Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., introduced the bill after a OPM report indicated that $340 million in cash bonuses were doled out to members of the Senior Executive Service between 2008 and 2011.

OPM guidelines dictate that bonuses must be between 5 and 20 percent of an executive's annual salary. Awards of more than $10,000 must be approved by the agency's director.

READ MORE at govexec.com.

Republicans in Congress are livid with the IRS over its systematic scrutiny of conservative groups during the 2010 and 2012 elections. Democrats agree that something must be done. Likewise, President Barack Obama isn't at all happy with the tax collectors.

That kind of commonality in Washington is about as rare as a budget surplus. So expect a bumpy ride for the IRS, unloved in the best of times, as a Justice Department criminal investigation and multiple congressional inquiries try to get to the bottom of it all.

The White House on Monday says White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was first informed about an audit of the IRS' inappropriate targeting of conservative groups on April 24 and that she notified senior staff, including Denis McDonough, the chief of staff to President Barack Obama. White House press secretary Jay Carney says Ruemmler "appropriately" decided not to tell Obama at the time because the audit was ongoing.

The audit by a Treasury Department inspector general found that IRS employees singled out groups with names like "tea party" and "patriots" for special scrutiny that delayed their applications for tax exempt status.

Carney said no one in the White House intervened in the inspector general's audit. He says Obama did not learn of the probe until there were news reports about it.

Carney noted that the practice by the IRS workers ended in May 2012.

The central issue is whether IRS agents who determine whether nonprofit organizations have to pay federal income taxes played political favorites or even broke the law when they subjected tea party groups and other conservative organizations to special scrutiny.

Also foremost in the concerns of Congress: Why senior IRS officials, for many months, did not disclose what they had learned about the actions of lower-level employees despite persistent questions from Republican lawmakers and howls from aggrieved organizations.

The IRS is expected to be pesky, even intimidating, to miscreants, but at all times politically neutral. Nonpartisanship is the coin of its realm, perhaps more so than in any other part of government.

"I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives," Obama said in ousting the agency's acting chief, Steven T. Miller.

The president named Daniel Werfel, a senior White House budget official, to take charge of the agency temporarily. Werfel launched a 30-day review of IRS operations, a step unlikely by itself to quiet the storm. Some Republicans want a special counsel appointed to investigate; Democrats are resistant to that.

There's no question IRS actions in the period covering the 2010 congressional elections and the early going of the 2012 presidential campaign have tattered the perception that the agency is clean of political leanings. Whether that was also the reality remains to be discovered.

A report by the Treasury Department's top investigator for tax matters found no evidence that sheer partisanship drove the targeting. But the watchdog disclosed Friday that he is still investigating. His report faulted lax management for not stopping it sooner.

It's a sensitive time for the agency's professionalism to be in doubt because the IRS soon will loom even larger in people's lives. It's to be the enforcer of the individual mandate to carry insurance under Obama's health care law, itself an object of suspicion for many conservatives. To the right, that's insult upon injury from the left.

WHAT WOULD MAKE IT MATTER EVEN MORE

Any effort from top levels of the administration or political operatives to manipulate the IRS for campaign purposes would put the scandal in the realm of Nixonian skullduggery.

The public record as it is known does not show interference.

At the same time, early IRS assurances that high-level people inside the agency did not know what was going on have been contradicted by evidence that the head of the agency's tax-exemption operation and later its deputy commissioner were briefed about it and did not tell Congress.

As well, J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, testified Friday that he informed senior Treasury Department officials of his investigation last summer. Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday, "No one in the White House was aware."

RED-FLAG WORDS

To qualify for exemption from federal income taxes, organizations must show they are not too political in nature to meet the standard. In the cases in question, applications that raised eyebrows were referred to a team of specialists who took a much closer look at a group's operations. That's normal.

But in early 2010, IRS agents in the Determinations Unit began paying special attention to tax-exempt applications from groups associated with the tea party or with certain words or phrases in their materials, according to the IRS inspector general's report. That's not normal.

The red-flag keywords came to include "Patriots," ''Take Back the Country" and "We the People."

That August, agents were given an explicit "be on the lookout" directive for "various local organizations in the Tea Party movement" that are seeking tax-exempt status. Such organizations saw their applications languish except when they were hit with lots of questions, some of which the IRS was not entitled to ask, such as the names of donors.

In June 2011, after the congressional elections, Lois G. Lerner, in charge of overseeing tax-exempt organizations, learned of the flagging and ordered the criteria to be changed right away, the inspector general said. The new guidance was more generic and stripped of any explicit partisan freight. But it did not last.

In January 2012, the screening was modified again, this time to watch for references to the Constitution or Bill of Rights, and for "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government."

The Constitution and Bill of Rights are touchstones for liberals, too. But in modern politics, they've been appropriated as rallying cries of conservatives and libertarians. Finally, that May, such flagging ended.

Altogether, specialists reviewed a variety of potentially too-political applications, presumably covering the liberal-conservative spectrum. But fully one-third of the cases were of the tea party-patriot variety. During the height of the flagging, the inspector general says, all applications fitting the conservative-focused criteria went to the specialists while others that should have stirred concern did not.

In short, if you were with the tea party, you were guaranteed a close second look and almost certainly months more of delay. If you were leading a liberal activist group, maybe yes, maybe no.

ON THE RECEIVING END

"Dealing with this was like dealing with tax day every day for 2½ years," says Laurence Nordvig, executive director of the Richmond Tea Party in Virginia. "Like your worst audit nightmare."

His group applied for tax-exempt status in December 2009 and finally got it in July 2012.

Tom Zawistowski applied for the tax exemption for his group, the Ohio Liberty Coalition, in June 2010 when the flagging was gathering steam. He got it in December 2012, after the presidential election.

The IRS asked him for the identity of the group's members, times and location of group activities, printouts of its website and Facebook pages, contents of speeches and the names and credentials of speakers at forums. He said the IRS also audited his personal finances and his wife's.

"The intent of this was to hurt the ability of tea party groups to function in an election year," he said.

An Associated Press analysis of 93 "tea party" or "patriot" groups found that most were shoestring operations, with only two dozen raising more than $20,000 a year.

FIVE-OH WHAT?

If the IRS merely rolled over and played dead when it got an application for a tax exemption, the government would be even more broke than it is and big money would have an even more pernicious grip on campaigns.

The IRS knows better than most that politically driven organizations, out to elect and defeat candidates, can masquerade as "social welfare" or other charitable entities under the tax-exempting articles of Section 501 (c) of the tax code.

Or they can align themselves with one, allowing unlimited donations to be raised and the identities of the contributors to stay secret as long as the nonprofit entities don't go too far in overt politicking.

In recent years, advocacy groups have paired their nonprofit arms with "super" political action committees, moves that took hold after a series of court rulings - including the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision - loosened the rules on money in politics.

The rulings gave rise to such pairings as the American Crossroads super PAC with its Crossroads GPS nonprofit on behalf of Republicans in the 2012 campaign, and the Priorities USA Action super PAC with its own nonprofit arm, for Obama's benefit.

