’t that “partisan issue” thing why we’re here to begin with?
How long does Elijah the human hemroid get to talk?
Rep Jim Jordan tying the IRS inquisition to Obamacare
I’ve successfully represented taxpayers before the IRS for almost 30 years.
Last year two of my clients, both outspoken critics of Obama, were audited and I’d go as far as to say harassed, by the IRS.
The auditors were so rabid and so determined to take these business owners down it was the first time in my career I had to contact the ‘Taxpayer Advocacy’ office for assistance.
One client, a small business owner (who owed NO tax!) had his bank account cleaned out. It took three months with help from the advocate, to get his money back.
I hear helicopters, so I will shut up now.
helicopters over our center of town last week. Literally, 2 black helicopters circling crazy crazy low over the town center.
Wonder if it was the same day my husband called on his way to work to tell me state police were going into the woods on the side of the highway with rifles and dogs. There were a lot of low flying helicopters too, not far from your town center.
Do you ever get to pass along the names of these IRS auditors to anyone?
Everything is done by “badge number,” which I always have to ask them to repeat because the spew it so fast it’s almost as if they don’t want you to be able to ID them.
I sent letters with names and badge numbers of several IRS employees to the advocate and to supervisors. Every time I complained about conduct, case files were mysteriously “lost.” I have never, ever, seen anything like it.
Around the same time as the targeting, the IRS proclaimed it was going to ‘regulate’ the tax professional industry. Hmm.. what could go wrong?
That’s another whole story and they’ve been since slapped down by a judge. Appeal in process.
Back to the hearing.. Lerner sure has some ‘tude!
Wow.
I know this is scary , and IT SHOULDN’T BE , but have you considered reporting this to a congressman ?
It’s good to get some inside facts on this, catarina. Thanks for sharing.
Last year the IRS did an audit on a local business and seized the guy’s bank account. He killed himself.
My friend’s business was audited recently. All the auditer did was complain about her daughter’s sex life, and that she wasn’t coming back on a Fri. or Mon. She didn’t like working on those days, and she wasn’t afraid to tell people that.
So glad I voted for Lynch. And yes I will be thrilled when Gomez beats the old geezer Markey.
heh-heh.
Is a Dem actually threatening to appoint a Special Prosecutor?
Yep!
Lynch was also the key congressman who finally brought the big banks to accountability in 2009.
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/03/us_rep_stephen_lynch_raps_atto.html
Awesome.
Also, Lynch was totally screwed by obama and his DNC. They blackballed any dems who wanted to donate to or work for Lynch rather than Markey in the senate primary. Lynch’s congressional seat is probably safe for life if he wants it (his constituents love him) so he isn’t beholden to obama for anything. And he is PISSED. He will remain pissed for a very long time. Yay!
Great a Special Prosecutor is needed here. 🙂
Lynch (D-Masshole) obstruction (the 5th) will lead to special prosecutor. There will be hell to pay …..
I would resent that remark, but we have a lovingly hand-made throw pillow embroidered with “Masshole” on our couch.
Not meant to be offensive, it’s a term of endearment in our house, hubby’s from Fall River so when he really, really, really pisses me off 😉
😉
A “masshole” is what bitter clingers with guns here in MA call the dummy hole in a semi-auto that allows one to see if a round is chambered.
A supposed “safety” feature but it’s really pretty dumb and helps restrict the kinds of firearms that are ‘legal’ and can be purchased here.
Here come the damned copters again.
Good. They have a tiny inkling of what it’s like to face the IRS where you are guilty until proven innocent.
Not unhappy enough 😉
Doesn’t Shulman look a bit like Anthony Wiener?
Or is it just that all dick faces look alike?
Lois Lerner up now.
Is that snark? So hard to tell anymore.
It’s a Godfather II reference.
Somehow I doubt Lois will meet the same end as Frank Pantangelo..
I got that too !
Lerner looks scared, and about to cry. It’s like she was threatened.
Lerner – proud of her work. Has not done anything wrong.
But can’t talk about said work for fear of incriminating herself. 🙄
Wait – did Issa just trick Lerner into waiving her 5th amendment? OMGLOL
whoa, what? Gowdy says Lerner waived her 5th amendment rights by making an opening statement. room erupts in applause.
