It wasn't what Lois Lerner said at yesterday's House hearing that incriminated her -- but what she didn't. For the second time, the former head of the IRS's tax-exempt division pled the Fifth Amendment, dodging the tough questions about the agency's discrimination against conservative and Christian groups. Government Oversight and Reform Chair Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said over the weekend he was confident Lerner would testify, only to be proved wrong in a frustrating display of administration obstructionism.

Lerner sat quietly through the series of damning slides from Issa's investigation, her silence deafening. Determined to get answers, the California Republican asked Lerner what she meant when she emailed colleagues that tea party cases were "very dangerous." He pressed her about a message to her staff about initiating a "c4 project," after which she wrote, "we need to be cautious so it isn't a per se political project." When she weighed the applications of nonprofit groups with the word "tea party" or "patriot" in their titles, Issa wanted to know why they had to undergo a "multi-tier review" instead of the standard process. What did Lois mean, for example, when she suggested writing new regulations on political speech for c4 groups that was "off-plan" in 2013? The response to every question was the same: "On the advice of my counsel, I ... (more)