IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner (left) takes notes as she and US Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin take their seats to testify before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing yesterday.
WASHINGTON: The Internal Revenue Service official at the centre of a scandal about extra tax scrutiny of conservative groups told Congress yesterday she had done nothing wrong but invoked her constitutional right not to answer questions.
Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS tax-exempt unit, angered lawmakers by reading a statement before refusing to testify, but she was dismissed from the hearing with a warning that she could be called back for another appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any congressional committee,” Lerner told the panel. “Because I am asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I have done something wrong. I have not,” she said.
House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said Lerner appeared to have waived her right against self-incrimination by making the statement. Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina demanded that she stay to answer questions, drawing applause from the crowd in the hearing room.
After conferring with aides, Issa — who has accused Lerner of providing “false or misleading” information to Congress last year about the IRS’s treatment of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status — dismissed her from the hearing but said he might call her to testify in the future. Photographers swarmed Lerner as she left.
Lerner is at the centre of a political scandal over the tax-collection agency’s use of search terms such as “Tea Party” and “patriots,” to select groups for additional scrutiny of their qualifications for tax-exempt status.
The tax agency’s “inappropriate” targeting of conservative groups, as described in a Treasury inspector general report released last week, has set off a political firestorm and led Republicans to question whether Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration was involved.
The scandal — along with others involving questions about the Justice Department’s tracking of reporters in investigations into national security leaks and an ongoing probe about the administration’s response to the deadly attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya, in September — threatens to undercut Obama’s second-term agenda. Reuters