Yeah, you don’t get to partially testify then invoke. All or nothing.
So….is she open to answering questions from here on out?
Will she be forced to return?
Did she get her lawyer on a Blue Light Special at KMart? WTF?
@votermom LOL we just tweeted the same thing. GMTA this morning.
Heh.
Wish Lerner’s ass would get hauled back in to testify.
In handcuffs, with federal marshals on either side. 🙂
Honk!
AMEN!!! 😆
Issa’s hearings are so much more fun than Baucus’
Does the Oversight Committee have the authority to appoint a Special Prosecutor if the DOJ won’t ? Just wondering where all this is going today.
As I understand, (correct me myiq, if needed) only DOJ can appoint a Special Prosecutor (ie, Holder).
But Congress can appoint a Special Committee, with full subpeona power.
I could be wrong, though.
Please be careful catarina. We defiantly have Targets on our backs. 😯
Lois Lerner: “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations.”
Too bad taxpayers can’t say that during an audit, then get up and walk out.
Cummings wants it to be all Schuleman’s fault so he can say it was a Bush appointee who did the deed.
Those are the marching orders.
Wink Wink
If Bush asked his IRS to harrass liberal groups, I’d want to know about that too. I’d also betcha they would have played that card by now.
The whole efficiency excuse is bogus. If you really wanted to be efficient, the applications would have been grouped by date.
True story…..
Top story at Memeorandum right now: http://www.wesh.com/news/central-florida/orange-county/fbi-agent-involved-in-deadly-shooting-in-orlando/-/12978032/20249908/-/s0twg9z/-/index.html
Had alleged ties to Boston Bomber. How convenient. Would not put it past these guys to kill a random dude who knew the Tsarnaevs just to bury all this shit.
“myiq2xu, on May 22, 2013 at 7:23 am said:
Yeah, you don’t get to partially testify then invoke. All or nothing.”
*******
Going to the dentist , so don’t have time to research, but IIRC, I read years ago that the rules were changed after the HUAC, Mafia, etc. hearings, where witnesses were forced to use the 5th for “what is you name”, etc.
yep — 5th can only be used for specific testimony that might specifically incriminate you in the matter before the court or a future criminal proceeding.
I think she invoked it because she has been involved in or is aware of criminal activity. She may not think so because she is an idiot or an ideologue, but her attorneys know it. She was a primary actor in the FEC against the Christian Coalition and had to move to the IRS in 2003 because the FEC lost all of their lawsuits. She was laterally moved to the IRS so she could keep a job and then got into the same kind of trouble ten years later. She must resign today or retire as she seems to have plenty of time in.
It’s the same way you can refuse to answer questions from cops but you can still give them your name, address and other identifying information.
Can RICO charges be filed against the IRS??? 🙂
Connaly represents a district that is bedroom communities of DC. He is trying to give cover to the poor overworked civil servants. This is the topic/theme of the day.
Affordable care act meetings!!!! LOL. I am just following orders. Shulman is a putz.
Shulman doesn’t read letters from Congress so he won’t remember them. Those letters are farmed out to drones in Congressional Affairs who have my siggy stamp.
Shulman served 4 years and 8 month of 5 year term. Did he quit 4 months early? This happened and he is sorry it happened while he was not reading letters from Congress.
Nah he didn’t leave 4 months early, he left at the end of the calendar year so he could cash out the maximum amount of annual leave. A federal employee can only carry over 240 hours, so he carried over his 240 and then banked a full year’s worth of leave at 8 hours a paycheck to cash out at maximum.
The bastard probably gave himself administrative leave anytime he wanted a vacation his last year…….I have no knowlege of that I’m just being snarky
Correction he did leave 4 months early for the above reasons. My point being he wasn’t pressured out or anything.
I have been out of fed service a long time. It used to be that the leave was paid in last salary check after you left and your replacement was already in place. Usually important jobs like a commissioner are in place and ready to go as soon as the outgoing one leaves. But this is a very slap dash non-professional WH.
Schulman made 118 visits to the White House. Hmmmmmm
I’m curious is any of the deputy commissioners visited the WH. Like Miller, Grant, Lerner or Ingram????? It would be very unusual for a deputy to visit the WH
Those deputy commissioners could just meet with a deputy Treasury position, and that’s how the info gets to a deputy position in the WH. Simple.
