Better. Because of miss learners because of her unwillingness to fully testify nd because she has refused to legally cooperate with this investigation, i urge my in the house to hold miss learner in contempt. Yield back. Gentleman leads back. Gentleman from maryland is recognized. To the distinguish gentleman from massachusetts mr. Minutes. Ee gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for they minutes. Thank you mr. Speaker and i from the gentleman maryland. In response to the recent allegations i do want to point did look ur committee at the question of political motivation and selecting tax applications. We ask the did look inspector g before the ways and Means Committee and i quote, did any evidence of motivation. N response, they testified, we did not, sir. R. Speaker, i rise in strong opposition to the contempt resolution. What began as a bipartisan targetingion into the of american citizens by the surface has ew deteriorated into the very short careless us and overreaching that our committee tkpaeut in to invest the first place. They commenced this nvestigation in may 2013 by stating the following during his opening statement. Is used toment power target americans for exercising rights there is nothing more important than take t seriously and get to the ottom of it and eradicate the behavi behavior. It does not only extend to cases where a powerful federal epartment has deprived itizens, rather we must be equally vigilant who have aserd her rights under the fifth amendment. No person should be compelled to against him or herself without due process of law. A system where innocent until Proven Guilty lies at the of our protections, miss learners innocence, 36 words, enough of vis its rights. In the face of Supreme Court vast body of a legal Expert Opinion holding that mr. Learner did not wave fifth amendment privilege by this sing her innocence, is a contempt proceeding without the members of our own committee the opportunity for testimony. As held by the smith court in 1949 in versus United States, testimony infurred. Be lightly reasonable ndulge presumption against finding a testimonial wave. Has chosen contempt against miss learner after an offer from her attorney so his client could provide the testimony that sides of this aisle have been asking. Legally flawed contempt bring us no closer the partisan ct manner in which this 14 million investigation so far has been conducted to the date. Has refused to release the full transcripts and he has also recently released two Staff Reports on these events that are were not provided. Ask my colleges to oppose this resolution. Back. Man yields gentleman from california is recognized. Id like to correct the record. It is now 40 transcribed interviews a received and we 12,000 emails from lois learner. That 14 million probably went up the irs turned over some of the documents they owed this subpoena for r half a year. Now recognize the distinguished gentleman from two minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and mr. Speaker. Ts probably nothing more sacred to americans, nothing important to protect than the democrat electoral process has made this by the far the greatest country in the everyone an to participate. Hold lois today to been r in contempt its stated she didnt have her rights recognized. Take the e right to fifth. Shes done that under the constitution. We brought her in twice, may 2013, march 2014. You can see the tapes, declaring her innocence, she was pointed out she was at the heart of the matter. In fact her when she tried to employees under the bus they said she threw them convoy of mack trucks. Every road leads to lois learner. Held the congress of the United States in contempt. Held them in contempt. Lois learner has held the people and and the process they cherish and the agency, the irs who all have to account to as a manipulate a national election. Targeted directed attempt and every road leads to lois learner. Opportunity ce the to come before congress and to tell the whole truth and nothing she has failednd to do that and i urge that we contempt. Learner in thats our responsibility and it done. E yield back the balance of my time. The gentleman from california reserves and the gentleman from maryland recognizes. Due respect to the the itan who spoke, even found that lois learner did not a year out it until afterwards. Yield three minutes to the distinguished to mr. Conway. Virginia is from recognized for three minutes. Thank you mr. Speaker and i dear friend of the reform committee. If they had witnessed the proceedings on the oversight and Reform Community with they t to lois learner would have reaffirmed their ommitment to the fifth amendment because rights were on. Pled efore cutting off entirely the our commit if of i. But then we trampled on the fifth amendment. The core has said the self ncrimination clause must be accorded liberal instruction in avor of the right it was intended to secure. Trussed. Its the same. The equivalent of the presumption of innocence. And theyaid if all men all meant all women and men are need it. Wouldnt lois learner is not to be defended. Citizen who has an right in the constitution of the United States. Case comes from the 1950s. A u. S. Citizen was asked questions. Learner had alois statement claiming her innocence that she was not a spy. Not miss hoeing once in a while answered yes or no to put to her. She was found to be in contempt. The chairman of the community on it and said, gotcha. Two kwraoersz later the court wise. 0 they ruled that miss hoeing had fifth amendment somehow that didnt sreurb its her invocation of fifth amendment right and it was upheld. Op the about trampling rights of the citizens. A a very crass reason for political reason we heard the leader ish majority assert something thats not true which is not that only con serve targeted by were the irs thats not true and we have testimony its not true. Occupy, acorn, progressive were all part of the socalled list. Tense. An incompetent to the level of scandal that somehow it goes all way to the white house . Absolutely untrue. Have to the enter house of now voting on and declaring aoupb citizen hat a u. S. Chris r Constitutional Rights, i yield back. Is recogni. Mr. Issa nobody answered the debunking we put out this document this document makes it clear it was all about targeting and abusing conservative groups and the gentleman from virginia knows that very well. With that, its my honor to yield two minutes to the gentleman from oklahoma who has champion sod many of these issues in our investigation, mr. Lankford. