Political Ethics

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's spokesman says the White House is facing "legitimate criticisms" for its shifting accounts about who knew what about the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups, and when they knew it.

Press secretary Jay Carney's acknowledgement Wednesday was an attempt to stem a growing narrative that the White House has bungled its response to the IRS controversy, even though the White House appears to have had no direct role in the agency's targeting of conservative political groups.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Summoned by Congress, a key figure in the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups plans to invoke her constitutional right against self-incrimination and decline to testify at a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

Lois Lerner heads the IRS division that singled out conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns. She was subpoenaed to testify Wednesday before the House oversight committee.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The former head of the Internal Revenue Service said he first learned in the spring of 2012 — in the heat of the presidential campaign — that agents had improperly targeted political groups that vehemently opposed President Barack Obama's policies.

But, former Commissioner Douglas Shulman said Tuesday, he didn't tell higher ups in the Treasury Department and he didn't tell members of Congress.

And he wouldn't apologize for it.

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and other senior advisers knew in late April that an impending report was likely to say the IRS had inappropriately targeted conservative groups, President Barack Obama's spokesman disclosed Monday, expanding the circle of top officials who knew of the audit beyond those named earlier.

But McDonough and the other advisers did not tell Obama, leaving him to learn about the politically perilous results of the internal investigation from news reports nearly three weeks later, officials said.