Section 501 (c) (3) can be the most lucrative financially for organizations because in addition to conferring tax-exempt status, it allows donations to qualifying groups to be tax deductible.

Section 501 (c) (4) doesn't permit tax-deductible donations but gives groups more latitude to lobby and to dabble more directly in political campaigns as long as "social welfare" remains their primary mission. They can also keep their donors secret, a big benefit over more blatantly political super PACs.

It's all complex, squishy and in some ways subjective, so it might not come as a shock that the IRS would look for shortcuts such as political buzzwords and slogans when deciding what a group is really up to. But the record as yet known does not show that the scrutiny cut both ways.

In congressional testimony about the discredited IRS actions, Attorney General Eric Holder said there is good reason to take a skeptical look at some Section 501 applications but "it has to be done in a way that does not depend on the political persuasion of the group."

The panel also talks about the unfolding IRS scandal, the Benghazi emails, the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press telephone records and much more.

Obenshain was nominated by acclamation on a voice vote after his rival, Del. Rob Bell, conceded defeat after the first ballot at the Virginia Republican Convention on Saturday.

Obenshain's father, Richard Obenshain, won the party's U.S. Senate nomination in the same building in 1978, but was killed in August of that year when a small plane carrying him home from a campaign event crashed when Mark Obenshain was 16. John W. Warner took his place on the ballot and won the first of five U.S. Senate terms.

Onstage with Obenshain when he accepted the nomination was his mother and Richard Obenshain's widow, Helen Obenshain.

At the GOP's statewide convention, thousands of conservatives and tea party followers who dominated the Richmond Coliseum Saturday roared their unanimous support for Ken Cuccinelli, who was unopposed for the nomination.

Cuccinelli is an abortion foe who was the first state attorney general to challenge President Barack Obama's health care reforms in 2010.

He faces former Democratic National Committee chairman and Clinton family protege Terry McAuliffe in the Nov. 5 election to become Virginia's 72nd governor.

In remarks to the convention Saturday, Cuccinelli tacked to the center in a speech that stressed mainstream themes and fought back against Democratic attacks portraying him as a right-wing extremist.

He made scant mention of his support for abortion restrictions and instead noted his crackdowns on Internet predators and human traffickers, to exonerate the wrongly convicted and aid the intellectually disabled.

At age 44, the father of seven becomes the youngest Republican nominee for Virginia governor since former Gov. George Allen 20 years ago.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says the U.S. should focus on attracting good jobs, educating workers and ensuring workers get paid a decent living.

Obama has been pushing those priorities in recent visits to Baltimore and Austin, Texas. Obama says he'll make the case in more U.S. cities soon.

Obama says politics in Washington often aren't focused on what Americans care about. He's alluding to a series of political troubles that dogged him last week and overshadowed his agenda.

In the Republican address, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland says red tape in Obama's health care law will drive up costs. He says the embattled IRS needs less power, not more.

The untimely death of Maryland basketball star Len Bias, shocked the Washington area and the NBA. Journalist Dave Ungrady discussed his new book about Bias' death and the lessons young people today are taking from the tragedy.

And, Adam Ortiz, head of the Prince George's County Dept. of Environmental Resources, talked about efforts to rid the county of abandoned, eyesore properties. 

Watch today's show below.

Monday at 10am: D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells for his first in-depth interview since launching his bid for D.C. mayor.

The accusation by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., came as his panel held the first congressional hearing into the tax agency's improper targeting of tea party and other conservative groups. At a session that saw the IRS face harsh criticism from members of both parties, the just-ousted acting chief of the agency, Steven Miller, expressed regret for the heightened reviews.

"I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes that we made and the poor service we provided," Miller told the committee. "The affected organizations and the American public deserve better. Partisanship and even the perception of partisanship have no place at the Internal Revenue Service."

Miller conceded that "foolish mistakes were made" by IRS officials trying to handle a flood of applications for tax-exempt status. He said the process that resulted in conservatives being targeted, "while intolerable, was a mistake and not an act of partisanship."

Though Miller and another top IRS official are stepping down, Camp said that would not be enough.

"The reality is this is not a personnel problem. This is a problem of the IRS being too large, too powerful, too intrusive and too abusive of honest, hardworking taxpayers," Camp said.

Friday's hearing is the first of what are expected to be many on the subject by congressional panels. Underscoring the seriousness of the episode, Miller was sworn in as a witness, an unusual step for the Ways and Means panel and one that could put Miller in jeopardy if he is later shown to have misled lawmakers with his testimony.

Camp referred to a "culture of cover-ups and intimidation in this administration," but offered no other examples.

The administration has been forced on the defensive about last September's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, and the government's seizure of The Associated Press' telephone records as part of a leaks investigation.

Republicans are hoping to link the issues in an effort to raise questions about President Barack Obama's credibility and make it harder for him to press a second-term agenda.

Camp's remark about cover-ups drew a sharp retort from the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan. Levin said if the hearing became a preview of the 2014 political campaigns, "we'll be making a very, very serious mistake."

Even so, Levin also was harshly critical of the IRS's treatment of conservative groups, saying the agency "completely failed the American people." He said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that makes decisions about tax-exempt groups, should be "relieved of her duties."

Miller said the IRS struggled to efficiently handle growing numbers of applications for tax-exempt status.

The agency has said between 2008 and 2012, the number of groups applying for tax-exempt status as so-called social welfare groups more than doubled. Along with that was an increase in complaints that such groups were largely engaging in electoral politics, which is not supposed to be their primary activity.

"I do not believe partisanship motivated the people" at the IRS who engaged in the harsher screening for conservative groups, Miller said.

In recent months, Republicans on the Ways and Means panel had repeatedly asked the IRS about complaints from conservative groups that their applications were being treated unfairly.

On Friday, numerous Republicans wanted to know why Miller and others never told them the groups were being targeted, even after May 2012, when the IRS has said Miller was briefed on the practice. Miller was previously a deputy commissioner whose portfolio included the unit that made decisions about tax-exempt status.

"I did not mislead Congress or the American people," Miller told Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-La., one of several Republicans who challenged him about why he hadn't mentioned the targeting in the past.

Also testifying Friday was J. Russell George, the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration.

In a report he issued this week, George said IRS officials reported they were not politically pressured to target conservative groups. Asked about that conclusion, George said Friday, "We have no evidence at this time to contradict that assertion," but in prepared testimony to the committee he said he is continuing to investigate that question.

George's report concluded that the IRS office in Cincinnati, which screened applications for the tax exemptions, improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for tougher treatment. The report says the practice began in March 2010 and lasted more than 18 months.

The report blamed "ineffective management" for letting IRS officials craft "inappropriate criteria" to review applications from tea party and other conservative groups, based on their names or political views. It found that the IRS took no action on many of the conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status for long periods of time, hindering their fundraising for the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Republicans have spent the past few days trying to link the IRS' improper scrutiny of conservatives to Obama. The president has said he didn't know about the targeting until last Friday, when Lerner acknowledged at a legal conference that conservative groups had been singled out.

Many of the groups were applying for tax-exempt status as social welfare organizations, which are allowed to participate in campaign activity if that is not their primary activity. The IRS judges whether that imprecise standard is met.

