Oversight Committee Votes: IRS' Lerner Waived Fifth Amendment Rights With Opening Statement

Katie Pavlich | June 28, 2013 12:05 PM

The House Oversight and Government Reform committee voted Friday and determined that Lois Lerner, the head of tax exempt groups at the IRS, waved her Fifth Amendment rights during testimony over a month ago after she voluntarily made an opening statement. In that statement, Lerner said she had done nothing wrong. She was called to testify in front of the Committee after admitting at a conference that the IRS had inappropriately targeted conservative tea party groups.

Lerner has since been put on administrative leave with pay. Earlier this week, another IRS official invoked his fifth amendment rights on a separate issue.

An IRS technology official at the center of a House investigation into whether he pushed the agency to award contracts worth up to $500 million to a company owned by a personal friend pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify at a House hearing Wednesday. A House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report Tuesday said Greg Roseman, an IRS deputy director, may have influenced the IRS to award lucrative IT contracts to Strong Castle, Inc.

Lerner will now be called back in front of the Oversight Committee to testify about her role in the targeting of conservative groups. She'll likely plead the Fifth again, but this time without making an opening statement.