House Republicans are fuming about former IRS official Lois Lerner's decision to give an unapologetic interview to
Politico after she refused to give testimony to Congress about her role in the conservative tea party targeting scandal.
According to Politico, Republicans are blasting Lerner's decision to sit down with the publication after twice pleading the Fifth Amendment. She was voted in
contempt of Congress for refusing to speak.
"Her decision to make unsubstantiated claims to a media outlet while claiming Fifth Amendment protections from answering Congress' questions is telling," House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa said in a statement on Monday. "She appears to have great confidence that her allies in the Obama Administration will not consider legal action after she resigned and declined to discuss the IRS' actions against private citizens."
Lerner insisted in the interview that she hadn't done anything wrong but that she had since suffered from death threats and an inability to get other employment.
Lerner also acknowledged in the interview that she is a Democrat but insisted her ideology played no role in her professional decisions.
House Speaker John Boehner's office also slammed Lerner for saying she was "not sorry for anything I did."
"Thanks to President Obama and his cadre of cover-up artists, we still don't know what exactly that entailed," Bohener's communications adviser, Matt Wolking, wrote in a blog, according to Politico.
Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the IRS Oversight subcommittee, said the interview was "a poke in the eye to the American citizens who were targeted by the IRS."
Lerner's interview also prompted a deluge of Twitter comments and critical reaction from conservative groups.
Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who is representing conservative groups who were caught up the scandal and are suing the agency, said that while she doesn't think Lerner should be subject to death threats, she also has no right to play victim.
"The thing that is remarkable is she shows no remorse or sympathy to the hundreds of groups and ordinary citizens that were subjected to burdensome governmental inquiries that cause."
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