Attorney General Eric Holder has said the FBI was investigating whether the IRS may have violated applicants' civil rights.

Obama has rejected the idea of naming a special prosecutor to investigate the episode, saying the investigations by Congress and the Justice Department were sufficient.

Obama has named Daniel Werfel, a top White House budget officer, to replace Miller.

Also Thursday, Joseph Grant, one of Miller's top deputies, announced plans to retire June 3, according to an internal IRS memo. Grant is commissioner of the agency's tax exempt and government entities division, which includes the agents that targeted tea party groups for additional scrutiny.

Grant joined the IRS in 2005 and took over as acting commissioner of the tax exempt and government entities division in December 2010. He was just named the permanent commissioner May 8.

When asked whether Grant was pressured to leave, IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said Grant had more than 31 years of federal service and it was his personal decision to leave.

Werfel will replace Steven Miller, ousted Wednesday amid revelations that the IRS improperly singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny.

The 42-year-old Werfel is the controller of the Office of Management and Budget, a job akin to a chief financial officer. Though Werfel was appointed to that job by Obama, he also worked during the administration of President George W. Bush.

The official was not authorized to speak on the record about the announcement and revealed Werfel's appointment on the condition of anonymity.

After days of inaction, Obama has tried to move swiftly in response to reports of inappropriate targeting by the IRS.

"I think we're going to be able to fix it," Obama said, speaking in particular of the IRS' targeting of conservative groups for special scrutiny. He vowed to make sure the agency is "doing its job scrupulously and without even a hint of bias."

Trying to steer clear of Republican criticism of the administration's response to the terror attacks that killed four Americans last year in Benghazi, Libya, the president called on Congress to work with the White House to provide more money to strengthen U.S. diplomatic missions' security.

"We need to come together and truly honor the sacrifice of those four courageous Americans and better secure our diplomatic posts around the world," Obama said. "That's how we learn the lessons of Benghazi. That's how we keep faith with the men and women who we send overseas to represent America."

Obama also was asked about the government's seizure of telephone records of reporters and editors of The Associated Press in an investigation of news leaks. The president said he would not comment on that specific case but said that "leaks related to national security can put people at risk." At the same time, he said, the government has an obligation to be open. He said the challenge was to find an appropriate balance between secrecy and the right to know.

Obama said he makes no apologies for trying to protect classified information, but he also said the AP case shows the importance of striking a proper balance between safeguarding classified information and ensuring freedom of the press.

"That's a worthy conversation to have," Obama said in his first public comments on the AP matter.

Obama said it was a good time to take another look at proposed legislation to protect journalists from having to reveal information, including the identity of sources who have been promised confidentiality. The bill contains exceptions in instances of national security.

Noting the presence of U.S. troops and intelligence officers in risky situations around the world, Obama said, "Part of my job is to make sure that we're protecting what they do while still accommodating for the need for the public to be informed and to be able to hold my office accountable."

The president is trying to shake off a growing perception that he has been passive in responding to a series of developments that threaten to derail his second-term agenda and ensnarl his White House in GOP-led congressional investigations.

Hoping to regain momentum, already this week Obama has released a trove of documents related to the Benghazi terror attacks amid pressure from Republicans, asked Congress to revive action on the shield law, and forced the resignation of the top IRS official. The president is expected to nominate a new acting IRS commissioner this week to replace Steven Miller, who resigned Wednesday.

The president spoke at a rainy Rose Garden news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. As drizzles gave way to a steady rain, Obama summoned Marine guards to provide umbrellas for Erdogan and himself, joking, "I've got a change of suits but I don't know about our prime minister."

Obama's initial response to the three controversies was cautious. That, combined with his earlier lack of awareness about controversies brewing within his administration, opened him to criticism from his Republican foes.

"If Obama really learned about the latest IRS and AP secret subpoena scandals in the news, who exactly is running the ship at the White House?" Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said.

And, in a worrisome sign for the White House, some Democrats also criticized the president for not being more aggressive in responding to trouble within the government.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's former White House press secretary, said the president should have appointed a bipartisan commission of former IRS officials to look into the issue of targeting political organizations. And Gibbs gently chided his former boss for using passive language when he first addressed the political targeting during a White House news conference Monday.

"I think they would have a much better way of talking about this story rather than simply kind of landing on the, 'Well, if this happened, then we'll look at it'," Gibbs said on MSNBC.

The fresh pair of controversies coincided with a resurgence in the GOP-led investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a U.S. compound in Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Congressional Republicans launched another round of hearings on the attacks last week. And on Friday, a congressional official disclosed details of emails among administration officials that resulted in talking points, used to publicly discuss the deadly incident, being revised to downplay the prospect that the attacks were an act of terror.

Obama aides insisted the emails were either taken out of context or provided no new information, but they resisted pressure to make the emails public for five days before finally disclosing them to reporters Wednesday. The emails revealed that then-CIA Director David Petraeus disagreed with the final talking points, despite the White House's insistence that the intelligence agency had final say over the statements.

The White House has publicly defended its handling of the controversies. Obama spokesman Jay Carney has insisted it would be "wholly inappropriate" for the president, in the case of the Justice Department matter, to weigh in on an active investigation, and in the case of the IRS controversy, to insert himself in the actions of an independent agency.

However, legal scholar Jonathan Turley disputed those assertions, saying there is no legal reason a president would be precluded from learning about the investigations before the public did or from commenting on them, at least broadly.

"These comments treat the president like he's the bubble boy," said Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

But House Speaker John Boehner says the administration is throwing underlings under the bus to protect those at the top - citing the IRS investigation.

“Somebody made the decision to do this and I doubt they were low level employees in the Cincinnati field office,” he says.

"Why not release all of the unclassified documents?" said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "The president has repeatedly said that when he gets new information, he'll release it to the public. Why not release - instead of the hand-picked ones - why not release all the unclassified documents?"

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday Republicans hoped "this limited release of documents is a sign of more cooperation to come," while the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee pressed the Pentagon for more details about military orders around the time of the attack and what military aircraft were in the region.

Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed when militants struck the U.S. mission and CIA annex in twin nighttime attacks on Sept. 11, 2012.

Republicans have accused the Obama administration of misleading the American people about the circumstances of the attack, playing down a terrorist strike that would reflect poorly on President Barack Obama in the heat of a presidential race. Obama has dismissed charges of a cover-up and suggested on Monday that the criticism was politically motivated.

Eight months after the attack, the issue remains a political winner with the Republican base as conservatives have been ferocious in assailing Obama. Rank-and-file GOP members and outside groups have pressured Boehner to appoint a special select committee to investigate. Instead, Republicans on five House committees are pursuing their own inquiries and promising to call more witnesses to testify publicly, including the veteran diplomat and retired admiral who led an independent review of the attack that widely criticized the State Department's insufficient security at the facility.

The emails disclosed on Wednesday underscored the turf battle between the State Department and CIA, as neither one wanted to take the blame for the attack. They also showed the reluctance within the administration about saying anything definitively as officials scrambled to write talking points for lawmakers and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who discussed the attack on Sunday talk shows.

