House Vote on Former I.R.S. Official Signals Element of G.O.P. Election Strategy

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to hold Lois Lerner, a former Internal Revenue Service official accused by Republicans of abusing power, in contempt, laying bare the bitter divide over which much of the midterm elections will be fought.

It was a moment of high drama, complete with allegations that the White House oversaw a Watergate-style cover-up that helped steal a presidential election, and invocations of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his delusions of widespread conspiracy.

Republicans spent much of the day laying out a case for why the Obama administration is politically corrupt and, by extension, why Democrats could not be trusted with power. In doing so they revealed the issues that, in addition to unhappiness with the Affordable Care Act, will form the legs of the stool on which their campaign strategy will rest.
Continue reading the main story

Republican leaders hope that with the series of events they set in motion with the vote, which passed 231-187 along party lines, they will expose a pattern of cover-up and political whitewashing by the White House.

Separately, the House approved a resolution calling on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate allegations that the I.R.S. targeted Tea Party groups.

More From The New York Times: