Embattled IRS Official Lois Lerner Retires from Agency

Lois Lerner, the head of the Internal Revenue Service’s nonprofit unit who emerged as the key figure in the controversy over alleged IRS targeting of conservative groups, retired from the tax agency Monday, the Associated Press reports.

Ms. Lerner was placed on paid leave in May after she disclosed that IRS agents subjected organizations with the words “tea party” in their names that were seeking tax-exempt status to heightened scrutiny then refused to answer congressional questions on the matter, citing the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination.

Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement that a review board was set to propose that Ms. Lerner, a lawyer who joined the IRS in 2001 after more than two decades with other federal agencies, be fired for “neglect of duties” and mismanagement during her stewardship of the exempt-organizations division.