Boehner: No Plan To Arrest IRS’ Lois Lerner

by JASmius

A cannier decision than you, my Tea Party "fire-eater" friends, may imagine:

Former IRS official Lois Lerner has been held in contempt of Congress, but the House won't be ordering her arrest, House Speaker John Boehner, R-OH8, insisted Sunday.

"I'm not sure we want to go down that path," Boehner told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on her "Sunday Morning Futures" show.

"There is a provision in the Constitution that has never been used. I'm not quite sure that we want to go down that path," Boehner said.

"So you're not looking to do that?" Bartiromo asked.

"No, it's never been used," Boehner replied.

"Why not?"

"I'm not the historian here. It's never been used, and I'm not sure that it's an appropriate way to go about this," Boehner said. "It is up to [Attorney General] Eric Holder to do his job."

Under federal law, each chamber of Congress has the legal ability to authorize its sergeant-at-arms to detain people who it finds in contempt, reports The Hill. Last week, the House agreed by a 231-187 vote to hold Lerner, who retired last year, of contempt because she refused to testify in her role in IRS targeting of conservative groups.

"Now will he (Holder) do it?" added Boehner. "We don’t know, but the ball is in his court."

Granted, on the one hand it's difficult to see the point of holding Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress and then not taking the next logical step, especially since it's a foregone conclusion that Eric "The Red" most assuredly will not "do his job". (Of course, that applies even more to Holder's own contempt of Congress charge, but I digress.)  However, on the other hand, there is, politically and practically speaking, a limit on how many high-profile investigations House Republicans can afford to take on, and Benghazi has been chosen as the priority Obama Regime scandal.  Besides which is that Double-L has amply demonstrated that she cannot be coerced into turning on The One and becoming his version of John Dean, so there's no payoff for jailing her to offset the "out of control Republican witchhunt" Obamedia propaganda that frog-marching her out of the House chamber in orange jumpsuit and handcuffs would ignite.

Lois Lerner is small fry that is not a path to "big fry".  Pursuing her further is something that really would backfire on the GOP, and the Speaker knows it, even if the Tea Party grassroots do not.