By Rev. Mario Gonzalez, Esq.
For more, visit www.gonzlawgroup.com
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 previous 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.