WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representative's investigatory committee will vote on Friday on the legal future of an embattled tax agency official at the center of the Tea Party targeting scandal, who invoked her constitutional right not to testify last month.
At a May 22 House Oversight and Government Reform hearing, Lois Lerner, the former head of the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt division, invoked her constitutional right not to answer lawmakers' questions.
But by reading a statement before refusing to testify, some Republicans said Lerner waived her rights.
Committee Chairman Republican Darrell Issa dismissed Lerner from the hearing with a warning that she could be called back for another appearance.
If committee members vote on Friday that Lerner waived her rights, she could be brought back before the panel to answer questions, the committee said in a statement on Tuesday.
A lawyer for Lerner, who was director of the IRS tax-exempt unit during the time period when an inspector general found inappropriate scrutiny of Tea Party and other conservatives groups, defended her actions. "Protesting your innocence and invoking right not to answer questions, which is what she did, is not a waiver" of constitutional rights, said Lerner's lawyer, William Taylor, in a statement to Reuters.
(Reporting by Patrick Temple-West; Editing by Kim Dixon and Jackie Frank)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-weigh-rights-irs-official-tea-party-fracas-225309163.html
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