By Ben Marquis
The IRS agreed in October to settle legal challenges filed against them that stemmed from the group’s years-long targeting and bullying of conservative and tea party groups that sought taxexempt status.
According to The Washington Times, former IRS official Lois Lerner–who headed up the division that oversaw tax-exempt status applications–as well as her deputy, Holly Paz, delivered sworn testimonies on their roles in the matter via taped depositions.
But even as both former government employees testified in a federal court case that resulted in taxpayer money being paid out to aggrieved groups of taxpayers they had mistreated, they both want their testimony sealed and kept hidden from the same tax-paying public they wronged, as they claimed their lives would be threatened if what they said was made known to the public. “The voluminous record of harassment and physical threats to Mss. Lerner and Paz and their families during the pendency of this litigation provides a compelling reason to seal the materials,” stated attorneys for the women. However, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee doesn’t quite buy their reasoning for keeping their testimony sealed, and stated as much in an op-ed for The Hill.
He recounted how Lerner and others in her division of the IRS “used their public positions to bully, harass, intimidate, criminalize and bankrupt innocent citizens who held political views that the government decided should be censored.”
“Lois Lerner and Associates joked about the stonewalling of IRS applications from groups they hated, then clammed up and claimed the Fifth Amendment before Congress,” he wrote, “which had every right to demand an explanation of why government goons figuratively ‘broke the legs’ of groups who were conservative, Christian, pro-life, promarriage or pro-Israel.”
He, and many others like him, are “seething” over the fact that taxpayer funds were used to settle the lawsuits filed by taxpayers against the IRS and officials like Lerner.
“Lois Lerner and her deputy, Holly Paz, have asked that their sworn depositions be sealed in perpetuity because they are afraid what the taxpayers would do to them if their testimony were made public,” Huckabee wrote.
“I’m pretty sure that every criminal in America would love to have the details of their crimes sealed from public view for eternity, but only God can forgive sin and wipe it clean–and that only happens when we confess, repent and accept the consequences,” he added.
Huckabee stated that even as he understood Lerner and people like her to be incredibly arrogant, he nevertheless couldn’t fathom the gall of such people in demanding that the actions they took as part of a government agency to target and harass tax-paying citizens be kept hidden forever from the public, especially when tax-payer funds were used to settle what they had done.
“If there are legitimate threats to their safety, tell the police,” Huckabee stated. “That’s what the rest of us do who live in public careers and have people threaten us.”
“But if that’s not good enough for Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz, I would like to suggest that, since they are accustomed to living of the taxpayers, we should provide a safe place for them in a taxpayer-funded facility,” he added. “It’s called a federal penitentiary.”
We couldn’t agree with Huckabee more–if Lois Lerner feels that she is threatened by lawabiding, tax-paying citizens who would be angered by what she said in her deposition, then perhaps she should be placed in the one location safe from said citizens–a prison. The IRS division under the control of Lerner abused the citizenry by its actions, and there ought to be a full public accounting of exactly what happened, and by whom.
If our nation is ever to move on from this dismal example of ideological bureaucrats using purportedly non-partisan government agencies for decidedly partisan purposes, then Lerner’s testimony must be made public, and any legitimate threats against her dealt with accordingly.
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