House Votes to Hold Lois Lerner in Contempt

The House voted to hold Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner in contempt today, a symbolic step in the Republican effort to hold the IRS accountable for targeting conservative and Tea Party groups.

The vote was 231 to 187. All voting Republicans voted in favor of the resolution and only 6 Democrats joined them.

Before the vote, Republican members of Congress explained why the vote was so important.

Bachmann said that her experience as a tax attorney convinced her that the targeting of conservative groups could not have originated by low level IRS workers.

Lerner has been the center of the IRS investigation controversy ever since she cited her Fifth Amendment rights, refusing to testify in the congressional investigation.

But Republicans point out Lerner also claimed that she was innocent during the Congressional hearing in which she took the Fifth Amendment.

Gohmert criticized the “weaponization of the IRS” pointing out that everyone in the federal government should apologize to the victims.

Republicans admitted that although they voted to hold Lerner in contempt, it was unlikely that anything would come of it.

Gohmert explained that the vote was an important “next step” in the investigation, but did not predict what would happen afterwards.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a member of the House Oversight Committee, explained that after the resolution passed, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia should refer the contempt resolution to a grand jury.