Lois Lerner, the IRS staffer who is under fire for her role in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups, has been placed on administrative leave, according to congressional aides. 
 
 
 
 She will still be paid while on leave, a congressional aide said, as required under civil service rules. 
 
 Lerner, who heads an IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, first disclosed the extra scrutiny the agency gave to Tea Party groups almost two weeks ago when answering a planted question at a Washington legal conference. 
 
 Since then, lawmakers from across the political spectrum have said that they believe Lerner misled them and have called for her dismissal. 
 
 
 
 Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), a senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said in a Thursday statement that new acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel had asked Lerner to resign — and that Lerner was only placed on leave after she declined that request. Aides on Capitol Hill confirmed that Lerner had refused to resign. 
 
 In her first public appearance since the disclosure, Lerner on Wednesday invoked her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination at a House Oversight hearing. 
 
 
 
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 The IRS announced in an internal memo circulated to the media that Ken Corbin will be taking over as the acting director of the tax-exempt organizations division. Corbin, a 25-year veteran at the IRS, has been deputy director in a division that processed millions of tax returns a year. 
 
 Lerner’s move to administrative leave comes after President Obama pushed out acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller over his role in the targeting. Werfel, formerly a senior official at the Office of Management and Budget, took over as acting commissioner on Wednesday. 
 
 
 
 The IRS also announced after the controversy broke that Joseph Grant, Lerner’s boss at the agency, will retire in early June. 
 
 
 
 Lerner will likely have to make her way back to Capitol Hill in the coming weeks, after House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) concluded that she waved her rights against self-incrimination by defending herself in an opening statement at Wednesday's hearing. 
 
 
 
 Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Thursday became the latest prominent lawmakers to call for Lerner to be removed, in a letter to Werfel made public shortly before news of Lerner’s administrative leave broke. 
 
 
 
 Reps. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), Joe Crowley (D-N.Y) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) have also called for Lerner to be pushed out. 
 
 "In naming Ken Corbin as acting director to replace Lois Lerner, the administration has taken a strong step to address serious mistakes made by the IRS Exempt Organization Division," Levin said in a statement. "This and further corrective action are vital in restoring the confidence of the American people." 
 
 
 
 According to a Treasury audit, Lerner found out in June 2011 that IRS staffers were giving extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt 501(c)(4) status by searching for organizations with names like “Tea Party” and “patriots.” 
 
 
 
 Lerner immediately ordered that the criteria targeting conservative groups be changed, but staffers in a Cincinnati office eventually once again implemented more political screening criteria, according to the audit. 
 
 
 
 “I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee,” Lerner told House Oversight on Wednesday. 
 
 
 
 “Because I'm asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I've done something wrong. I have not.” 
 
 
 
 The audit, from Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration, also found that some groups waited months, even years, for their tax-exempt applications to be approved. 
 
 
 
 National Review first reported that Lerner was being placed on administrative leave. 
 
 The publication also reported late Thursday that letters suggest Lerner was directly involved in the agency’s targeting of conservative groups more than nine months after she first learned of the activity. 
 
 — This story was updated at 7:34 p.m. ||||| Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner will invoke her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself when she appears before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. 
 
 In a letter to Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Lerner’s attorney William W. Taylor III cites the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the issue of whether the IRS singled out tea party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny. 
 
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 reset This week in Congress Former IRS chief 'dismayed' 
 
 Lerner, who oversaw the IRS nonprofit department, will be the first person involved with the IRS scandal to publicly invoke the Fifth Amendment. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: Former IRS chief Doug Shulman 'dismayed' at targeting) 
 
 “Just when you think things can’t get any stranger around here, they take a twist,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told POLITICO, adding, “this is a very serious matter.” 
 
 Taylor’s letter requests that Lerner be excused from testifying, but Issa has issued a subpoena to compel her appearance. 
 
 “Requiring her to appear at the hearing merely to assert her Fifth Amendment privilege would have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her,” Taylor wrote. 
 
 Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said Lerner’s decision shows she is “afraid” to face Congress and account for her actions. 
 
 (PHOTOS: 8 key players in IRS scandal story) 
 
 The decision to take the fifth is a “slap in the face” to Americans, said Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.). 
 
 “What’s she hiding?” Buchanan asked. “The American people demand and deserve answers. Pleading the Fifth is a direct slap in the face of every American taxpayer betrayed by the IRS’s gross abuse of power.” 
 
 Issa has accused Lerner of lying to Congress on four separate occasions last year. He and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote a letter to Lerner last week asking her to brief the Oversight Committee on the disparities in her comments before the scandal broke on the criteria used to flag conservative applications for tax-exempt status. 
 
 “It appears that you provided false or misleading information on four separate occasions last year in response to the Committee’s oversight of the IRS’s treatment of conservative groups applying for tax exempt status,” Issa and Jordan wrote. 
 
 The California Republican has cast himself as the chief investigator of the administration and had demanded Lerner’s presence to better understand when the IRS learned of the extent of the targeting program. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Pleading the Fifth on the Hill) 
 
 Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, said he expects Lerner to appear before the panel Wednesday, but had suggested she may invoke her Fifth Amendment right. 
 
 “She might, she very well may,” Cummings told reporters Tuesday afternoon when asked if she could invoke the Fifth Amendment. “We’ll see when she comes. She will be there.” 
 
