-By Warner Todd Huston
The Department of Justice has refused to charge former IRS chief Lois Lerner on criminal contempt charges after she refused to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last year. But this doesn’t have to be the end of any possibility of bringing Lerner to justice. IF he has the political will, Speaker John Boehner has options.
With this week’s refusal of the DOJ to charge Lerner, many are mistakenly saying that the whole thing is over. Lerner, they say, will never face justice despite refusing to testify over questions about the IRS targeting of conservative groups that came to light in 2013.
You’ll recall that as soon as Obama came to office the IRS began to use its power to intimidate conservative groups by harassing them with IRS rules and regulations and forcing them to endure an avalanche of requests for information that taxed their abilities to comply as well as forcing them to suffer through numerous audits and scrutiny. Meanwhile liberals groups were given free reign with no IRS attention. This was all obviously an ideologically-based attack on conservative groups meant to stifle them.
Last year, the chairman of the panel, Rep. Darrell Issa (R, CA), insisted that Lerner waived her 5th Amendment right to refuse to testify by making an opening statement to the committee before she claimed her right to remain silent.
But this week outgoing U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ronald Machen, disagreed with Issa’s assertion. In a statement, Machen said, “Ms. Lerner did not waive her Fifth Amendment privilege by making general claims of innocence. The Constitution would provide Ms. Lerner with an absolute defense if she were prosecuted for contempt.”
While this closes the door on action by the Department of Justice, this does not necessarily leave Lerner off the hook. Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner still has options to bring Lerner to justice.
If Boehner has the political will, he can still press contempt proceedings against Lerner through a case in a federal court. Congress can pass a majority resolution authorizing a single member, perhaps someone such as Jason Chaffetz (R, UT), to file a civil suit in federal court on behalf of the full house.
This would force Lerner to once again make a choice on how to respond to being summoned to give testimony. Regardless of what Lerner says in such a case, though, House lawyers could point to Lerner’s 2014 statement as a waiver of her Fifth Amendment rights–just as Issa contended last year. A federal judge would then be charged with deciding whether Lerner waived her rights not to testify or maintains her right to stay silent.
If it is decided that Lerner did waive her rights and if she still refuses to talk, a federal judge could hold her in criminal contempt of court and possibly jail her until she gives her testimony.
The power for this action the House can take stems from Congress’ inherent authority under the Constitution to be able to obtain on an ongoing basis all information pertaining to the operations of the Executive Branch. It is the same authority that gives Congress the power to subpoena members of the administration to compel them to testify before congressional committees.
John Boehner has more options. But he has to have the political will to pursue them. It is up to us to force him to use them.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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