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. Mr. Lankford thank you, mr. Speaker. About three years ago, all of our offices started getting phone calls from constituents. They were being said they were being asked unusualle unusual questions by the i. R. S. They were applying for nonprofit status. They were patriot groups, tea party groups, they were getting questions coming back new york questions like, tell us as the i. R. S. Every conversation youve had with a legislator in the and the contents of those conversations. Tell us and give us cop dwhroifs documents that are only given to members of your organization. If theres a private part of your website thats only set aside for members, show us all of those pages and by the way, all of those questions were prefaced with the statement from the i. R. S. , whatever documents you give us will also be made public to everyone. So the statement was, tell us what you privately talked about with legislators, tell us what only your members get because were going to publish it. So of course we start to get questions about that. The Inspector General starts an investigation on that. On may 10 of last year, 2013, lois lerner stands up in a conference, plants a question in the audience to talk about something completely irrelevant to the conference so she can leak out that this investigation is about to be burst out and four days later, the Inspector General launches out this investigation and says, conservative groups have een unfairly targeted. 298 groups had their applications held, isolated. They were asked for all these things when they turneding to be yumets in, they were store the initial accusation is, this was a crazy group from cincinnati that did this so our committee happened to bring in these folks from cincinnati. They all said they wanted to be able to advance these applications and they were told no. We asked the names of the people in washington that told them to hold them. We brought those folks in. They said they wanted to move them. They were told by the counsels office to hold them. As we continue to work through point after point, through person after person, all come back to lois lerners office. Lois lencher who had come in before us on may 22 of 2013, made a long statement professing her innocence, saying shed done nothing wrong, has broken no law, and then said i wont answer questions. Whats at stake here is a constitutional principle, can a person sit for a court or before congress and make a long statement, ive done nothing wrong and then choose to not answer questions . This is a precedent before every congress from here on out and in front of every court. Can this be zphone and we would say no. Its not just a statement about accepting that shes guilty. Though all the evidence leads back to her and her office. Its, if you have the right to remain silent, do you actually remain silent during that time period . With that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from california reserves. Mr. Cummings i would say to the gentleman, we are talking about the Constitutional Rights of a United States sint and we do not have the right United States citizen and we do not have the right to remain silent if those rights are being trampled on. I yield three minutes to the distinguished leader from hoyer from maryland. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized. Mr. Hoyer thank you, mr. Speaker. If this is a precedent, it is a bad precedent. It is a dangerous precedent. It is a precedent that we ought not to make. Read the constitution, i heard, over and over and over again. Ive read probably the opinions of 25 lawyers whom i respect from many great institutions in this country. None of whom, as im sure the Ranking Member has pointed out, none of wm believe that the precedent supports this action. Mr. Speaker, what a waste of the peoples time. For congress to spend this week on politics and not policy. We are about to vote on a resolution that is really a partisan political message. Everyone here agrees. Everyone. That the i. R. S. Should never target anyone based on anything other than what they owe in taxes. Not their political beliefs or any other traits. Other than their liability and their opportunities to pay the fair share to the United States of america. And in fact, during the exhaustive investigation into the i. R. S. , chairman issas committee, interviewed 39 witnesses, analyzed more than 530,000 pames and could not find the pages and could not find the conspiracy they were looking for. That they always look for. That they always allege. 14 million of taxpayer money has already been spent on this investigation. And all that was found was that which we already knew. That the division led by ms. Lerner suffered from fundamental administrative and managerial shortcomings that bore no connection to poll tirks or to to politics or to partisanship. Independent legal experts concluded that chairman issas efforts to hold ms. Lerner in contempt of congress is constitutionally deficient. This resolution before us today is of course not meant to generate policy. Its nonet generate headlines. Its meant to generate headlines. Republicans once again are showing that they are more interested in partisan Election Year gimmicks than working in a bipartisan way to tackle our countrys most pressing challenges. We ought to turn to the important matters of creating jobs, raising the minimum wage, restoring emergency unemployment for those who are struggling to find work. Issues the American People overwhelmingly support and want their congress to address. I urge my colleagues to give this partisan resolution the vote it deserves. And to feed and defeat it so we can turn to the peoples business. In closing, let me say this, mr. Speaker. There are 435 of us in this body. