Lerner, Paz say they fear physical harm from enraged public, want IRS testimony sealed permanently

Treasonous Bitch Who Sent Death Threats to Democracy 

From The Washington Times:

Former IRS executive Lois G. Lerner told a federal court last week that members of her family, including “young children,” face death threats and a real risk of physical harm if her explanation of the tea party targeting scandal becomes public. 

Ms. Lerner and Holly Paz, her deputy at the IRS, filed documents in court Thursday saying tapes and transcripts of depositions they gave in a court case this year must remain sealed in perpetuity, or else they could spur an enraged public to retaliate. 

“Whenever Mss. Lerner and Paz have been in the media spotlight, they have faced death threats and harassment,” attorneys for the two women argued. 

Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz gave taped depositions in a class-action lawsuit brought by tea party groups demanding answers and compensation for having been subjected to illegal targeting for their political beliefs. 

The government settled the class-action lawsuit in Ohio and another tea party challenge in the District of Columbia in two agreements last month, admitting to the illegal behavior. 

The Ohio settlement also called for the government to pay $3.5 million to the tea party groups, according to one of the plaintiffs. 

Ms. Lerner came in for particular criticism, with the government admitting she not only didn’t stop the targeting — contradicting the Obama administration’s claims — but also hid it from her superiors in Washington. 

During the course of the Ohio case, the tea party groups filed thousands of pages of documents, but testimony from Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz was left out of the public record because of their earlier request for privacy. 

Now Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz say that since the case has been settled, there is no reason for their testimony to ever become public.

IRS Employee Looking for Lois Lerner Emails Was Blind, LITERALLY!

From PJM:

An IRS employee tasked with trying to restore and obtain emails on Lois Lerner’s IRS computer’s hard drive was legally blind. Stephen Manning, the deputy chief information officer for strategy and modernization at the IRS, submitted an affidavit in the True the Vote vs. 

IRS litigation regarding the persons and procedures used to attempt to recover Lois Lerner’s hard drive containing emails pertaining to Tea Party targeting. The affidavit can be read here. 

 Paragraph 14 describes the educational background of the person searching for data on Lois Lerner’s hard drive: 

“According to the Specialist, prior to joining the Internal Revenue Service … training was completed through Lions World Services for the Blind.” 

Sources familiar with the litigation confirm to me that the government confirmed that the IRS employee searching for the lost data was legally blind. It was also revealed today that backup tapes of Lois Lerner’s emails were discovered in an off-site storage facility in West Virginia. 

The inspector general of the Treasury Department learned that the tapes existed and drove to West Virginia to retrieve them. 

Lawyers for the Justice Department as well as IRS officials have stated under oath or to the federal courts that no such backup tapes existed. They were “recycled,” DOJ lawyers told the court.

Re: That IRS "Scandal"

Jawa Report comments:

Digging A Hole 

And its getting deeper and deeper... 

Nevermind all the other scandals perpetrated by this administration. The IRS scandal alone should be enough to bring down any administration (and would if this were a Republican administration.) 

We have a computer crash that deleted emails on an individual computer. The hard drive on that computer was destroyed. 

The IRS hired an email archiving company to preserve emails through 2009, but that contract was canceled only days after the computer crash that deleted Lerner's emails. 

What we have is a deliberate and concerted effort to eliminate evidence. This by itself is a huge scandal, but every day its getting worse and worse.

YES,

AND,

The IRS Scandal is an attack right at the heart of the two things which most epitomize our Constitutional Democracy. That is, the IRS "Scandal" is the Obama Administration attacking

1) Free Speech

and

2) The election process

In other words, the Obama Administration has attacked our most fundamental right - the one upon which all our other freedoms rest - during an election cycle, in order to subvert the Democratic process within our nation.

I don't think a more direct attack upon our nation is possible short of outright war.

U.S. House Hold Former IRS Official Lois Lerner In Contempt Of Congress

Lot of good this will do.

Eric Holder has demonstrated that "Contempt of Congress" means nothing to friends of Obama. Holder has been in Contempt of Congress for almost two years, and there is no result at all.

Lerner will do the same.

From Fox:

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about the agency’s targeting of conservative groups. 

The House voted 231-187 for a resolution holding Lerner in contempt. Lerner’s case will now be sent to the Justice Department, which then must decide whether to essentially prosecute Lerner in the case. 

House GOP leaders have said Lerner’s testimony is important to fully investigate the scandal, in which IRS agents singled out Tea Party nonprofit applications for extra scrutiny. 

“Thorough investigations by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as well as the Ways and Means Committee have revealed findings that indicate that Ms. Lerner played a central role in the illegal targeting of conservative groups by the IRS,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said in a memo last month. 

Last May, Lerner refused to answer questions at a hearing about IRS agents singling out Tea Party applications. She again refused to answer questions in March, citing her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. 

The House Oversight Committee voted to hold Lerner in contempt last month. All Republicans voted in favor and all Democrats voted against. 

Lerner directed the IRS division that processes applications for tax-exempt status. She retired from the IRS last fall, ending a 34-year career in the federal government, including work at the Justice Department and Federal Election Commission.