Rising star in the Republican Party, Representative Trey Gowdy(R-SC) sits on the House Oversight Committee along with Darrell Issa and Elijah Cummings. Gowdy met with the press yesterday after former IRS official Lois Lerner surprised the House committee by pleading the Fifth Amendment for the second time in so many visits to Capitol Hill.
Rep. Gowdy does not blame Lerner for the abrupt reversal of her anticipated testimony, but rather her attorney, in response to what was “supposedly” offensive comments made by both Issa and Gowdy.
He told the media that he never intended to “ask her what her favorite color was.” Quite the contrary, he intended all along to “ask tough questions.”
“You make someone talk if they don’t want to, he said. “What you can do is give them an incentive to talk or you can punish them for not talking, and that’s contempt. But make no mistake, we can’t make her tell us what she knows, we can just punish her if she doesn’t and that’s where I would like to see us go”
Issa plans to take a committee vote for a contempt of Congress citation.
As Gowdy put it, “Either she talks and we’ll negotiate a resolution with her or she doesn’t and we hold her in contempt of Congress. I did this for 16 years, trust me, we can get her to talk.”
No comment from Lerner’s attorney.