Rice's widely debunked remarks that cited protests over an anti-Islam video as the cause of the attack fueled the criticism of the administration and later cost her a chance at becoming secretary of state.

According to the 99 pages of emails, then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public.

Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell, after a meeting at the White House on Saturday, Sept. 15, scratched out from the CIA's early talking point drafts mentions of al-Qaida, the experience of fighters in Libya, Islamic extremists and a warning to the Cairo embassy on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration and break-in by jihadists.

Petraeus apparently was displeased by the removal of so much of the material his analysts had proposed for release. The talking points were sent to Rice to prepare her for an appearance on news shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, and also to members of the House Intelligence Committee.

"No mention of the cable to Cairo, either?" Petraeus wrote after receiving Morell's edited version, developed after an intense back-and-forth among Obama administration officials. "Frankly, I'd just as soon not use this, then."

The emails were partially blacked out, including removal of names of senders and recipients who are career employees at the CIA and elsewhere.

The emails show only minor edits were requested by the White House, and most of the objections came from the State Department. "The White House cleared quickly, but State has major concerns," read an email that a CIA official sent to Petraeus on Friday, Sept. 14.

Critics have highlighted an email by then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that expressed concern that any mention of prior warnings or the involvement of al-Qaida would give congressional Republicans ammunition to attack the administration in the weeks before the presidential election.

That email was among those released by the White House, sent by Nuland on Sept. 14 at 7:39 p.m. to officials in the White House, State Department and CIA. She wrote she was concerned they could prejudice the investigation and be "abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why do we want to feed that either? Concerned."

After Nuland sent several more emails throughout that Friday evening expressing further concerns, Jake Sullivan, then-deputy chief of staff at the State Department, said the issues would be worked out at a meeting at the White House on Saturday morning.

A senior U.S. intelligence official told reporters Wednesday that Morell made the changes to the talking points after that meeting because of his own concerns that they could prejudge an FBI investigation into who was responsible for the attacks.

The official said Morell also didn't think it was fair to disclose the CIA's advance warning without giving the State Department a chance to explain how it responded. The official spoke on a condition of anonymity without authorization to speak about the emails on the record. Petraeus declined to be interviewed Wednesday.

The intelligence official said Morell was aware of Nuland's objections but did not make the changes under pressure from the State Department but because he independently shared the concerns.

That is contradicted in an email sent to Rice on Saturday, Sept. 15, at 1:23 p.m. by a member of her staff whose name was blacked out. The email said Morell indicated he would work with Sullivan and Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser, to revise the talking points. The intelligence official disputed that assertion and insisted Morell acted alone.

An email from Morell also says he spoke to Petraeus "about State's deep concerns about mentioning the warnings and the other work done on this."

The White House released the full set of emails sent to Congress under the pressure in hopes of putting an end to the controversy that has dogged the administration for months. White House spokesman Eric Schultz said Wednesday that "these emails have been selectively and inaccurately read out to the media."

At a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said there has been "very, very substantial progress" in the investigation into who was responsible for the attacks in Benghazi. Earlier this month, the FBI said it was seeking information on three people who were on the grounds of the diplomatic mission when it was attacked.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, said of the emails, "I didn't find anything that looked like a smoking gun in terms of political cooking of the talking points. There is very little input from the White House."

But. he said: "There are some things to criticize in here. The State Department looks like it is trying to avoid blame."

The moves were aimed at halting a perception spreading among both White House opponents and allies that the president has been passive and disengaged as controversies consume his second term.

In another action, the White House asked Congress to revive a media shield law that would protect journalists from having to reveal information, a step seen as a response to the Justice Department's widely criticized subpoenas of phone records from reporters and editors at The Associated Press.

The flurry of activity signaled a White House anxious to regain control amid the trio of deepening controversies. The incidents have emboldened Republicans, overshadowed Obama's legislative agenda and threatened to plunge his second term into a steady stream of congressional investigations.

Standing in the East Room of the White House, the president said Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller had resigned and vowed that more steps would be taken to hold those responsible accountable.

"Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," Obama said of the IRS actions. "I will not tolerate this kind of behavior at any agency, but especially at the IRS given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives."

The president had addressed the IRS controversy on Monday, but his measured words left many unsatisfied, particularly given that he had waited three days to address the developments. He also repeatedly asserted that he was waiting to find out if the reports were accurate, even though top IRS officials had already acknowledged the controversial actions.

Adding to narrative of a passive president were White House efforts to distance Obama from the IRS scandal, as well as the revelations that the Justice Department had secretly obtained work and personal phone records of journalists. In both cases, the White House insisted the president had no prior knowledge of the events and learned about the matters like the general public - from news reports.

Obama's cautious response, combined with his lack of awareness about controversies brewing within his administration, opened him to quick criticism from his Republican foes.

"If Obama really learned about the latest IRS and AP secret subpoena scandals in the news, who exactly is running the ship at the White House?" Republican National Committee spokesman Kirsten Kukowski said.

But in a worrying sign for the White House, some Democrats also criticized the president for not being more aggressive in responding to trouble within the government.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's former White House press secretary, said the president should have appointed a bipartisan commission of former IRS officials to look into the issue of targeting political organizations. And Gibbs gently chided his former boss for using passive language when he first addressed the political targeting during a White House news conference Monday.

"The language should be more active than phrases like 'I didn't have any patience for this' or 'If the allegations are true," Gibbs said during an appearance on MSNBC.

The pair of new fresh controversies coincided with a resurgence in the GOP-led investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Congressional Republicans launched another round of hearings on the attacks last week. And on Friday, a congressional official disclosed details of emails among administration officials that resulted in the CIA downplaying the prospect that the attacks were an act of terror in talking points used to publicly discuss the deadly incident.

Obama aides insisted the emails were either taken out of context or provided no new information but resisted pressure to make the emails public for five days, before finally disclosing the documents to reporters Wednesday. The emails revealed that then-CIA Director David Petraeus disagreed with the final talking points, despite the White House's insistence that the intelligence agency had the final say over the statements.

The White House has publicly defended its handling of the controversies. Obama spokesman Jay Carney has insisted it would be "wholly inappropriate" for the president, in the case of the Justice Department matter, to weigh in on an active investigation, and in the case of the IRS controversy, to insert himself in the actions of an independent agency.

However, legal scholar Jonathan Turley disputed those assertions, saying there is no legal reason a president would be precluded from learning about the investigations before the public or commenting on them, at least broadly.

"These comments treat the president like he's the bubble boy," said Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

David Axelrod, Obama's longtime adviser, acknowledged the White House could have acted more aggressively in "the interest of stagecraft." But he insisted that the president's handling of the matters will ultimately be vindicated.

"One virtue he has is that he takes a long-range view," he said. "It's easy to get whipped up by the frenzy, but it's responsible to react to the facts. It has short-term liabilities, but in the long-run, it's a quality you want in a president."

Hagel spokesman George Little told reporters that Hagel's staff is working on a written directive that will spell out steps aimed at resolving a problem that has outraged lawmakers.

