Pleading the Fifth…
September 24 | Posted by mrossol | Big Govt, IRSAh, keep that pension…. Plea the 5th, but not willing to give up your pension for the truth…
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A not-so-fond farewell to IRS doyenne Lois Lerner, who resigned Monday as the agency’s director of Exempt Organizations. Since announcing in May that the IRS had singled out conservative groups applying for tax exempt status for additional scrutiny during an election season, Ms. Lerner has been on paid administrative leave.
Not a bad deal, getting paid not to work—so why resign now? One answer is that this gets ahead of a recently completed but still not released IRS personnel review that we hear criticizes her job performance and recommends she be fired. By resigning now, she will collect her full pension and benefits, though she still refuses to answer questions from Congress.
Her cause wasn’t helped by the recently disclosed emails she sent in February 2011 advising her staff that the tea party matter is “very dangerous” and that “Cincy should probably NOT have these cases.” That’s contrary to the IRS’s narrative that Cincinnati drove the boat while Washington officials only learned about the political targeting of conservatives when they read the newspaper.
In a House Ways and Means Committee hearing last week, Louisiana Republican Charles Boustany asked IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel whether Lois Lerner sought “to intervene in the examinations process or audit process?” Mr. Werfel responded that “There were emails we turned over to you, based on your request,” adding that “there are certain documents that raise questions. And, when I looked at them, I thought they raised questions.”
“Questions” is putting it mildly. Ms. Lerner’s resignation under duress reflects the IRS’s acknowledgment that her actions profoundly discredited the agency. Let’s hope the rest of the reckoning isn’t as long in coming.
A version of this article appeared September 24, 2013, on page A18 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: IRS Firing Squad.
Review & Outlook: IRS Firing Squad – WSJ.com.
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