Most of these contempt charges are thrown out due to procedural issues. Here, Issa' arrogance and stupidity is going to bite him on the butt

Issa needs to be censured & removed from the chairmanship. Lawrence had an interesting segment on this last night:

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/the-fatal-error-of-issas-irs-blowup-193652803735#discussions

Issa is a punk and thug. I really do not like him

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when you have a guy with a partisan agenda, but without a background in law, on such an important committee?

which is probably why he makes Issa look like a fool so often.

(I was going to say that Issa has a BS, which is appropriate to all the BS he spews, but his degree is actually a BA)

...can someone tell me why Lerner is pleading the 5th? Doesn't that imply that she at least thinks she might have done something that arguably could possibly be considered prosecutable? I mean, even if she doesn't think she did anything wrong, she seems to be concerned that someone else might consider it to be so.

I'm not saying that this means there really is a scandal here. But it doesn't seem as clear-cut as "liberal groups were targeted for compliance just as conservative groups were, story over." What's missing?

they can spring in time for the elections so as to paint Obama's IRS as the tyrannical bullies who pick on teabaggers and "patriots". It's always easy to finger the tax collection agency as villains and then link them to the opposing Party. None of what they say is true, but it ensures their base coming out from under the rocks to vote against their own best interests.

Isn't she a Republican?

According to this article, she was appointed by Bush in 2006.

Pleading the fifth is evidence of guilt if you have the bad fortune to work under the Obama administration, but the same folks will defend your right to plead the fifth if you happen to be working under a Republican president. Too bad for Lois Lerner, who was appointed by Bush in 2006 as head of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, but is now apparently going to serve as yet another fall guy for the cause.

Lois Lerner, “who let slip at an American Bar Association meeting on Friday that, between 2010 and 2012, conservative nonprofit groups were improperly scrutinized by the IRS”, is the person who drew attention to this “scandal”. She is also the IRS Director of Exempt Organizations.

Lerner gave an opening statement before yet another House Committee Wednesday morning, in a hearing on the allegations that the IRS targeted conservative groups for political reasons. Ms. Lerner said, before pleading the fifth, “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee,” Lerner said. “Because I am asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I have done something wrong. I have not.”

Charles Krauthammer told Fox News Tuesday night that it’s not unreasonable to infer that Lois Lerner’s decision to plea the fifth was evidence “that there is a lot [the Obama administration has] got to hide and they are very worried.”

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/05/22/lois-lerner-pleads-fifth-republicans-hysterical.html

I don't think you can just assert the Fifth Amendment if you believe you committed no crime.

they system in place to keep them honest! I mean, part of me is not surprised in the least...Issa is a known criminal that seems to LIKE breaking rules and the law! The longer we have such scum in Congress...the worser and worser it is going to get.

With immunity, she would have answered all of Issa's questions. But Issa knows there is no anti-conservative conspiracy. He has ALL of Lerner's emails from the IRS. He wants Lerner to keep invoking the 5th so he can demonize her for invoking the 5th. Which of course violates the spirit if not the letter of the 5th Amendment.

It's not a bug, it's a feature. Issa "screwed up" because he did NOT want Lerner to answer. If she had answered, it would be on the record that both "conservative" and "liberal" 501 (c)4 groups were investigated equally. Issa needs the fiction that this is a "liberal" plot. If she answered, it would unmask Issa as a liar and a fool (not hard, actually). He needs her to keep pleading the 5th to continuing baying at the moon over "FREEDOM" or such.