"The president has made very clear his expectations on this issue," Little said, adding that Hagel told Obama on Tuesday about the allegations facing an Army sergeant first class at Fort Hood, Texas. The sergeant is facing allegations involving three women, including that he may have arranged for one of them to have sex for money, according to a defense official.

The accused soldier, whose name has not been made public, was assigned as a coordinator of a battalion-level sexual assault prevention program at Fort Hood. He has been suspended from all duties but has not been charged with any crime.

Little said Hagel and Obama see the sexual assault problem in the same light.

"They expect prevention measures at all times, and when prevention isn't achieved, then both expect accountability," Little said. He said those are the "core principles" of Hagel's approach to resolving the problem within the military.

The allegations at Fort Hood are only the latest in a string of cases. A defense official in Washington said it was not yet clear if one of the three women was forced into prostitution.

The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, said that the sergeant is also being investigated for allegedly sexually assaulting one of the other two women. The allegations involving the third woman were not known.

The case, along with another one involving an Air Force officer, highlights a problem that is drawing increased scrutiny in Congress and expressions of frustration from Hagel. Lawmakers said it was time for Hagel to get tough with the military brass.

"This is sickening. Twice now, in a matter of as many weeks, we've seen the very people charged with protecting victims of sexual assault being charged as perpetrators," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said. "It's an astonishing reminder that the Pentagon has both a major problem on its hands and a tremendous amount of work to do to assure victims - who already only report a small fraction of sexual assaults - that they are changing the culture around these heinous crimes."

"Secretary Hagel needs to act swiftly to re-examine sexual assault services across the department to ensure that these disturbing betrayals of trust are ended," Murray said.

Hagel said he was directing all the services to retrain, re-credential and rescreen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters, spokesman Little said after Tuesday's announcement that the Army sergeant was accused of pandering, abusive sexual contact, assault and maltreatment of subordinates.

The soldier was being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Command. No charges had been filed, but officials say they expect them fairly soon.

Little said Hagel was angry and disappointed at "these troubling allegations and the breakdown in discipline and standards they imply." He said Hagel had met with Army Secretary John McHugh and ordered him to "fully investigate this matter rapidly, to discover the extent of these allegations and to ensure that all of those who might be involved are dealt with appropriately."

The Fort Hood soldier had been assigned as an equal opportunity adviser and coordinator of a sexual harassment-assault prevention program at the Army's 3rd Corps headquarters when the allegation arose, the Army said.

"To protect the integrity of the investigative process and the rights of all persons involved, no more information will be released at this time," an Army statement said.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., said in a statement he was "outraged and disgusted by the reports out of Fort Hood."

McKeon, noting he has a granddaughter in the Army, said he saw "no meaningful distinction between complacency or complicity in the military's latest failure to uphold their own standards of conduct. Nor do I see a distinction between the service member who orchestrated this offense and the chain of command that was either oblivious to or tolerant of criminal behavior. Both are accountable for this appalling breach of trust with their subordinates."

He called on Hagel to conduct a review of the military and its civilian leadership "to determine whether they continue to hold his trust and his confidence to lead in this area."

Just last week an Air Force officer who headed a sexual assault prevention office was himself arrested on charges of groping a woman in a Northern Virginia parking lot.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said his panel was considering a number of measures to counter the problem, including changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and will act on them next month.

"Tragically, the depth of the sexual assault problem in our military was already overwhelmingly clear before this latest highly disturbing report," Levin said.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said she intends to present new legislation on Thursday to overhaul the military justice system by removing chain-of-command influence from prosecution of sex abuse crimes.

"To say this report is disturbing would be a gross understatement," Gillibrand said.

"The sad thing is that this is not a unique case," Anu Bhagwati, former Marine captain and executive director of the Service Women's Action Network, said in an interview. "Week after week, we're hearing of cases across the branches of military leaders taking advantage of their positions of authority."

The Pentagon is struggling with what it calls a growing number of sexual assaults across the military. In a report last week, the Defense Department estimated that as many as 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year, based on survey results.

Of those, fewer than 3,400 reported the incidents, and nearly 800 of those simply sought help and declined to file formal complaints against their alleged attackers.

There also is an ongoing investigation into more than 30 Air Force instructors for assaults on trainees at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, as well as the recent arrest of the Air Force's head of sexual assault prevention on charges of groping a woman.

An Arlington County, Va., police report said Air Force Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski was drunk and grabbed a woman's breast and buttocks in a parking lot earlier this month. The woman fought him off and called police, the report said. A judge has set a July 18 trial date for Krusinski.

Such cases and two recent decisions by officers to overturn military juries' guilty verdicts in sexual assault cases has precipitated a storm of criticism on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is holding up the nomination of Air Force Lt. Gen. Susan Helms, tapped to serve as vice commander of the U.S. Space Command, until McCaskill gets more information about Helms' decision to overturn a jury conviction in a sexual assault case.

Other potential crimes include making false statements to authorities and violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in some partisan political activities, Holder said.

"I can assure you and the American people that we will take a dispassionate view of this," Holder told the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing Wednesday. "This will not be about parties, this will not be about ideological persuasions. Anybody who has broken the law will be held accountable."

But, Holder said, it will take time to determine if there was criminal wrongdoing.

And the IRS acting commissioner blamed the targeting of conservatives on what he described as two rogue agents in Ohio.

Holder announced a day earlier that the Justice department had opened a criminal investigation, joining three committees in Congress that are looking into the matter. As the investigation widened, House Speaker John Boehner told reporters he had this question: "Who's going to jail over this scandal?"

"There are laws in place to prevent this type of abuse. Someone made a conscious decision to harass and to hold up these requests for tax exempt status," Boehner said. "I think we need to know who they are and whether they violated the law. Clearly someone violated the law."

In a statement Tuesday night, President Obama condemned the IRS’ actions, following his review of a Treasury Department watchdog report on the investigations. “The report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable,” Obama said.

“The federal government must conduct itself in a way that’s worthy of the public’s trust, and that’s especially true for the IRS. The IRS must apply the law in a fair and impartial way, and its employees must act with utmost integrity. This report shows that some of its employees failed that test,” Obama said.

Following his statement, the president said that he has directed Treasury to “hold those responsible for these failures accountable.”

Legal experts, however, said it could be difficult to prove that IRS officials or employees knowingly violated the civil rights of conservative groups. It may be easier, if proven to be true, they said, to prove that officials made false statements or obstructed justice in some other way.

"I think it's doubtful that any of these knuckleheads who engaged in the conduct that gave rise to this controversy knowingly believed that they were violating the law," said David H. Laufman, a former Justice Department lawyer. "But that remains to be seen. That's what investigations are for."

"It's more likely than not that," he said, "the conduct at issue here may constitute violations of IRS rules or standards or protocols or procedures but may fall short of what is necessary to constitute a criminal offense."

Even if IRS agents broke criminal laws in targeting conservative groups, investigators may have to prove they knowingly did it, a high standard, said Brian Galle, a former Justice Department lawyer who teaches law at Boston College.

