President Obama, a Harvard educated lawyer, used these words
in his description of an investigation of the IRS that had
not yet concluded at the time. He spoke of “knuckle-headed decisions” having
been made, thereby denying by implication that laws had actually been broken
with a straight face. This was said in
the face of the legal fact that when Lois Lerner, a lawyer herself and head of
the IRS Exempt Organization Division, was brought to testify before the House
Oversight & Government Reform Committee, she decided to invoke her rights
under the 5th Amendment. In order for her to
legally do this, as Ms. Lerner and President Obama both clearly know (a rookie
lawyer knows this), it is mandatory that she have a “real and substantial fear”
that her testimony would result in self-incrimination, or minimally contribute
to her criminal conviction in the United States. She could not rightfully plead
the 5th if there was absolutely no possibility of her being found
guilty of a crime as a result of her testimony. Her actions evidently speak to
her belief, notwithstanding the President's assertions, that answering Congress’ questions might well provide more than a
“smidgen” of proof of criminal conduct on her part.
The President’s statement concerning the non-existence of
criminal activity and Lois Lerner’s actions are thus both factually and
rationally irreconcilable. Subsequent to the invocation of her right against
self-incrimination, Ms. Lerner joined our present U.S. Attorney General, Eric
Holder, in the now highly esteemed “contempt of Congress club.” Ms. Lerner was
rightfully held in contempt of Congress for which she could have, and perhaps
should have, been jailed on the spot. This is where it really gets interesting.
Now it appears that years of emails from Ms. Lerner to various parties in
Washington have been “lost” by the IRS, along with her hard drive. Furthermore, it also appears
that other critical parties in the IRS have also mysteriously lost their emails
and hard drives as well – a statistical impossibility. These facts alone
establish the need for the appointment of a special prosecutor - now.
One thing can be said of all of this - the present
administration lacks a “smidgen of credibility,” a fact on which the American
public, both conservative and liberal, seem to wholeheartedly agree.