You Won’t Believe What Lois Lerner Said About The IRS Scandal In Her First Interview In Over A Year

Flanked by 3 lawyers–including her husband–Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the agency’s scandal involving conservative groups gave an interview to Politico‘s Rachael Bade published this morning.

In it, she refused to apologize or give any concrete answers as to her role in the controversy, instead she attempted to rehabilitate her image:

“Lois Lerner is toxic — and she knows it. But she refuses to recede into anonymity or beg for forgiveness for her role in the IRS tea party-targeting scandal.

“‘I didn’t do anything wrong,’ Lerner said in her first press interview since the scandal broke 16 months ago. “I’m proud of my career and the job I did for this country.”

“Lerner, who sat down with POLITICO in an exclusive two-hour session, has been painted in one dimension: as a powerful bureaucrat scheming with the Obama administration to cripple right-leaning nonprofits. Interviews with about 20 of her colleagues, friends and critics and a survey of emails and other IRS documents, however, reveal a much more complicated figure than the caricature she’s become in the public eye.

“The portrait that emerges shows Lerner is, indeed, fierce, unapologetic and perhaps even tone-deaf when she says things that show her Democratic leanings. She had a quick temper and may have intimidated co-workers who could have helped her out of this mess. It’s easy to see how Republicans have seized on the image of a devilish figure cracking down on conservative nonprofits.”

Her former chief of staff, Nikole Flax, spoke of Lerner’s hot temper:

“But her former co-workers and some friends say she could be a stern boss, short-tempered and prone to brash comments. IRS employees either really loved her big personality and loud bark — or really didn’t.

“‘Lois had the personality where she said what she thought immediately,’ Nikole Flax, Miller’s chief of staff, told House Oversight investigators, later adding: ‘We didn’t always get along. … We would have occasions when I would, you know, call her, and she could scream for a minute.’

“Lerner chuckled in the interview, acknowledging that she can get a little passionate — but she said she never holds grudges.”

The interview is not all about Lerner’s temper and role in the scandal. She tries to show her “softer side” by supplying anecdotes about saving animals during Hurricane Katrina and paying for her babysitter’s son to attend college.

Even Bade concedes that as head of the division in question, Lerner “certainly bears some of the blame for the selective scrutiny of tea party applications, and numerous emails understandably raise eyebrows.”

“Emails released by Congress suggest Lerner knew about the tea party groups being flagged in 2010 and put a stop to the inappropriate “be on the lookout” criteria right when she learned about it in summer 2011. But she didn’t follow up to ensure agents stopped using politically charged words. They actually went right back to the practice.”

One last interesting tidbit about Lerner’s life is relayed at the end of the article. According to Bade, Lerner still lives in her $2.5 million home in Bethesda, Maryland and a congressional sources says she’s still receiving her $100,000 a year annual government pension.

That’s right.

Your tax dollars are paying Lois Lerner $100,000 a year and still she refuses to cooperate with investigators.

She’s willing to talk to Politico, but not the United States Congress.

It’s time to stop the games and fight back against Lois Lerner, the IRS, and an out of control Obama Administration.

Join us today.