GOP pushes prosecution of Lerner

House Republicans are poised Wednesday to refer former IRS official Lois Lerner to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.

GOP lawmakers argue that the now-retired Lerner broke the law in three ways, a House aide said Tuesday: by pushing the agency to only target conservative organizations, misleading federal investigators, and recklessly handling and exposing taxpayer information.

The House aide said the three laws that Lerner — the agency official who first apologized for the IRS’s improper scrutiny of Tea Party groups — might have broken carry a maximum combined penalty of 11 years in prison.

The intentional disclosure of confidential taxpayer information by a U.S. official is a felony punishable by up to five years in jail. Making false statements could cost up to another five years, and depriving others of their rights is a crime punishable by up to a year in prison.

The House Ways and Means Committee will meet behind closed doors Wednesday to consider whether to send the referral to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Bill Taylor, an attorney for Lerner, called the accusations of law-breaking “ridiculous.”



”When people treat criminal referrals like this it demonstrates how easy it is to accuse someone of a crime and get the media to print it,” he said.


If and when Ways and Means refers Lerner to Justice, the committee’s letter to Holder outlining the potential violations would likely become public.

The Justice Department launched an investigation into the IRS’s treatment of Tea Party groups shortly after the controversy broke last May.

But the House aide said the referral would likely contain new information for the department, because Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has access to confidential taxpayer information not available to Justice.

The full House would not need to act on the referral after the Ways and Means panel’s action, but the Justice Department would have the final decision on whether to prosecute Lerner.

GOP lawmakers believe their investigations won’t be comprehensive without the testimony of Lerner, who has twice refused to answer questions at House Oversight Committee hearings.

Republicans on that panel have ruled that Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights by defending herself, and saying she had broken no laws, in an opening statement last May.

The Oversight panel is expected to vote to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress on Thursday, in a separate effort to intensify the legal pressure on the former IRS official.

The GOP investigations into the IRS have long concentrated on the areas where Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee now believe Lerner broke the law.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and his staff have released reports in recent weeks that insist the IRS treated conservative groups far more harshly than liberal organizations, and accuse Lerner of lying on multiple occasions to congressional investigators.

Lerner has already sat for an interview with the Justice Department.

But Taylor, of Zuckerman Spaeder, has said she won’t willingly talk to House Republicans he believes are only out to vilify her.

Issa’s Oversight panel stressed how important Lerner’s testimony was in a new report outlining their contempt charge, saying Lerner was “at the epicenter of the targeting program.”



“Only she can answer important outstanding questions that are key to the committee’s investigation,” the report said.

— This story was last updated at 5:30 p.m.