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman will suspend. The gentleman from california reserves. The gentleman from maryland is recognized, the gentleman from maryland is recognized for an additional 30 seconds. Mr. Hoyer i thank the gentleman. I urge all my colleagues, do not think about party on this vote. Think about precedent. Think about this institution. Think about the constitution of the United States of america. And if you havent read, read some of the legal opinions. That say you have to establish a predicate before you can tell an american that they will be held criminally liable if they tobet respond to your questions. If they dont respond to your questions. Thats what this issue is about. Not about party. Not about any of us. But about the constitutional protection this is a every american deserves and ought to be given and i yield back the balance of my time. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from maryland reserves. Mr. Couple spgs may i inquire how much time is remaining . The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from maryland has eight and a quarter minutes remaining, the gentleman from california has eight minutes remaining. Mr. Issa i want to correct the record, earlier a minority member stated that with 35 words said by lois lerner, our count is 305. Hopefully the inaccuracy of their experts will be considered the same. With that, i yield two minutes to the gentleman from arizona, mr. Gosar. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. Mr. Gosar i thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, i rise in support of this resolution. The peoples house has thor hi documented lois lerners trespasses, including her history of targeting conservative groups as well as the laws she has broke. Theres a 443page committee reporting supporting these allegations. We know ms. Lerner refuses to comply with a duly issued subpoena from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and without ms. Lerners full cooperation the American Public will not have the answers it needs from its government. My friends across the aisle have continuously cried foul over this legitimate investigation. But where is there evidence where is their evidence to put this to rest . I do not enjoy hold anything federal official in contempt or pursuing criminal charges because doing so mean we was a government run amok and a u. S. Attorney general who does not uphold the rule of law and such a predicament is a loselose situation for all americans and our constitution. As uncomfortable as it may be, it is our job to proceed in the name of government accountability. I support this resolution and it is way pastime for contempt for lois lerner. With that, i yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman yields back. The gentleman from california reserves. The gentleman from maryland is recognized. Mr. Cummings i yield two minutes to mr. Welch. Mr. Welch i thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, theres a reason that the American People hold the congress of the United States in such low esteem. Were providing them with some additional basis to have that opinion. And heres what it is. Number one, this was an important investigation. We should do it. We should do it energetically and we should do it together. Instead, information was constantly withheld from the minority. Our own Ranking Member was cut off with really quite a bold gesture by the chairman at a certain point, and it created an impression that it was going to be a onesided affair rather than a balanced cooperative approach. Thats essential to having any credibility. The second thing is, what do we do about mrs. Lowey who took the fifth will lois lerner who took the fifth . And the manner which she did that took her to waive that. Your side think she waived it and therefore should be held in contempt. Our side, and we have the side of legal opinion, said she didnt waive it. You know, thats a legal question and there is a document called the constitution that separates the powers. Whether this person crossed the line or didnt the idea that a congress, this time run by republicans, next time by democrats, can have a right to make a determination about the rights of a citizen is in complete conflict with the separation of powers in our constitution. I yield back. The speaker pro tempore the gentleman from vermont yields back. The gentleman from maryland reserves. The gentleman from california is recognized. Mr. Issa i thank the gentleman from vermont in advance for his yes vote on this because the only way to send this to the court to be decided is to vote yes. In fact, we are not try lois lerner. We are determining that she should be tried. The question should be before a federal judge. With that, i yield two minutes to the gentlelady from wyoming a member of the committee, mrs. Lummis. The speaker pro tempore the gentlelady is recognized for two minutes. Mrs. Lummis thank you, mr. Speaker. I contend that in the interest of protections the protecting the Constitutional Rights of this country from the behavior of the i. R. S. , from lois lerner, herself a lawyer, who understands that you can waive your right to remain silent as to matters to which you chose to testify. And that she did that. She said, ive done nothing wrong, i have broken no laws, subsequently, we find out that she blamed the rimplet s. Employees in cincinnati for wrongdoing that was going on here in washington, d. C. That she was targeting conservative groups and only conservative groups, thereby violating their First AmendmentConstitutional Rights. The Oversight Committee needs to find the truth and to that end, we need answers from lois lerner. The committee has sought these answers for more than a year. Lerners refusal