The Silence of the Tax Lamb

Former IRS official Lois Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right Wednesday not to incriminate herself when she testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the IRS targeting of tea party groups.

Oddly, the news media and Democratic leaders don’t think it’s a big deal when a federal official — Lerner was the head of the unit that deals with tax-exempt organizations when she first invoked the Fifth last May — won’t answer questions about her actions as a federal official, but they are in a huff because the committee’s chairman, Darrell Issa, abruptly called an end to the hearing and shut off the microphone.

Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings said he wanted to ask “a procedural question.” Then, as Cummings instead engaged in a rant in defense of Lerner, Issa again shut off the mic. Within a minute, it was back on, and Cummings continued to rail against what he sees as a one-sided investigation.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi later tweeted that Issa’s “decision to silence a fellow Member of Congress was outrageous &disrespectful.” The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank denounced Issa for falling below “today’s low standard of civility in Congress.”

Issa exhibited shoddy manners. Worse, he lacked the discipline to not be baited by the crafty Cummings. Thus, Issa handed the left an excuse to make him the issue when the Internal Revenue Service’s practice of going after the tea party cries out for public scrutiny. Lerner’s refusal to answer questions, though it is the exercise of a constitutional right, should make all House members squirm.

Just what was Lerner doing on the taxpayer dime that she doesn’t want to share?

Lerner’s silence is especially unsettling given that her attorney William Taylor III told reporters that she had given a full interview to the Department of Justice with no grant of immunity. Lerner’s lawyers, he said, have confidence that prosecutors, unlike Issa, are open-minded. The thing is that also unlike Issa, the Department of Justice is in a position to prosecute people.

“It does strike me as a little odd,” Rutgers law professor George Thomas III told The Wall Street Journal. “One explanation is the one given by her lawyer. The other, darker explanation is that she and her lawyer think the DOJ is not interested in a serious investigation of the IRS treatment of these tax-exempt groups.”

Could it be that Lerner’s lawyers do not fear the often-terrifying Justice Department precisely because President Barack Obama already signaled there is no cause for concern because the IRS story is a “phony scandal”?

Similarly, the president signaled his disdain for conservative nonprofits during the 2010 and 2012 election seasons. Lo and behold, the IRS started to put conservative tax-exempt organizations on the slow track and under a microscope.

Last year, Lerner admitted that after the IRS saw an uptick in applications for social welfare organizations in 2010, staff began screening for groups that used terms such as “Tea Party” and “Patriots.” She even apologized. “That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, insensitive and inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said.

She also claimed that IRS staffers did not target tea party patriot types “because of any political bias. They did it because they were working together. This was a streamlined way for them to refer to the cases.”

That is, it was convenient.

I do not believe that claim. I don’t know many liberals who actually believe it, either. I do believe that if the Bush administration’s IRS had targeted social welfare groups that used terms such as “anti-war” and “torture,” the left would have wanted to investigate. They would have wanted to know whether the IRS policy had come from the White House. And they wouldn’t have given a pass to officials who took the Fifth.

Milbank is put out that Issa “forced” Lerner to invoke her right against self-incrimination “no fewer than 10 times.” Apparently, it would be the gentlemanly thing for Issa to allow Lerner to maintain a version of events that defies credulity without answering to the American public.

Ignorance is bliss.

Email Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@sfchronicle.com

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

toon
Editorial cartoons for Monday, July 7

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

A Volunteers of America Western Washington crisis counselor talks with somebody on the phone Thursday, July 28, 2022, in at the VOA Behavioral Health Crisis Call Center in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: Dire results will follow end of LGBTQ+ crisis line

The Trump administration will end funding for a 988 line that serves youths in the LGBTQ+ community.

Comment: Supreme Court’s majority is picking its battles

If a constitutional crisis with Trump must happen, the chief justice wants it on his terms.

Saunders: Combs’ mixed verdict shows perils of over-charging

Granted, the hip-hop mogul is a dirtbag, but prosecutors reached too far to send him to prison.

Comment: RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel turns misinformation into policy

The new CDC panel’s railroading of a decision to pull a flu vaccine foreshadows future unsound decisions.

FILE — The journalist Bill Moyers previews an upcoming broadcast with staffers in New York, in March 2001. Moyers, who served as chief spokesman for President Lyndon Johnson during the American military buildup in Vietnam and then went on to a long and celebrated career as a broadcast journalist, returning repeatedly to the subject of the corruption of American democracy by money and power, died in Manhattan on June 26, 2025. He was 91. (Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times)
Comment: Bill Moyers and the power of journalism

His reporting and interviews strengthened democracy by connecting Americans to ideas and each other.

Brooks: AI can’t help students learn to think; it thinks for them

A new study shows deeper learning for those who wrote essays unassisted by large language models.

Do we have to fix Congress to get them to act on Social Security?

Thanks to The Herald Editorial Board for weighing in (probably not for… Continue reading

toon
Editorial: Using discourse to get to common ground

A Building Bridges panel discussion heard from lawmakers and students on disagreeing agreeably.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Friday, June 27, 2025. The sweeping measure Senate Republican leaders hope to push through has many unpopular elements that they despise. But they face a political reckoning on taxes and the scorn of the president if they fail to pass it. (Kent Nishimura/The New York Times)
Editorial: GOP should heed all-caps message on tax policy bill

Trading cuts to Medicaid and more for tax cuts for the wealthy may have consequences for Republicans.

Alaina Livingston, a 4th grade teacher at Silver Furs Elementary, receives her Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic for Everett School District teachers and staff at Evergreen Middle School on Saturday, March 6, 2021 in Everett, Wa. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: RFK Jr., CDC panel pose threat to vaccine access

Pharmacies following newly changed CDC guidelines may restrict access to vaccines for some patients.

Comment: Keep county’s public lands in the public’s hands

Now pulled from consideration, the potential sale threatened the county’s resources and environment.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.