Two years ago, before she took the Fifth Amendment guarantee against self-incrimination, Ms. Lerner was positively chatty in informal briefings with the committee staff.She said emphatically that the IRS had not changed the criteria used to evaluate which organizations qualify for tax-exempt status. Tea Party groups had complained that their applications were being held in limbo while left-wing groups' applications sailed through easily.
The committee says that was Lie No. 1, citing the Treasury Department inspector general's documentation that Ms. Lerner ordered a change in criteria in June 2011.
When Tea Party groups angrily complained about IRS requests for information about their members, Ms. Lerner told investigators that it was "ordinary" for the IRS to ask such groups to provide a full list of the names of donors and how much they gave.
She put the assertion in writing in a letter to the committee. These were identified as Lie No. 2 and Lie No. 3. The IRS commissioner's chief of staff said this had never been done in the history of the agency.
Strike Three, You're Out-a-here!
Ms. Lerner likely expected that "this, too, shall pass." Democrats repeatedly said that "there's no scandal here." Only a handful of reporters bothered to pursue the story.