The House Oversight Committee is set to meet early Thursday morning to consider a resolution to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress. The vote comes just two months after Lerner plead the Fifth for a second time, refusing to answer questions about her role in the IRS targeting scandal. Lerner was in charge of tax exempt groups at the IRS when targeting occurred between 2010 and 2013. Last summer she retired with a full pension and benefits after taking paid leave for three months.
Today's hearing is expected to be contentious. Yesterday afternoon, it was revealed through emails that staff of Democratic Ranking Member Elijah Cummings had been in contact with Lerner about tax information belonging to the voter fraud prevention group True the Vote. Not only did Lerner feed that information to Cummings' staff, but Cummings denied his staff was ever in contact with the IRS about the group. Further, staff and Cummings kept those requests for information from the Majority Members of the Committee. Now Chairman Darrell Issa, along with other Subcommittee Chairmen, are demanding Cummings' explain why his staff was in contact with the IRS about True the Vote and why that contact was kept a secret from the Committee.
The Committee will meet at 9 a.m.