"If the reason they were pursuing them was in order to punish them for their political activity, there might be a First Amendment concern there," Galle said. "On the other hand, if the reason that they were looking for tea party groups is because there had been press reports about this new group, the tea party, who was aimed primarily at getting more conservative people elected to office, then they were just responding to the evidence. It really depends on what their motives were."

Wednesday's hearing was the first of several in Congress that will focus on the issue.

The House Oversight Committee announced Wednesday that it would hold a hearing May 22, featuring Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS division that oversees tax exempt organizations, and former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, whose five-year term ended in November.

The House Ways and Means Committee will hold a hearing Friday, featuring the acting IRS commissioner, Steven Miller, and the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George.

At Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Lerner misled him and his staff when they asked her about complaints from conservative groups that they were being harassed by the IRS.

"I know for a fact, Lois Lerner lied to me, she lied to our personal staff, she lied to committee staff, she lied in correspondence," Jordan said.

Lerner learned about the targeting on June 29, 2011, according to a report Tuesday by the inspector general.

The report said ineffective management at the IRS allowed agents to improperly target tea party and other conservative groups for more than 18 months.

The report said that while their applications for tax exempt status languished, tea party groups were asked a host of inappropriate questions, including: Who are your donors? What are the political affiliations of officers? What issues are important to the organization, and what are your positions on those issues? Will any officers in the group run for public office? Where do you work?

The IRS started targeting groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriots" or "9/12 Project" in their applications for tax exempt status in March 2010, the inspector general's report said. By August 2010, it was part of the written criteria used to flag groups for additional scrutiny.

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said Wednesday that no union employees had been disciplined, as far as she knew. She noted that the IG's report said agents were not motivated by political bias.

Kelley told The Associated Press that low-level workers could not have specifically targeted conservative groups for long without the approval of supervisors. However, she noted, there are many levels of supervisors at the IRS.

"No processes or procedures or anything like that would ever be done just by front-line employees without any management involvement," Kelley said. "That's just not how it operates."

Also Wednesday, the IRS released a list of 179 advocacy groups that had been approved for tax-exempt status as of May 9. The list includes both seemingly conservative and progressive groups, including the Nevada County Tea Party Patriots and Progressive Texas.

The agency also pushed back against one aspect of the inspector general's report. The report said the chief counsel was briefed about conservative groups being targeted on Aug. 4, 2011.

The IRS, however, said in a statement that the meeting involved staff attorneys "several layers below" chief counsel William Wilkins.

"Wilkins did not learn about specific groups being singled out by name until earlier this year," the IRS statement said.

In a letter to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering said he and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen would answer any questions lawmakers have. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the panel, is pressing for the two men to agree to an interview with staff investigators prior to a public hearing.

The work of the Accountability Review Board is the latest focus of a broader Republican inquest into their claims that the Obama administration misled Congress and the American people after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

The blistering report released in December by Pickering, Mullen and three other reviewers found that "systematic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels" of the State Department meant security was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place."

Pickering, however, noted how recently "some have called into question the integrity of the board and its work."

"We believe that such criticisms are unfounded and, if left unaddressed, undermine the essential work that the board has done," he wrote. "It is therefore important that we be afforded the opportunity to appear at a public hearing before the committee and answer directly questions regarding the board's procedures, findings and recommendations."

Republicans believe the report was flawed, and they want to know why top officials like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton weren't interviewed. The panel absolved Clinton of any wrongdoing, faulting lower level State Department officials. Four were given paid suspensions.

On Monday, Issa asked Pickering and Mullen to meet privately with committee staff investigators to answer questions about their review. Democrats countered that if lawmakers wanted to talk to them, Issa should hold a full open hearing.

Pickering said the board "conducted a thorough review and produced a report that included detailed findings and frank and often highly critical assessments." It issued 29 recommendations for improving security at diplomatic facilities worldwide, and Pickering insisted that the board "fulfilled its role in identifying the lessons that must be learned and acted upon from Benghazi."

"We stand behind the board's report and look forward to discussing it in a public hearing," he wrote.

Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the committee, said late Tuesday that the panel was following up with Pickering and the State Department to determine whether he would appear voluntarily for an interview with committee staff investigators. Hill noted that Issa and Pickering appeared on a Sunday talk show together two days ago, and said the former diplomat had told the committee chairman that he would voluntarily submit to an interview.

"The committee is giving him a full opportunity to voluntarily follow through on his commitment," Hill said.

Issa, in his letter on Monday to Pickering and Mullen, had said that following the private interview, the committee would work with the report's authors on a date for a public hearing.

The Justice Department spoke out on the investigation targeting the Associated Press Tuesday. This comes as the Obama Administration has fielded tough questions over the admission by the IRS that it targeted conservative groups. All of this is on top of the scandal surrounding Benghazi.

To see what the rest of the country thinks of the federal government right now, just ask visitors to Washington.

“Disappointed,” says one visitor. “I mean, it’s not supposed to be that way. They’re supposed to be helping us the best they can and it just doesn’t seem they are.”

“You don’t hear anything good anymore,” says another visitor. “Every time you turn around everything on the news is bad.”

The federal government’s image has taken one hit after another. A report released Tuesday showed poor management allowed IRS agents to target conservative groups for 18 months. Regarding Libya, the Obama Administration is trying to answer accusations of a cover-up. The Justice Department is under heavy fire after secretly examining the Associated Press’ phone records while investigating a leak. Critics say that trampled on freedom of the press.

Marty Kady of POLITICO says even though President Obama is denying involvement in the scandals, his political appointees were involved.

“People who were political appointees who work for Obama were all involved in this, so it trickles up,” Kady says. “This is probably going to hurt him.”

But in the seat of government, some say they still believe most parts of it are working well.

“I think the government is a major intricate component of making the economy and sustaining us,” says

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, for general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of the calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than a hundred journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP's newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know," Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. Officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP's source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an "unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information."

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.

In the letter notifying the AP, which was received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt's letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012, story.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of providing classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.

The White House on Monday said that other than press reports it had no knowledge of Justice Department attempts to seek AP phone records.

"We are not involved in decisions made in connection with criminal investigations, as those matters are handled independently by the Justice Department," spokesman Jay Carney said.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the investigative House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said on CNN, "They had an obligation to look for every other way to get it before they intruded on the freedom of the press."

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an emailed statement: "The burden is always on the government when they go after private information, especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. ... On the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden. I am very troubled by these allegations and want to hear the government's explanation."

The American Civil Liberties Union said the use of subpoenas for a broad swath of records has a chilling effect both on journalists and whistleblowers who want to reveal government wrongdoing. "The attorney general must explain the Justice Department's actions to the public so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again," said Laura Murphy, the director of ACLU's Washington legislative office.

Rules published by the Justice Department require that subpoenas of records of news organizations must be personally approved by the attorney general, but it was not known if that happened in this case. The letter notifying AP that its phone records had been obtained through subpoenas was sent Friday by Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney in Washington.

William Miller, a spokesman for Machen, said Monday that in general the U.S. attorney follows "all applicable laws, federal regulations and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations." But he would not address questions about the specifics of the AP records. "We do not comment on ongoing criminal investigations," Miller said in an email.

