Recommending that the House Find Lois G. Lerner in Contempt of Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. LYNCH. I thank the gentleman from Maryland for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, in response to those recent allegations, I do want to point out that our committee did look at the question of political motivation in selecting tax exemption applications. We asked the inspector general, Russell George, on May 17, 2013, in a hearing before the Ways and Means Committee: ``Did you find any evidence of political motivation in the selection of tax-exempt applications?'' The inspector general who investigated this case testified in response: ``We did not, sir.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this contempt resolution. What began as a necessary and compelling bipartisan investigation into the targeting of American citizens by the Internal Revenue Service has now deteriorated into the very sort of dangerous and careless government overreaching that our committee was set out to investigate in the first place.

The gentleman from California commenced this investigation in May of 2013 by stating the following during his opening statement: ``When government power is used to target Americans for exercising their constitutional rights, there is nothing we, as Representatives, should find more important than to take it seriously, get to the bottom of it, and eradicate the behavior.''

I would remind the chairman that our solemn duty as lawmakers, to safeguard the constitutional rights of every American, does not only extend to cases where a powerful Federal department has deprived citizens of freedoms vested in the First Amendment, rather we must be equally vigilant when the power of government is brought down on Americans who have asserted their rights under the Fifth Amendment. And it is guaranteed that no person shall be compelled to be a witness against him- or herself nor be deprived life, liberty, and property without due process of law. In our system where ``innocent until proven guilty'' lies at the bedrock of our constitutional protections, Ms. Lerner's brief assertions of innocence, her 36 words, should not be enough to vitiate her Fifth Amendment constitutional rights.

Regrettably, this contempt resolution utterly fails to reflect the seriousness with which we should approach the constitutional issue at stake here. In the face of Supreme Court precedent and a vast body of legal expert opinion holding that Ms. Lerner did not, in fact, waive her Fifth Amendment privilege by professing her innocence, Chairman Issa has moved forward with contempt proceedings without even affording the members of our own committee the opportunity to receive public testimony from legal experts on this important constitutional question.

As held by the Supreme Court in 1949 in Smith v. United States:

Testimonial waiver is not to be lightly inferred ..... and the courts accordingly indulge every reasonable presumption against finding a testimonial waiver.

Chairman Issa has also chosen to pursue contempt against Ms. Lerner after refusing an offer from her attorney for a brief 1-week delay so that his client could finally provide the testimony that Members on both sides of this aisle have been asking for.

These legally flawed contempt proceedings bring us no closer to receiving Ms. Lerner's testimony and have only served to divert our time, focus, and resources away from our rightful inquiry into the troubling events at the IRS. They are also reflective of the partisan manner in which this $14 million investigation--so far--has been conducted to date.

Chairman Issa has refused to release the full transcripts of the now 39 transcribed interviews conducted by committee staff with relevant IRS and Treasury officials. He has also recently released two staff reports on these events that were not even provided to the Democratic members prior to their release.

In closing, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this resolution.

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