Yes, but he acknowledged that one visit for sure was the Easter Egg Roll. I kid you not.
And smirked like an asshole when he said it.
Am liking Lankford a whole lot !! Lets get all the people named in the letter I received, YEAH go GET EM!
I suspect that the names of the people who made those lists come from the Washington DC office, and they may very well have skipped over Shulman completely.
Schulman was appointed by Bush—couldn’t be trusted.
SNORT
we have a government who knows nothing unless they read in the newspaper. why are we paying them? When I worked I was supposed to know information pertaining to my job and be prepared to answer questions about what happened.
seems to be an epidemic of memory loss in DC. should the IHS investigate the cause?
The talking points by these Democratic Congresscritters is embarrassing. They are too damned lazy to even re-word them. They just read them out verbatim. Blah, blah, blah. Same crap over and over.
Honk!
I only got to hear Tammy Duckworth briefly as I was in a meeting for the last hour+. I was surprised to hear her be as tough sounding as she was. It didn’t sound like she was letting the man she was interviewing, get away with not taking responsibility for the actions that occurred on his watch.
Was that Mr George, perhaps?
RUH ROH Meehan has a letter that says the questions were coming from the Washington D.C.
*office
Yup.
http://nationalreview.com/article/348983/oversight-washington-all-along-eliana-johnson
The flunkies in Cincinnati are blabbing. It all came from the IRS lawyers in DC.
Woo hoo!! Get the rope!
Ok, wait….this info is in George’s IG report? Didn’t he say otherwise the last time he testified?
Ruh roh
He double qualifies everything he says. So yes and no. LOL.
Meehan is also a mass dem
Oops, Marty Meehan retired years ago. That’s the repub Meehan from PA. Sry
NP , but I do think the fact that Lerner chose to take the fifth has made them all sit up straight and take their elbows off the table . They know now this is getting national attention .Some are still towing and rowing the party barge upstream , but they want to at least give the appearance of being concerned .
Gowdy kicking some ass!
Gowdy: Do you have a limp noodle Mr Shulman?
Shulman: Uh, I don’t know, I forgot.
Gowdy: Did you refer for a criminal investigation?
Shulman: There was an investigation audit thingie.
Recess to pee. Break not recess. Clean yourself up. Change your Depends.
LOL
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/21/Weekly-Standard-IRS-Lois-Lerner-Has-History-of-Harassing-Religious-Groups
lois lerner has history of harassing religious groups
This is probably why she was appointed to the IRS , to do her dirty work , the Constitution and the Country be damned
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/22/House-GOP-Establishes-IRS-Whistleblower-Site
wonder how much information this will bring out
Now this one way to use “social media” the Obamarats didn’t expect .
‘Greepeace was a target. It’s all ambiguous policy,’ says Horsford. Now, bring on Obamacare.
Cong Horsford: It is the law’s fault. We need new policy and law. We need new laws to ignore.
The comments about Citizens United just emphasizes the point that real individuals were inappropriately targeted because they sought to exercise their constitutional rights before an election.
Farenthold makes the point: ‘Aren’t there electronic procedures in place that alert higher-ups when goals aren’t being met?”
Apparently, IRS not up to current electronic processes like in Farenthold’s legal office. The feds don’t have computers and IT people to ensure efficiency?
Every letter sent is generated by a case management system. All government entities are fully automated. This is bullshit. The case management system can be used to track every single action in the federal government and especially the IRS. The lawyers in IRS DC have case management systems too.
We need more government employees. Government is hard. More managers especially are needed. And maybe some computers and stuff.
LOL. Make it some computers that actually work. Not the paperweights on our desks.
You know the *one* the only one liberal group that was scrutinized by the IRS and eventually denied 501(c)4 status is a group that trains women to run for office. This admin really hates women.
I’m so shocked, not. Again, the msm refuses to point these minor details out to the citizens.
Stolen and posted on FB 😉
The group is called Emerge and has local state chapters around the country. Very well-meaning and professional. I know because I did their training. The actual program is actually not very political at all (it’s all about learning to be a public speaker and the mechanics of building a campaign), but at least in Mass all the members were clearly Dems and worse obama acolytes so I left before the end, but seriously it is actually not a partisan group.
