After Taking the Fifth, Lois Lerner Wants Immunity Over IRS Scandal

Katie Pavlich | July 03, 2013 12:45 PM

Surprise surprise. After making an opening statement during a congressional hearing weeks ago on the IRS targeting of conservative groups and then pleading the fifth, Lois Lerner wants immunity. As a reminder, Lerner is the head of tax exempt organizations for the IRS and admitted the agency inappropriately targeted conservative groups between 2010 and 2012 after being asked a planted question at a

conference. She has been put on paid administrative leave for the summer.

Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner will not testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unless she’s given immunity from prosecution, her lawyer told POLITICO Tuesday.

“They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing it the easy way … immunity,” William W. Taylor III said in a phone interview. “That’s the way to resolve all of this.”

The comments reflect the hard-line approach Lerner, the former head of the IRS division that scrutinized conservative groups, and her legal team are taking in defending her role in the agency’s scandal.

The frustrating part of this whole thing is that unless Lerner is granted immunity 1) we won't get her testimony 2) we won't get the full truth about exactly what happened within the IRS when it came to targeting and the conservative BOLO list (be on the lookout) 3) the idea of holding anyone in

Taylor, a founding partner of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, is even shrugging off the possibility that the full House might vote to hold Lerner in contempt.

“None of this matters,” he said. “I mean, nobody likes to be held in contempt of Congress, of course, but the real question is one that we’re fairly confident about, and I don’t think any district judge in the country would hold that she waived.”