 The question was prompted by Cummings correcting himself after saying she would be testifying on Wednesday. 
 
 “She should be testifying. She should be there tomorrow,” Cummings said, correcting himself. “I expected her to be there.” 
 
 Asked whether she could show up and not testify, he said, “I can’t answer that right now.” 
 
 Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman and J. Russell George, the IRS inspector general who conducted the investigation, are scheduled to testify. 
 
 Taylor has been involved in several high-profile cases in recent years, including the defense of former IMF President Dominique Strauss-Kahn against criminal assault charges and leading the team that obtained dismissal of claims against former NYSE official and Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone, according to the website of his firm, Zuckerman Spaeder. 
 
 He has given over $100,000 to Democratic candidates and causes over the years, according to Federal Election Commission records. Taylor donated $57,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 and $10,000 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012 last year. 
 
 The Los Angeles Times first reported Lerner’s intention to invoke the Fifth Amendment. ||||| House Republicans on Wednesday accused former IRS official Lois Lerner of breaking agency rules by aggressively urging denial of tax-exempt status to Crossroads GPS, the giant political nonprofit founded by Karl Rove. 
 
 The House Ways and Means Committee released emails showing the former chief of the tax-exempt unit took a special interest in Crossroads GPS in early 2013 — inquiring with IRS officials why they hadn’t been audited. Around the same time an email suggested she might be applying for a job with a pro-President Barack Obama group, Organizing For Action, though it is unclear if she was joking. 
 
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 reset Cummings speaks out against Lerner contempt vote 
 
 Democrats decried the release, calling it an election year gimmick to win over the party’s political base. One campaign finance group came to the defense of Lerner, who has denied any wrongdoing, calling the probe a partisan witch hunt. 
 
 (DRIVING THE DAY: Can spending secure GOP Senate?) 
 
 The Republican committee letter calls her actions an “aggressive and improper pursuit of Crossroads… but no evidence [that] she directed review of similarly situated left-leaning groups.” 
 
 The documents were released after a rare, closed-door Ways and Means markup, where the panel voted 23-14 along party lines to send a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, requesting he take the former head of the IRS tax-exempt division to court — though the department already has an ongoing investigation. 
 
 The scandal, spurred when Lerner publicly acknowledged extra scrutiny of tea party groups followed by a critical inspector general report, has surged back into the spotlight in recent months as congressional committees finish their investigations. 
 
 (PHOTOS: Lois Lerner returns to the Hill) 
 
 Lerner became a lightning rod for Republicans after she pleaded the Fifth and refused to testify before a House panel. The original inspector general report found that the targeting was inappropriate but found no evidence of partisan motivations. 
 
 Republicans want her charged for improperly influencing the IRS to take action against conservative organizations; disclosing confidential taxpayer info, a felony; and impeding an investigation. 
 
 Democrats cried foul play, accusing Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) of releasing private taxpayer information, and said its protests have nothing to do with holding Lerner accountable. 
 
 “This executive session isn’t about any of us condoning the mismanagement at the IRS tax-exempt division,” top panel Democrat Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said after the public was dismissed from the hearing, according to a release. “It now seems clear that Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee have decided that they do not want to be left behind in the Republican campaign to declare this a scandal and keep it going until November.” 
 
 (PHOTOS: 8 key players in IRS scandal story) 
 
 Lerner’s lawyer William Taylor III said he had not heard from Ways and Means on the issue, and maintained his client’s innocence. 
 
 “Ms. Lerner has done nothing wrong,” Taylor, a partner of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP said in a statement. “She did not violate any law or regulation. She did not mislead Congress. She did not interfere with the rights of any organization to a tax exemption. Those are the facts.” 
 
 Camp defended the release. 
 
 “We have a right and obligation to protect the American people and to oversee the IRS and to hold them to account for their actions,” he said. “This was a career employee at the IRS so we have to make sure the signal goes out that this can’t happen again.” 
 
 The Justice Department said it will review the letter and noted it is already probing the matter. 
 
 “It remains a high priority of the Department,” Justice spokeswoman Emily Pierce said. 
 
 The actions come a day before the House Oversight Committee will vote to hold Lerner in contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions on the controversy. 
 
 Advocates for reform of campaign finance rules say the scandal obscures an important policy debate about whether such politically active groups deserve tax-exempt status in the first place. 
 
 Crossroads spent $176 million during the 2012 election cycle — 99 percent of the time to back Republicans and bash Obama and Democrats. Its nonprofit arm spent about $70 million.
– The IRS official at the center of the recent scandal has been placed on administrative leave, reports the National Review. Lois Lerner had been in charge of the agency's tax-exempt unit, which singled out conservative groups for added scrutiny. Her immediate boss already has been forced into early retirement, and critics have been calling for Lerner's head to roll as well. (Her role in using a planted question to make the controversy public hasn't helped her cause.) On Capitol Hill yesterday, Lerner denied any wrongdoing but invoked the Fifth in refusing to answer questions. The chair of the House Oversight panel, Darrell Issa, says he plans to call her back to testify, arguing that she waived her right to the Fifth by making an opening statement, reports the Hill. The decision to put Lerner on leave comes days after the new acting chief of the IRS, Daniel Werfel, took over.