Tea party leader: We're not going to let Lerner get away
Tea Party members want Congress to call now-retired central figure in IRS scandal back to testify
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," September 24, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: New outrage in the IRS scandal. It turns out embattled IRS official Lois Lerner was one step in front of the axe. The IRS review board was just about ready to fire her, so she quickly announced her retirement. Do you know what that means? Well, because she beat them to it and retired before they fired her, Lerner will reportedly get her full retirement.
Richmond Tea Party executive director Larry Nordvig joins us. Nice to see you again, Larry.
LARRY NORDVIG, RICHMOND TEA PARTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Hi, Greta, good to be back.
VAN SUSTEREN: So tell me your thoughts on Lois Lerner getting her pension, or at least that's what the reports are?
NORDVIG: I'm disgusted. Originally when this whole thing started back in May I had a vision of Lois Lerner in an orange jumpsuit making license plates in some federal prison. Now I'm kind of picturing her on a Caribbean island with a drink in her hand with an umbrella in it living off of my tax money, your tax money, the American people's tax money. This is just crazy.
VAN SUSTEREN: The thing about it is that she had spent the summer on administrative leave, which she has a right to do. And you actually -- I don't know what to say. I mean, it is sort of the gall of it. She won't testify or tell us what happened.
NORDVIG: Exactly.
VAN SUSTEREN: The thing that -- ordinarily I would say she has not been proven guilty of anything. And of course, she hasn't, and there has been no criminal proceeding. But there is an e-mail that has been attributed to her, in which she said the Tea Party, I think, as dangerous. That shows right there. The IRS said they didn't find any political bias wanting to fire her or get rid of her, but they found basically that she was inept.
NORDVIG: Well, I'm not sure we can trust what the IRS says right now. So an in-house critique of Lois Lerner by the IRS really means nothing to me. She did call us very dangerous. Actually, we received letters with her signature on it. We have two of them with her signature on it. I actually have one right here. And you can see Lois Lerner's signature. The timelines that she put out didn't match up. Really what happened was she knew about it all along. It has become very clear. And she took away our First Amendment rights of freedom of association and freedom of speech. She wants to hide behind it.
VAN SUSTEREN: What else she did that's really rotten is not giving you a decision on your tax exemption. She didn't enable you to take a denial and appeal it. She put it in limbo. It's just disgraceful. I don't understand why the IRS doesn't get more subpoenas thrown its way. I don't know why Eric Holder doesn't do more investigating. There are a lot of horror stories about the IRS.
NORDVIG: And we're looking for justice. I think most Americans want to see justice come out of it. And right now nobody has paid for this, and people are just leaving the IRS, resigning with full pay.
VAN SUSTEREN: One step ahead of the axe.
NORDVIG: I mean, I guess I'm in the wrong end of this business, or something, except I have principles and honor, so I can't do that.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, Larry, thank you very much. I'm sorry you are disgusted tonight, but I can understand why. Thank you for joining us.
NORDVIG: OK, thanks, Greta.
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