The Justice Department lays out strict rules for efforts to get phone records from news organizations. A subpoena can be considered only after "all reasonable attempts" have been made to get the same information from other sources, the rules say. It was unclear what other steps, in total, the Justice Department might have taken to get information in the case.

A subpoena to the media must be "as narrowly drawn as possible" and "should be directed at relevant information regarding a limited subject matter and should cover a reasonably limited time period," according to the rules.

The reason for these constraints, the department says, is to avoid actions that "might impair the news gathering function" because the government recognizes that "freedom of the press can be no broader than the freedom of reporters to investigate and report the news."

News organizations normally are notified in advance that the government wants phone records and then they enter into negotiations over the desired information. In this case, however, the government, in its letter to the AP, cited an exemption to those rules that holds that prior notification can be waived if such notice, in the exemption's wording, might "pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation."

It is unknown whether a judge or a grand jury signed off on the subpoenas.

Arnie Robbins, executive director of the American Society of News Editors, said, "On the face of it, this is really a disturbing affront to a free press. It's also troubling because it is consistent with perhaps the most aggressive administration ever against reporters doing their jobs - providing information that citizens need to know about our government."

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said: "The Fourth Amendment is not just a protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, it is a fundamental protection for the First Amendment and all other Constitutional rights. It sets a high bar - a warrant - for the government to take actions that could chill exercise of any of those rights. We must guard it with all the vigor that we guard other constitutional protections."

The May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of the CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot occurred around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.

The plot was significant both because of its seriousness and also because the White House previously had told the public it had "no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the (May 2) anniversary of bin Laden's death."

The AP delayed reporting the story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP disclosed the plot, though the Obama administration continued to request that the story be held until the administration could make an official announcement.

The May 7 story was written by reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman with contributions from reporters Kimberly Dozier, Eileen Sullivan and Alan Fram. They and their editor, Ted Bridis, were among the journalists whose April-May 2012 phone records were seized by the government.

Brennan talked about the AP story and investigation in written testimony to the Senate. "The irresponsible and damaging leak of classified information was made ... when someone informed The Associated Press that the U.S. government had intercepted an IED (improvised explosive device) that was supposed to be used in an attack and that the U.S. government currently had that IED in its possession and was analyzing it," he wrote.

He also defended the White House decision to discuss the plot afterward. "Once someone leaked information about interdiction of the IED and that the IED was actually in our possession, it was imperative to inform the American people consistent with government policy that there was never any danger to the American people associated with this al-Qaida plot," Brennan told senators.

Miller was first informed on May, 3, 2012, that applications for tax-exempt status by tea party groups were inappropriately singled out for extra scrutiny, the IRS said Monday.

At least twice after the briefing, Miller wrote letters to members of Congress to explain the process of reviewing applications for tax-exempt status without disclosing that tea party groups had been targeted. On July 25, 2012, Miller testified before the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, but again did not mention the additional scrutiny - despite being asked about it.

At the hearing, Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Texas, told Miller that some politically active tax-exempt groups in his district had complained about being harassed. Marchant did not explicitly ask if tea party groups were being targeted. But he did ask how applications were handled.

Miller responded, "We did group those organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. We continue to work those cases," according to a transcript on the committee's website.

Earlier, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., had raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed. Boustany specifically mentioned tea party groups in his inquiry.

But in a June 15, 2012, letter to Boustany, Miller said that when the IRS saw an increase in applications from groups that were involved in political activity, the agency "took steps to coordinate the handling of the case to ensure consistency."

He added that agents worked with tax law experts "to develop approaches and materials that could be helpful to the agents working the cases."

Miller did not mention that in 2011, those materials included a list of words to watch for, such as "tea party" and "patriot." He also didn't disclose that in January 2012, the criteria for additional screening was updated to include references to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

The House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by GOP Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, is holding a hearing on the issue Friday and Miller is scheduled to testify.

The Senate Finance Committee announced Monday that it will join a growing list of congressional committees investigating the matter.

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see whether they were violating their tax-exempt status. In some cases, the IRS acknowledged, agents inappropriately asked for lists of donors.

The agency blamed low-level employees in a Cincinnati office, saying no high-level officials were aware.

When members of Congress repeatedly raised concerns with the IRS about complaints that tea party groups were being harassed last year, a deputy IRS commissioner took the lead in assuring lawmakers that the additional scrutiny was a legitimate part of the screening process.

That deputy commissioner was Miller, who is now the acting head of the agency.

Camp and other members of the Ways and Means Committee sent at least four inquiries to the IRS, starting in June 2011. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, sent three inquiries. And Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House oversight committee, sent at least one.

None of the responses they received from the IRS acknowledged that conservative groups had ever been targeted, including a response to Hatch dated Sept. 11, 2012 - four months after Miller had been briefed.

In several letters to members of Congress, Miller went into painstaking detail about how applications for tax-exempt status were screened. But he never mentioned that conservative groups were being targeted, even though people working under him knew as early as June 2011 that tea party groups were being targeted, according to an upcoming report by the agency's inspector general.

The IRS issued a statement Monday saying that Miller had been briefed on May 3, 2012 "that some specific applications were improperly identified by name and sent to the (exempt organizations) centralized processing unit for further review." That was the unit in Cincinnati that handled the tea party applications.

Miller became acting commissioner in November, after Commissioner Douglas Shulman completed his five-year term. Shulman had been appointed by President George W. Bush.

On June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to a draft of the report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.

At the meeting, Lerner was told that groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says. Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups "immediately."

However, when Lerner responded to inquiries from the House oversight committee, she didn't mention the fact that tea party groups had ever been targeted. Her responses included 45-page letters in May 2012 to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the committee, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who chairs a subcommittee.

Lerner also met twice with staff from the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee to discuss the issue, in March and in May 2012, according to a timeline constructed by committee staff. She didn't mention at either meeting that conservative groups had been targeted, according to the timeline.

On Monday, President Barack Obama said he first learned about the issue from news reports on Friday. White House spokesman Jay Carney said the White House counsel's office was alerted the week of April 22 that the inspector general was finishing a report concerning the IRS office in Cincinnati. But, he said, the counsel's office did not get the report and the president did not learn the focus until Friday.

"If, in fact, IRS personnel engaged in the kind of practices that had been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it," Obama said Monday at a press conference.

The president was dogged by the persisting political controversies as he tended to diplomatic duties during a visit with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Obama acknowledged that people are properly concerned about acknowledgements from the IRS that conservative political groups were targeted during the 2012 campaign to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. But he angrily dismissed continued questions over September's insurgent attack in Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

"There's no there there," Obama said. "The fact that this keeps on getting churned up, frankly, has a whole lot to do with political motivations."

Cameron and Obama had a meeting in the Oval Office before appearing before the media in the East Room of the White House to take questions.

The two leaders said they had discussed several pressing international issues, including the Mideast peace process, trade and preparations for a coming summit of the world's leading industrial nations in Northern Ireland. They said they were committed to working together to keep pressure on Syria's President Bashar Assad and assist the opposition in a protracted civil war. Cameron said, "There is no more urgent international task."

Domestically, Obama is facing heat at the start of his second term on several fronts.

