Do you see now why ex-IRS official Lois Lerner took the 5th?
"Uhhhh........yeaaaah."
Yeah!
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/26/lois-lerner-blackberry-deliberately-destroyed-after-start-congressional-probe/
Maybe this judge can get to the bottom of this. The Justice Department sure won't.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
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7 comments:
The question is: When will the House of Representatives throw this destroyer of evidence and obstruction of justice monger in the Congressional jail, until she tells the truth. As you say Gary, do not count on the DoJ to peruse this case, because they are linked to the IRS scandal.
Squid
Nope. I don't know what she's running from. She did the right thing, and she should claim it proudly.
We have constitutional protection against "self-incrimination", not embarrassment. Clearly, both Lerner and her attorney(s) necessarily believe that she committed one or more offenses (probably felonies), otherwise her invocation of the right is quite frivolous.
That's the conundrum of the Fifth Amendment, elwood. Can you invoke your right not to incriminate yourself, without thereby convincing everyone that you are, in fact, guilty? And if not, what is the point of that clause in the Fifth Amendment anyway?
Because a jury cannot even be made aware of it.
Siarlys--can you not see that a legitimate and proper invocation of the right is an essential admission that the person believes that he/she/it has engaged in criminal activity?? If there is no criminal behavior afoot, then the right cannot be legitimately employed, no??
elwood, have you ever studied American history? Under British law, a person could be compelled to testify to their own guilt. This power was abused for obvious reasons, in obvious ways, including, of course, forced false confessions.
The general remedy, when our constitution was written, was to provide that no person could be compelled to be a witness against themselves.
Are you proposing to cast all that aside, and restore compelled testimony to one's own alleged guilt?
If not, what system of administration would you suggest, that would avoid such a conundrum?
People do tend to assume that someone who takes the fifth has something to hide. It may be a reasonable assumption. But it is no basis for conviction. If there has been a crime committed, there will be evidence. It should be provable without the compelled testimony.
It is also a fact that attorneys sometimes tell innocent people, don't walk into that, they'll twist it and turn it, you don't have to testify at all.
Based on all the evidence I've seen bandied about, I think Lerner acted reasonably and legally. She may have had some inappropriate thoughts and motives, but the bottom line is, a bunch of brand new political operations on the very edge of electoral advocacy need close scrutiny before their donors get a tax break.
Like most democrats and liberals, she is probably afraid of her own shadow, and lives in terror of the talk show hosts. Cowardly, spineless, but not a felony.
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