After the vote on Lerner, the matter will then likely move to court. | M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Contempt vote for Lerner next week

The House will vote to hold former IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress next week, Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office announced on Thursday.

If the Republican-controlled House approves a contempt charge, as expected, the vote would be the most serious repercussion against any IRS employee handed down as part of a nearly yearlong probe into the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.


Lerner set off the furor when she acknowledged the hold-up of tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status at a conference last May. An inspector general report that came out days later criticizing the agency, but finding no partisan motivations, led to a major scandal.

( PHOTOS: Lois Lerner returns to the Hill)

After the vote, the matter will then most likely move to court, where a judge will determine whether Lerner had a right to invoke her Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer House GOP lawmakers’ questions about her role in the controversy.

Lerner’s lawyer earlier this week implored House leadership to allow him to tell his client’s side of the story on the House floor — a request brushed aside by House Speaker John Boehner. Lerner maintains her innocence, and her lawyer says she has every right to refuse questioning that could be self-incriminating.

At issue is whether a brief statement Lerner made at a House Oversight Committee hearing last May effectively waived her rights.

Republicans aren’t stopping with next week’s contempt resolution. Two GOP lawmakers involved in the investigation told POLITICO on Thursday they’re also crafting a measure aimed at lighting a fire under the Justice Department’s own investigation into the matter, which the GOP has questioned because one of the agents is an Obama donor.

The Justice Department maintains that the investigation is impartial and ongoing.

Such a resolution would come a few weeks after the House Ways and Means Committee voted to refer Lerner to the Justice Department for prosecution.

The controversy cost former IRS Commissioner Steven Miller his top post, and several other officials have stepped down or retired, but no employee has faced criminal charges.

The House Oversight Committee, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), started the contempt process last May when they called on Lerner, then-director of the IRS tax-exempt division, to testify. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination and avoided answering any of the committee’s questions.