The Internal Revenue Service, an independent agency in the Treasury Department, apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

But a draft of an inspector general's report obtained by The Associated Press says senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011. The Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the final report this week after a yearlong investigation.

The portion of the draft report reviewed by the AP does not say whether anyone in the Obama administration outside the IRS was informed of the targeting.

Obama said he first learned about the matter from news reports last week.

"If in fact IRS persons engaged in the kind of practices that have been reported on and were intentionally targeting conservative groups, then that's outrageous and there's no place for it," Obama said. "And they have to be held fully accountable."

He said the IRS must operate with absolute integrity and apply laws without partisanship.

"I've got no patience with it," he said. "I will not tolerate it and we will find out exactly what happened."

Obama's response on Benghazi comes after disclosure last week of emails that the administration had turned over to congressional investigators. They show that political considerations influenced the talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used five days after the Sept. 11 assault, with State Department and other senior administration officials asking that references to terror groups and prior warnings be deleted.

The White House has insisted that it made only a "stylistic" change to the intelligence agency talking points from which Rice suggested on five Sunday talk shows that demonstrations over an anti-Islamic video devolved into the Benghazi attack.

Obama said the focus should be on making sure that diplomats serving around the world are adequately protected, which he acknowledged those in Benghazi were not.

"The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow," Obama said.

"If anybody out there wants to actually focus on how we make sure something like this doesn't happen again, I'm happy to get their advice and counsel," Obama said.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine says Obama "needs to make crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable."

The agency blames low-level employees and says no senior officials were aware of the extra scrutiny to see if conservative groups were violating their tax-exempt status.

But a draft of a watchdog's report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press says senior officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011.

Collins tells CNN's "State of the Union" she doesn't "buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees."

She says the targeting is "absolutely chilling" and contributes to the public's "distrust" in government.

Obama is expected to make several stops during his May 17 visit. He made four stops during his first such trip Thursday in Austin, Texas.

The White House says details of the trip will be released closer to the event.

The Kentucky Republican is unabashedly clearing a path to seek the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, with a series of early voting state visits, a beefed-up political operation and a deliberate plan to appeal to mainstream voters and raise his national profile.

Paul's road is far from easy, given the galaxy of Republican stars considering running for the party's presidential nod - former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, 2012 vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and more. But Paul enjoys tea party backing and a network of supporters from father Ron Paul's back-to-back White House bids.

Among the challenges facing the 50-year-old freshman senator: He must convince Republican mainstream voters that he is more than a tea party champion or simply heir to his libertarian dad's ideals. And he has begun making the case that he could bridge the divide between Republican voters and those who overwhelmingly choose Democrats. At historically black Howard University last month, Paul said the GOP needs to appeal to black voters and other minorities. And he's adopted a more welcoming tone toward Hispanics by pledging to "find a place" for working immigrants.

Paul's presidential coming-out begins on Friday in early-voting Iowa.

The senator is billed as the main speaker at the state Republican Party's annual spring fundraising event - called the Lincoln Day Dinner - in Cedar Rapids. He'll also address the Iowa Federation of Republican women and meet with Johnson County Republicans during the two-day trip.

Ten days later, Paul is slated to deliver the keynote address at a similar event for the New Hampshire GOP - the Liberty Dinner - in that important early primary state. He'll cap May's busy travel schedule with a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California on May 31.

The senator also has plans to attend a June 28 fundraiser for Republicans in South Carolina, another early-primary state in presidential nominating campaigns. Paul made his interest in the state known last week when, in a break with national Republicans, he supported scandal-scarred former Gov. Mark Sanford in an ultimately successful bid to return to the U.S. House.

He also plans to return to Iowa in June to meet with evangelical pastors who tend to influence a loyal segment of the state's GOP caucus-goers.

From his schedule and statements, Paul is unlike most prospective candidates, who play coy about their intentions. Paul and his team are being upfront about it - with the same kind of candor that has attracted a huge tea party following.

"We're considering it," Paul told Washington reporters last month. Yet he added: "We won't make a decision before 2014."

Aides say that timeline still stands but that Paul has begun on a path to a White House campaign.

"You can be doing things that have a purpose whether or not you make that other decision," said adviser Doug Stafford. "They still make you a national leader."

Paul's staffing choices also point to a presidential run.

Stafford recently left his position as the senator's chief of staff to become executive director of the political action committee - Rand PAC - charged with starting to put the pieces in place for a possible national campaign.

Among the most important things Paul has done is a carefully built alliance with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, also of Kentucky, after beating McConnell's hand-picked candidate for Senate in 2010. The resulting overlap of top political staff suggests a level of trust between the two.

The partnership has helped Paul, a onetime outsider, gain entrance with the Republican establishment while keeping the tea party's anti-establishment element off McConnell's back. And while it's not clear whether McConnell would endorse Paul in a 2016 presidential field, McConnell would have no qualms publicly lauding Paul's seriousness as a candidate, McConnell aides said.

The prospects of a Paul candidacy became a hotter topic in political circles after the senator's high-profile, 13-hour filibuster in March over the Obama administration's use of unmanned military aircraft to target terrorist suspects. At the time, Paul said he opposed using drones on American soil, but then made some libertarians flinch by adding later that he didn't care if a police officer or a drone killed an armed robber. He said that using technology to stop any imminent threat was acceptable.

According to a Gallup poll taken in March, most people don't think drones should be used in the U.S., an opinion held across party lines.

Paul's stepped-up national presence is not unique among his potential presidential rivals. Bush has said he's open to a run for the White House. Similarly, Rubio has staked out a visible role in bipartisan immigration legislation that is beginning to move through Congress.

But Paul has some advantages in early voting states. His father's support network is one.

In Iowa, his father's former campaign aides hold senior positions in the state Republican Party committee. Paul also is close to former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, a hero in the tea party movement who has a deep network in that state.

In New Hampshire, where his father finished second in the 2012 primary, Paul's fiscal hawkishness could play well with the state's independent voters.

Even so, Paul is bound to face tough scrutiny from key Republican constituencies for statements and positions that challenge GOP orthodoxy on social and national security policy.

He raised eyebrows when he said recently that fighting gay marriage in Congress is a losing proposition, based on the nation's increasing acceptance of same-sex unions, and that he didn't "mind if the government tries to be neutral on the issue." Paul, who opposes same-sex marriage, has said the issue is better argued at the state level.

But aides acknowledge that some devout evangelical conservatives in early primary states such as Iowa and South Carolina won't accept Paul's argument.

Among those who do - for now, at least - is Iowa Republican National Committee member Tamara Scott, one of Iowa's leading Christian conservatives. She sees it this way: "He's trying to strategize where we can keep marriage as God designed."

Another recent Paul remark - that Republicans have been too willing to deploy military forces around the globe - could sting him in South Carolina, a state with many veterans and active-duty troops.

Paul isn't nearly as rigid on international affairs as his father, whose opposition to deploying the military to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons hurt him in Iowa during last year's caucuses. But both talk of a desire to reduce federal spending on foreign aid and a less aggressive role for the U.S. military.