The revelation that the government’s talking points in the wake of the Benghazi attacks were edited to reflect the concerns of a variety of federal agencies has sparked a firestorm of controversy in recent weeks. Some early reports on that email exchange created the erroneous impression that the White House was more deferential to the concerns of State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, who sought to remove from those talking points a variety of references suggesting the Benghazi attack was the result of a coordinated act of terror. The actual interagency email exchange, released by the Obama administration on Wednesday, showed that the White House took a far more hands-off approach towards the shaping of those talking points. It has since, however, been suggested that the original … [Read more...]

This quote is certain to quell the outcry over the Internal Revenue Service flagging conservative groups for added scrutiny when applying for tax-exempt status. Treasury Sec. Jack Lew told a Bloomberg TV anchor on Friday that auditors are actually their helpful “partners” who are there to help you fix problems. Problems like you or your group’s inconvenient political values. Weighing in on the scandal surrounding the admission by IRS officials that they applied undue scrutiny to applications for tax-exemption status by conservative group, Lew said that he learned of the scandal in mid-March, when he came on as the permanent replacement for former Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner. “I learned the substance of this report last Friday when it became a matter of public … [Read more...]

You may have heard that there are a variety of scandals unfolding in Washington D.C. at the moment. Scandals swirling around the White House this week include revelations that the Internal Revenue Service singled out conservative groups for intimidation, that the Department of Justice may have expressed their frustration with the Associated Press by obtaining an absurdly wide swath of phone records, and the ever-unfolding scandal surrounding Benghazi and the administration’s response to that attack. With all these overwhelming controversies enveloping the executive branch, one question dominates in the media: When will Republicans overstep in their effort to criticize the Obama administration so they can safely go back to covering the GOP unfavorably? And this was just a small selection … [Read more...]

During a hearing before the House Ways & Means Committee on Friday regarding the news that the Internal Revenue Service had singled out conservative groups for undue scrutiny, one official with the Treasury Department clarified whether the IRS views that behavior as being illegal. During the hearing, Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George said that the IRS regards that behavior as “inappropriate,” but “it is not illegal.” Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) began his line of questioning by confirming that he found the allegations that the IRS had targeted conservative groups “outrageous and intolerable.” Thompson asked George and if his assertion, that the IRS had used “inappropriate criteria” to determine which groups would receive added … [Read more...]

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who has doggedly been pursuing the details of the federal government’s response to the attack on an American consulate in Benghazi in 2012, spoke to a number of White House officials who told her anonymously that they regret the decision not to send Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), a counterterror rapid response team, into the theater of combat that night. “We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots,” one unnamed Obama administration official told Attkisson. “It’s actually closer to us being idiots.” According to Attkisson’s report, a FEST team was ready to intervene in the Benghazi attack and was preparing to respond but were never given the approval to engage. “With U.S. Ambassador … [Read more...]