The IRS Scandal, Day 306

San Francisco Chronicle:  The Silence of the Tax Lamb, by Debra Saunders:

Former IRS official Lois Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right on 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 IRS tax-exempt unit when she first invoked the Fifth last May - won't answer questions about her actions as a federal official. ...

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 Lerner 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. ...

"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 that 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 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 words like "Tea Party" or "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 IRS targeted social-welfare groups that used terms like "antiwar" and "torture," the left would want to investigate. They'd want to know if the IRS policy came from the White House. And they wouldn't give a pass to officials who took the Fifth.

• Accounting Today:  IRS to Turn Over More Documents on Lois Lerner to Congress
• The Blaze:  A Guy Named ‘Brutus’ Predicted an Out-of-Control IRS … Back in 1787
• Christian Post:  IRS Scandal: Nothing to See Here
• Government Executive:  Lawyers Examine Pleading the Fifth as a Federal Employee
• News With Views:  A Lot More Than a Smidgeon
• Newsmax:  Contempt Case Against Ex-IRS Official Will Have to Wait
• Wonkette:  George Will Remains Blissfully Unaware IRS Scandal Was Never a Real Thing

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• Attorney in Federal Agency General Counsel's Office: There Is 'No Innocent Explanation' for IRS Chief Counsel's Meeting With Obama (July 23, 2013)
• A Cincinnati IRS Lawyer Speaks: We Are Democrats, But Nonpartisan Democrats (July 23, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 75 (July 23, 2013)
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• The IRS Scandal, Day 52 (June 30, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 51 (June 29, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 50 (June 28, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 49 (June 27, 2013)
• House Report: IRS Deputy IT Director Steered $500 Million in Contracts to Pal (June 26, 2013)
• TIGTA: IRS Credit Cards Used for Wine, Porn, $100 Lunches, $140 Dinners (June 26, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 48 (June 26, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 47 (June 25, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 46 (June 24, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 45 (June 23, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 44 (June 22, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 43 (June 21, 2013)
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• The IRS Scandal, Day 39 (June 17, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 38 (June 16, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 37 (June 15, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 36 (June 14, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 35 (June 13, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 34 (June 12, 2013)
• The Problem Is Not Just IRS Lawyers; The Problem Is All Federal Government Lawyers (June 11, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 33 (June 11, 2013)
• The Complete IRS Video Collection (June 10, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 32 (June 10, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 31 (June 9, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 30 (June 8, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 29 (June 7, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 28 (June 6, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 27 (June 5, 2013)
• Jon Stewart on the IRS Scandal (June 4, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 26 (June 4, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 25 (June 3, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 24 (June 2, 2013)
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• The IRS Scandal, Day 23 (June 1, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 22 (May 31, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 21 (May 30, 2013)
• The Impact of the IRS Scandal on Tax Reform (May 29, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 20 (May 29, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 19 (May 28, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 18 (May 27, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 17 (May 26, 2013)
• Jason Jones on the IRS Scandal (May 25, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 16 (May 25, 2013)
• Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on the IRS Scandal (May 24, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 15 (May 24, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 14 (May 23, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 13 (May 22, 2013)
• Steven Colbert on the IRS Scandal (May 21, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 12 (May 21, 2013)
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• The IRS Scandal, Day 11 (May 20, 2013)
• SNL on the IRS Scandal (May 19, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 10 (May 19, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 9 (May 18, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 8 (May 17, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 7 (May 16, 2013)
• Phillip Hackney, The TIGTA Report on the IRS Scandal: Be on the Lookout for False Partisan Witchunts (May 15, 2013)
• Ellen Aprill, The TIGTA Report on the IRS Scandal: Questions About the IRS and About the Report (May 15, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 6 (May 15, 2013)
• Inspector General: Ineffective IRS Management Allowed Agents to Target Conservative Groups (May 14, 2013)
• Jon Stewart and Vic Fleischer on the IRS Scandal (May 14, 2013)
• The IRS Scandal, Day 5 (May 14, 2013)
• The Deepening IRS Scandal (May 13, 2013)
• Schmalbeck on the IRS 'Targeting' of Conservative Groups (May 12, 2013)
• WaPo and WSJ Agree: IRS Targeting of Conservatives Is Appalling (May 11, 2013)
• IRS Admits to Targeting Conservative Groups in 2012 Election (May 10, 2013)