WASHINGTON DC – House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said embattled IRS official Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights and will be hauled back to appear before his panel again.
The California Republican said Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination was voided when she gave an opening statement this morning denying any wrongdoing and professing pride in her government service. (more…)
We knew this specific *cough* “investigation” was going to encompass much more than just Rosen’s communications. Now surfacing his parents home phone records were targeted along with phones of Senior executives with Fox News, White House Fox reporters and State Department reporters phone lines.
In the subpoena demand presented before a judge, which the DOJ is now hiding behind, the DOJ asserts that James Rosen has engaged in Criminal Conspiracy against national security. Unreal.
WASHINGTON DC – The Obama Justice Department has seized the phone records of numbers that are associated with White House staffers and, apparently, with Fox News reporters, according to a document filed in the case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, on October 13, 2011. (more…)
WASHINGTON – A top IRS official in the division that reviews nonprofit groups will invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions before a House committee investigating the agency’s improper screening of conservative nonprofit groups.
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 [is] scheduled to appear before the House Oversight committee Wednesday. (more…)
Spotted: @joshtpm @CapehartJ @ezraklein & other lefty columnists headed into the West Wing as a group. POTUS coffee? Carney meeting? Anyone?
— Ari Shapiro (@arishapiro) May 21, 2013
Predictions:
1. ISOLATE – Attach the word “birther” or “birtherism” or “extremist” to the people who are demanding White House transparency and investigation.
2. RIDICULE – Position all of the investigations as “attacks” against and targeting the President. This helps play the race card.
3. MARGINALIZE – Talk up the willingness of staffers to cooperate as a tool for diminishing the severity of the accusations/charges. Highlight supporters (unions) to the presidential agenda.
Hat Tip WeaselZippers: Hmmmm? Wonder what this could be ?
(Wa-Po) When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.
They used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department, according to a newly obtained court affidavit. They traced the timing of his calls with a State Department security adviser suspected of sharing the classified report. They obtained a search warrant for the reporter’s personal e-mails. (more…)
There are just some jaw dropping discoveries coming forth from the Congressional IRS Hearings and the investigative reporting being done into the background and substance of the claims.
(*note* liar avoidance 101 teaches you that when a person says “to be honest with you” as the lead to their next statement – they are NOT to be trusted. Ever. Honest people do not need to qualify when they are honest, and when they are lying.)
First: The IRS intentionally withheld the information last year until after the 2012 election cycle because they knew it would destroy the chances for the Democrats and President Obama specifically. Even to the extent they intentionally misled congress:
The Treasury Department’s inspector general testified at a congressional hearing Friday that he had informed Obama administration officials of an investigation into improper scrutiny of conservative non-profit groups by the Internal Revenue Service during the run-up to the 2012 election.
J. Russell George told Treasury’s general counsel of the investigation on June 4, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin — then-Sec. Timothy Geithner’s No. 2 — “shortly thereafter,” according to the New York Times. (link)
(Via CST) Sneed hears President Barack Obama, who is this/close to Holder, has set his sights on Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick as a possible replacement “when the heat dies down on the latest hot-button scandals to hit the U.S. Justice Department,” said a top White House source.
Last year, Holder became a hot button over a congressional probe of the sale of government guns to drug cartels.
This time it’s the double whammy of an IRS scandal and the U.S. Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records — which has caused a media uproar. (more…)