Ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s attorney said that a vote to hold her in contempt would be “un-American.”
Lerner’s lawyer Bill Taylor wrote in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that a contempt vote would be “unfair, and indeed, un-American.”
The letter claimed that Lerner did not waive her Fifth Amendment privilege, contrary to determinations made by the House Oversight Committee and U.S. House counsel, and even cited the McCarthy hearings to claim that Oversight did not warn her that she would be held in contempt if she refused to testify at a March 5 hearing.
However, Oversight chairman Rep. Darrell Issa did, in fact, warn Lerner that she would be held in contempt if she refused to answer his questions.
Lerner previously apologized for targeting conservative groups and organizations with unfair and un-American scrutiny and audits, then stonewalled the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the scandal.
She currently awaits a May contempt vote from the full House of Representatives at her lavish $2.4 million home in Bethesda, Maryland.