You stated right there why they were targeted and denied. They were not partisan and political enough so they denied.
and here some news on another one of backtrack’s scandals
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/petraeuss-role-in-drafting-benghazi-talking-points-raises-questions/2013/05/21/db19f352-c165-11e2-ab60-67bba7be7813_story.html?hpid=z1
maybe this is why the petraeuss affair was made public
OT- a British soldier was just beheaded in London by machete-wielding Muslims. Witnesses report Muslim man with blood on his hands yelling “we swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.”
Google “woolwich beheading”
we keep posting the same stuff, 🙂
Holy crap! Details are outrageous. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10073910/Soldier-beheaded-in-Islamist-terror-attack-oustide-barracks-in-Woolwich.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10073910/Soldier-beheaded-in-Islamist-terror-attack-oustide-barracks-in-Woolwich.html
‘Soldier beheaded’ in ‘Islamist terror attack’ oustide barracks in Woolwich
Two suspected terrorists were shot by armed police after attacking a pedestrian, believed to be a soldier, with a machete-style knife close to military barracks in an ‘Islamist attack’.
I thought England was supposed to be gun-free?? And it took 20 minutes for police to get here because they were waiting for armed police? This is just messed up.
http://freebeacon.com/thune-requests-suspension-of-obamacare-irs-regulations/
oh oh Thune sends letter requesting suspension of obamacare IRS regulations
They are playing hardball.
Will there be another new IRS commissioner next week who doesn’t know anything?
heh
But of course Lulu. Soon, we shall watch Bo, the dog bark about how he doesn’t know anything.
Did I hear the IG say the IRS destroyed information?
Yikes! Unless it was written on post-its it is recoverable from their computer networks.
Lummis rocks! “Trust has been destroyed.” in the IRS.
‘The IRS is Goliath. The grassroots orgs are all Davids.’ The best analogy I’ve heard thus far.
In case you missed it. 🙂
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2401932748001/
The Treasury Union (includes IRS employees) has requested a waiver from Obamacare. Sweet irony.
Shulman has a VERY select memory. It is truly astonishing how and what he remembers and what he doesn’t.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/05/22/journolists-irs-angle-begins-to-gel/
here comes the bus for the IRS
So Lerner is the goat. She might want to retire today and then negotiate immunity.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/22/house-oversight-e-mails-irs-ig-report-was-originally-supposed-to-be-released-last-september/
strange timing of IG report release
The people who were interviewed for the IG audit were all accompanied by a IRS management minder. The Treasury union agreed to this if this person would leave the room for a few minutes at the end to let them ask questions of the IG investigators. The Treasury union is as crooked as the Treasury officials. The IG is claiming he did not know this.
And the minder accompanying employees for the Treasury IG audit interviews was supposedly Lerner’s idea.
Lulu, are these “management minders” standard use at the federal level? I can understand if the individual wants representation, but required “minders” while providing information. Seems to me that this administration is afraid of its own bureaucracy. I’ve never seen anything like this.
Yes they try to do it and are usually denied. If it is management involved screwups they are usually denied. If it is employee fraud or stuff like that they may let them set in. Most unions throw fits if they try to do it but the Treasury union in this case appears to have co-operated which is strange.
That was my impression. Why the federal union would not be up in arms about this is beyond me. Here you have management forcing employees (whom I’m assuming unless they are contracted and are not regular bureaucrats) are endangering their ability to protect themselves. Would they be able to say later that “management made me say that because they forced me to have a minder present, and I was precluded from providing my own thoughts, etc.” In other words, ‘my individual right to free speech and self-representation was denied by the very group that is being taken to task for denying others’ such rights and abusing power to shut down free speech on a grand scale.’ The way the low-level bureaucrats are being guided by this administration is truly chilling. And what is even more chilling is union people are not up in arms about this. If it can happen at the fed level, imagine what’s going on at the state one.
Issa is recessing with no adjournment. Lerner waived her right to the 5th by making a statement and by approving prior statements. She is in hot water.
http://nalert.blogspot.com/2013/05/3-more-reasons-to-fear-irs.html
three reasons to fear the IRS