mr. gowdy? >> thank you. when mr. cummings talks about rights, i listen. he was a very good attorney. i will listen because i'm familiar with his personal narrative. hile he was talking, i scribbled down you have a right to confront your witness. that is the same document. you have a right to cross-examine witnesses. i think it is important for us to spend a minute on why our framers thought it was so important you be able to confront and cross-examine witnesses. it is the single best way to elicit the truth. you have a right to remain silent. you have a right to a jury trial. it is waived every day across this country. when you plead guilty, that is your waiver of your right to a jury trial. you have a right to counsel in felony cases. people waive it all the time and representingtake of themselves. when we talk about rights, let's talk about all the rights, including the right to confront witnesses and cross-examine witnesses. it is important industry and why we were given those rights. ms. lerner is an attorney. she is not like the folks mr. cummings re

sometimes i agree with mr. gowdy, we don't like it when they assert the fifth amendment because a lot of times the people who make that assertion are not the model boy of the village. we get that. but it is a right that we cherish here in the united states because it prevents things like what mr. connolly was referring to, the star chamber, where people would be dragged in, tortured, forced to testify against themselves and then incarcerated because of that. we didn't like that when it happened and we don't like it now. a i want to say, this is bill of rights brought up by our founding fathers, but it is a bill of rights that since then, brave men and women in this nation have fought, bled and died for. it is not something lightly to be tossed away just because we're mad at an i.r.s. employee. and so i join in the ranking member's objection to this proceeding today and i also want to meet mr. gowdy's challenge when he says can you imagine a situation? we don't have to imagine a situation where somebody invoked the fi

we now go to the drama from south carolina mr. gowdy. >> thank you mr. chairman. when mr. cummings talks about rights mr. chairman i will listen. i will listen because he was a very good attorney and i will listen because i'm familiar with his personal narrative and while he was talking i scribbled down down -- you have a right to remain silent and you also have a right in the document that the right to remain silent at this in. you have a right to cross-examine witnesses mr. chairman and it's important for us to spend just a minute on why our framers thought it was so important that we be able to confront and cross-examine witnesses because it is the single best way to elicit the truth. yes you have a right to remain silent. you also have a right to a jury trial but it's waived every day across this country. when you plead guilty that is a waiver of your right to attorney trial. you have a right to counsel in felony cases. people wave at all the time and make the mistake of representing themselves. so we are not talking about rights, let's talk about all the rights includ

i would love to hear even some of the answers to what my good friend mr. gowdyresented because they are legitimate questions ey are that will allow its committee to work most effectively and efficiently. that instance the idea there are rights, that one had -- can assert not incriminate herself, i think we have to deal with that first. as i said in my opening statement, it's not about -- this is bigger than us. it's bigger than this moment. erner. ger than ms. is ngressman cummings correct. we do have constitutional rights. however that as with all of our constitutional rights one can waive them and so the question becomes whether mr. lerner either by protesting her innocence through the house committee or the statement she gave to the department of justice, whether she has waived them or not that's a legal question. it seems assuming the parts an politics is out of this equation and we'll see what a court of law has to say about it. i don't think that his argument is frivolous. however by no means is it clear that mrs. learner through her contact has not waived