I.R.S. Inquiry Status Told to White House in April

[alp227]

Source: New York Times

The chief White House lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, learned last month that a Treasury inspector general had concluded an audit of the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups, weeks before the matter became public, according to a senior White House official.

The White House counsel’s briefing came about the same time that Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew met with the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, to learn the conclusions of his draft audit of the controversial I.R.S. effort, the official said.

The acknowledgment that Ms. Ruemmler knew about the I.R.S. inquiry weeks before it became known publicly came as a senior adviser to President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, mounted a combative defense of the administration on Sunday. He said the controversies enveloping the White House were the result of Republican lawmakers’ trying to “drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations.”

Mr. Pfeiffer fanned out to all five major Sunday morning talk shows to move the administration past what commentators have described as a “hell week” of controversy and missteps. He rejected Republican criticisms of the president’s actions and leadership style, calling them “offensive” and “absurd,” and said the administration would not be distracted from doing the nation’s business.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/us/politics/white-house-told-of-irs-scrutiny-of-groups-in-april.html

[DallasNE]

1. Why Would "Commentators" Describe This As A "Hell Week"?

All 3 "scandals" pretty much fell apart as scandals. Benghazi, if anything, was a "hell week" for ABC and Congressional Republicans as the "damning" emails turned out to have been doctored by Republicans and that is the only scandal regarding that issue. The AP story turns out to be about the burning of an al Qaeda double agent and a blow to national security making the subpoena for phone records highly defensible. Clearly, the most problematic is the mess with the IRS where mistakes were made in developing shortcuts to help with a backlog of work but nothing has surfaced to show political pressure to go after political enemies. Not much smoke here, which gets back to why commentators called this a hell week. My question is why the commentators on Sunday were still allowing play on stories that the Whitehouse changed the talking points on Benghazi when the only thing changed was the emails that were doctored by the GOP to make it look as thought the Whitehouse changed the talking points. Oh, the one change the Whitehouse did make was to change the singular "consulate" to a plural description to include the annex that was also attacked -- something that was even more accurate. You know, nobody asked who the Republican(s) were that doctored the emails -- the only real scandal so far uncovered -- no calls for ABC to release those name(s). Now how pathetic is that?

[66 dmhlt]

4. For TWO very good reasons:

[1] The so-called "Liberal Media" is a HUGE MYTH

[2] He's black, don't you know

[underpants]

2. 9 paragraphs in the NY Times remembers to mention that Issa was told last July

But administration allies have portrayed that information as an open secret. In a letter dated July 11, 2012, Mr. George informed Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, as well.

[Turbineguy]

3. It's Hell Week

because now they will have to cook up some new scandals.

[John2]

5. And please,

forget about these stupid Polls the media keeps putting so much stock in. They can't be trusted either. I didn't even put much stock in PPP's Poll in the South Carolina race a week ago. There are different ways you can use Polls. You can either measure public attitude or use it to sway Public opinion on Policies or the importance of an issue.

People forgot the CNN quickie Polls after the three Presidential Debates and how manipulated they were by CNN. I go out in the Public and work every day. I don't know anybody talking very seriously about these three scandals the Republicans and Media are pushing. I do know they talk more about unemployment, immigration and gun laws more. THe GOP and media want the Public to forget about those more important issues.

During the Presidential campaign, the Republicans and Media pundits focused on the Deficit but guess what, the Deficit is shrinking. Where is the media? Wasn't the Debt something like 17 trillion and rising? The President's policies are working. isn't this important news more than those alleged scandals, they are trying to push on the Administration? The media is again trying to paint this President as incompetent. I mean the corporate media, to be more specific. And I doubt they were calling or Polling people that voted for this Administration. You know, the Obama Coalition. I doubt anybody within those groups defended the GOP or the Tea Party. You know, the people that oppressed voting Rights and anti-immigration folks. The same people cutting their benefits. You really believe CNN polled those folks over the week? Most were probably trying to make a living and surviving.