Lerner slammed ‘evil and dishonest’ GOP inquisitors
Source: Politico
Emails give a revealing look behind the scenes at the IRS leading up to the nonprofit targeting scandal.
By Katy O'Donnell
8/13/15 5:07 AM EDT
Updated 8/13/15 6:53 AM EDT
At the height of the scandal over the IRS handling of political nonprofits, Lois Lerner privately let loose at her Republican tormentors, saying she invoked the Fifth Amendment because they had been evil and dishonest and accusing them of hate mongering.
A POLITICO examination of thousands of pages of emails and other material recently released by the Senate Finance Committee found previously unreported comments from Lerner, the central figure in the controversy, on everything from the inability of career IRS agents to handle the sensitive stuff to her views on the fiscal cliff.
When she was under investigation by Congress, she offered a blistering critique of her inquisitors. In a March 6, 2014, email, Lerner told a friend: They called me back to testify on the IRS scandal, and I took the 5th again because they had been so evil and dishonest in my lawyers dealings with them.
In June 2014, Lerner told the same friend that an unflattering picture of her appearing before Congress kept surfacing because it serves their purposes of hate mongering to continue to use those images. I was never a political person this whole fiasco has only made me lose all respect [for] politics and politicians. I am merely a pawn in their game to take over the Senate.
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Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/lerner-slammed-evil-and-dishonest-gop-inquisitors-121307.html