Originally published on Forbes.com Mar 5th, 2014
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif had Lois Lerner before his committee again. She pleaded the fifth amendment again. After he asked her about an e-mail from her lawyer, she took the fifth again. That was enough for Chairman Issa, so he adjourned the meeting. Congressman Elijah Cummings did not think the meeting should end there. He wanted to ask procedural questions .
Chairman Issa told him to ask his question Of course, Congressman Cummings wanted to make a statement, which is when Issa ordered the microphone shut off. If you poke around you will find clips of the drama here and there. If you want the whole thing, which takes about twenty minutes, you can get it in this clip.
I’m wondering if Issa and Cummings are frenemies. There are two narratives about this whole mess. One is that there was something of a left-wing conspiracy inside the IRS to pick on the political activity of organizations that were not supposed to be mainly political, which hurt those groups in their effort to prevent the President from being re-elected. My blogging buddy, Joe Kristan, supports that theory having grown up in Chicago, where all sorts of enforcement is politically motivated. The other narrative is that the whole thing is a phony scandal. I think that I am the only person left who has looked at this without fully making up his mind.
In the hearing, Chairman Issa lays out the scandal narrative in the questions that he asks Ms. Lerner. Congressman Cummings lays out the counter-narrative. The most interesting thing he mentions is that Lerner’s attorney has “proffered” the testimony that she would give if she were granted immunity. Congressman Cummings would like to have the whole committee in on the “proffer” discussion.
After watching the full twenty minutes, I’m still of two minds about which narrative to embrace. It would seem that if Chairman Issa really wants to get at the truth, the simplest thing would be to grant Lois Lerner immunity. The way it is playing now, though, is what makes me suspect Issa and Cummings might be frenemies. That twenty minutes of video provides great clips that they can each use to whip up their base.
Personally, I would like to see the IRS entirely taken out of trying to enforce transparency in political expenditures through the tax code. I really don’t think we need 29 different types of 501(c) organizations each with their own peculiarities that can be exploited for reasons only vaguely related to taxation, if at all. I hope some of you will watch that full clip and tell me what you think.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.