Embattled IRS employee Lois Lerner waived her right to Fifth Amendment protections by presenting an opening statement, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said on Thursday.
A modestly sized group gathered outside of the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday to demand greater accountability amongst those responsible for the tax-exempt division’s inequitable scrutiny of conservative organizations during the 2012 elections, behaviors the IRS has admitted were “inappropriate.”
Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Tuesday asking them to halt issuing or enforcing regulations drafted under Laura Hall Ingraham’s supervision at the IRS Obamacare office.
The Internal Revenue Service official who heads the tax-exempt division will invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions from the House Oversight Committee.
Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday attempted to shift some blame for the Internal Revenue Service’s alleged targeting of conservative organizations on the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which held that the government cannot limit political spending by corporations, unions, and other groups.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew attempted to distance his department from the Internal Revenue Service’s controversial actions at a Senate hearing on Tuesday morning, despite acknowledging that the Treasury oversees the IRS.
Steven Miller, previously the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, told Congress he did not believe it was illegal for the agency to create targeted lists of individual citizens and groups who would be singled out for special scrutiny, during a Friday hearing.
The Internal Revenue Service denied the existence of any documents related to its policy of targeting Tea Party organizations in response to a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, even though such documents were later discovered by the IRS inspector general.
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