Former Obama administration official Lois Lerner is calling for her testimony on her unlawful targeting of Conservative groups as an IRS executive to be sealed due to “death threats”.
Former IRS executive Lois G. Lerner told a federal court last week that members of her family, including “young children,” face death threats and a real risk of physical harm if her explanation of the tea party targeting scandal becomes public.
Ms. Lerner and Holly Paz, her deputy at the IRS, filed documents in court Thursday saying tapes and transcripts of depositions they gave in a court case this year must remain sealed in perpetuity, or else they could spur an enraged public to retaliate.
“Whenever Mss. Lerner and Paz have been in the media spotlight, they have faced death threats and harassment,” attorneys for the two women argued.
Ms. Lerner and Ms. Paz gave taped depositions in a class-action lawsuit brought by tea party groups demanding answers and compensation for having been subjected to illegal targeting for their political beliefs.
The government settled the class-action lawsuit in Ohio and another tea party challenge in the District of Columbia in two agreements last month, admitting to the illegal behavior. The Ohio settlement also called for the government to pay $3.5 million to the tea party groups, according to one of the plaintiffs.
Ms. Lerner came in for particular criticism, with the government admitting she not only didn’t stop the targeting — contradicting the Obama administration’s claims — but also hid it from her superiors in Washington.
Mr. Meckler, a Tea Party leader had a lot to say about these women wanting to keep these tapes secret.
“These words matter. They have created a fertile environment where threats and harassment against Mss. Lerner and Paz have flourished,” the lawyers said.
Mr. Meckler laughed when he learned about the filing.
“Four years of harassing innocent American citizens for their political beliefs, and she’s scared of a guy in a cowboy hat talking to a bunch of little old ladies at a tea party event?” he said, recounting the speech where he called IRSagents “thugs.”
He said if the depositions didn’t show any bad action on her part, then Ms. Lerner should have nothing to fear from their release to the public.
“The reality is because she knows she is guilty as the day is long and she doesn’t want people to know what she actually did,” he said.
“It’s hard to have any sympathy for the women. And frankly, I don’t believe she’s genuinely scared,” Mr. Meckler said.
The Trump administration has officially backed the release of these tapes although Trump’s DOJ did fail to reopen an investigation into Lerner earlier this year.
All information pertaining to this case needs to be released. These two women and specifically Lois Lerner had no problem targeting Tea-Party groups and doing all she could to attack them from her position of power. Her supposed “fear” does nothing to change that and so the American people deserve to know what happened.
