Issa Cuts Off Meeting, Cries of "Shame" As Lerner Takes Fifth Again

by JASmius

Me, six days ago:

[Lois] Lerner doesn't get immunity first, she won't testify; if they give her immunity, she has no reason to tell them the truth, since Eric "The Red" Holder will never turn Lerner into the Donk Scooter Libby.

I'm going to conclude from the following that Double-L dropped her immunity demand:

 Former IRS official Lois Lerner's refusal to answer questions at a congressional hearing on the targeting of tea party groups sparked an angry exchange on Wednesday between Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa and committee Democrats.

Lerner headed the IRS division that improperly targeted tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012. She appeared at a Wednesday hearing by the House Oversight Committee.

So instead of sticking by her insistence on a pre-emptive grant of immunity, she showed up and squawked, "I cannot answer that question on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me" approximately seventy eight times like a psychotic parrot with Tourette's.  I'm going to call that pick close enough for government work.

Personally I think Lerner dropped the immunity demand just for the chance to piss off Chairman Issa again with her pleading-the-Fifth-after-inadvertently-waiving-it douchebaggery.  It's probably been....since the last such hearing since she's had that much fun at the impotent Republicans' expense.

I think Issa knew it too, which was why he pulled the plug early on:

But when Issa asked her questions about her role in the matter, Lerner repeatedly invoked her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.

The fireworks began after a frustrated Issa abruptly adjourned the hearing, prompting an outburst by Maryland Democrat Representative Elijah Cummings.

Whose tiresome grandstanding about which I could not possibly care less.  Here's the vid in case any of you are interested.



Issa called Lerner back specifically to drill her with questions about IRSgate; Lerner pleaded the Fifth on all of them.  It was mutual rhetorical masturbation.  It was a pointless exercise.  It was a technically-former Regime apparatchik gleefully rubbing a GOP House Government Reform & Oversight Committee's collective nose in its utter powerlessness to do anything about either the IRS's crushing of Tea Party groups in the 2012 cycle or the more formal, better organized sequel already under way in the run-up to November's midterms.  Lerner knew it, Issa knew it, Cummings knew it, the whole committee and everybody else in that Capitol Hill hearing room knew it.  So before he could wind up doing something unbecoming of a House committee chairman, he banged his gavel and ceased wasting any more time on this farce.  I can't say as I blame him.  Not one damn bit.

Here's the Double Jeopardy! question: Will Darrell Issa even bother scheduling another one?  Or will he cut to what passes for the chase?:

Republicans have been considering holding Lerner in contempt, a move that House Speaker John Boehner backed today.

Boehner said he would wait for a final report of what happened from Issa, but he wants Lerner to testify.

"At some point I believe that she has to testify," Boehner told reporters. "Or she should be held in contempt."

Evidently Lois Lerner doesn't share the Speaker's air of inevitability - at least, in a "for reals" sense.  If you asked her, I'm sure she'd say she IS testifying.  Indeed, I'm sure she's prepared to plead the fifth hundreds, even thousands of more times until the House IRSgate investigation is complete.  So why not just go ahead and hold her in contempt now?  Why wait on rolling out the big guns?  After all, Obamastapo Commissar Eric "The Red" Holder was held in contempt two or three years ago, and we all saw how that devastated his career.

What the hell, maybe they could throw the book at Cummings too.  If we're going to indulge in futile gestures, might as well make it a hat trick.