The top elected Republican in Congress says he's looking for prison sentences for those associated with IRS efforts to single out conservative advocacy groups applying for tax-exempt status.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, stoked conservative ire toward the Obama administration on Wednesday in the wake of an IRS inspector general report chastising agency employees for subjecting conservative and Tea Party groups to additional scrutiny.

"My question isn't about who's going to resign," Boehner said at a weekly press conference on Capitol Hill. "My question's about who's going to jail."

While the IRS report suggested that the employees' actions were not prompted by any outside influence, Republicans have nonetheless seized on the controversy, and openly suggested that the administration was deliberately targeting conservatives through the IRS.

"“Basically all we’ve gotten from the IRS, on the other hand, is an attempt to scapegoat some folks out in Cincinnati and a laughable attempt to move past this whole issue with a ridiculous op-ed claiming ‘mistakes were made,'" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Wednesday morning on the Senate floor.

McConnell and the other 44 Senate Republicans all signed a letter to the administration demanding that IRS witnesses and materials be fully made available to congressional investigators.

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

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 10:34 AM EDT

Controversies sidetrack the White House, Congress, and the press… The danger for the White House: This could imperil Obama’s second-term legislative agenda… But there’s also a danger in over-analyzing the past seven days… Krauthammer’s warning to Republicans… Obama, Treasury respond to IG report on IRS… On that Ben Rhodes email… Mark Sanford’s first day back on Hill… And Planned Parenthood hits Cuccinelli.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney pauses while speaking to reporters in the briefing room of the White House May 14, 2013.

*** Sidetracked: The Benghazi/IRS/AP stories over the past week have had this additional impact for the Obama White House: They’ve sidetracked the other issues that President Obama has wanted to discuss. (Frankly, they’ve also sidetracked us in media, too.)  Last Thursday, Obama was in Austin, TX to talk about the economy; on Friday, he was selling implementation of his health-care law; on Monday night, the president traveled to fundraisers in New York, where expressed his desire to still work with Republicans (even as he raised money for Democrats for the ’14 midterms); and today at 11:00 am ET, he delivers remarks at a national peace officers memorial. Oh, there was another piece of news from yesterday the White House would have enjoyed to tout -- the budget deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is estimated to fall to its lowest level since 2008. But what are the stories still being discussed in Washington today? The IRS targeting conservative-sounding groups. The Justice Department getting the AP’s phone records in a national-security leak investigation. And the Obama administration revising those Benghazi talking points.

*** The danger for the White House: NBC’s Kasie Hunt also notes that the controversies have sidetracked Congress, too. For instance, a weeks-long markup of a major Senate immigration bill received little attention yesterday; Attorney General Eric Holder testifies at a 1:00 pm ET oversight hearing, which will likely focus on the department's seizure of AP phone records and other thorny issues. Moreover, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee (Orrin Hatch) wants the IRS investigation to take priority over dealing with tax reform. And get this: Fully a third of House committees are now focused on investigating the Obama administration. As NBC’s Mike O’Brien writes, all of this COULD imperil the Obama White House’s second-term legislative agenda. “The fact of the matter is House and Senate Republicans have done very little legislating so far this year. This certainly isn't going to help things,” Jim Manley, a former senior Democratic Senate aide, told O’Brien. “Now they're going to feast on investigation after investigation for the rest of the year, while throwing red meat to their base and forgetting about the divisions in their own caucus.”

*** A temporary distraction or a long-term one? So is this a temporary distraction or the beginning of the end of Obama’s second term? Remember the warning we issued months ago about second terms. Legislatively, in the best of times, they last about 18 months. The last four presidents to win second terms saw their ability to drive a legislative agenda get stopped in its tracks in 18 months or less. For Nixon, it was about six months before Washington gave up; Reagan got tax reform done and then Iran-Contra came; Clinton got a year until Monica broke in Jan. 98; and George W. Bush’s second term legislative push ended before Labor Day of that first year

*** Yet the danger in over-analyzing: Despite all the controversies facing the administration -- and how they have sidetracked its agenda -- there is a danger in over-analyzing what has occurred in the past week. After all, the White House has faced even more trying times over the past four and a half years (the U.S. economy in free-fall, the BP spill, the debt-ceiling debacle of 2011), and all of those stories now seem like distant memories. And while some are saying that Washington has turned on Obama, we have this question: When has Establishment Washington ever been a fan of how Team Obama has responded to crises and controversies? (The current issues, and the White House’s stubbornly passive way of handling them, are serving as an excuse for the president’s frenemies to pile on and re-air old grievances, like he’s terrible at personal outreach or he’s or why the person who promised to “turn the page” can’t change Washington.) Politico’s Jonathan Martin puts it well: Will all of these investigations and controversies result in a 2010 (when the public worried about the federal government’s excesses, albeit in a time of 9.0%-plus unemployment) or in a 1998 (when the GOP faced backlash for the Lewinsky investigation)? Right now, we don’t have an answer, but you can begin making a case that everything out there (talk of scandal and investigations, the Dow reaching new highs, the budget deficit declining) looks a whole lot like the 1990s.

*** Krauthammer’s warning to Republicans: Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer warns Republicans not to overplay their hand. “The one advice I give to Republicans is stop calling it a huge scandal. Stop saying it's a Watergate. Stop saying it's Iran Contra. Let the facts speak for themselves. Have a special committee, a select committee. The facts will speak for themselves. Pile them on but don't exaggerate, don't run ads about Hillary. It feed the narrative for the other side that it's only a political event. It's not. Just be quiet and present the facts.”

*** Obama, Treasury respond to IG report on IRS: On “TODAY” this morning, NBC’s Lisa Myers reported on inspector general’s report into the IRS, and the IG concluded that the agency was targeting conservative-sounding groups in their application for tax-exempt status, that the IRS unit responsible was a mess, and that some employees were actually ignorant about tax laws. But the IG also concluded that the targeting didn’t originate OUTSIDE the IRS. “We asked the Acting Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division; the Director, EO; and Determinations Unit personnel if the criteria were influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS. All of these officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS,” the report said. President Obama released a statement after the report’s release: “[T]he report's findings are intolerable and inexcusable… I've directed Secretary Lew to hold those responsible for these failures accountable, and to make sure that each of the Inspector General's recommendations are implemented quickly, so that such conduct never happens again.” And Treasury Secretary Jack Lew responded with his own statement: “I strongly agree with the President about the need for accountability at the IRS, and I expect the IRS to implement the Inspector General's recommendations without delay.” That said, the IG report will do NOTHING to satisfy members of Congress who still have lots of questions.

*** On that Ben Rhodes email: Regarding those Benghazi talking points, First Read has now seen the email from Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, and it appears to differ from the earlier portrayal that the Obama White House wanted the State Department’s concerns to be addressed. In fact, what Rhodes seemed to want is for all the information to be as accurate as possible. "There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don't compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression,” he said. But it’s important to note that this Rhodes email, via a government source, is a SELECTIVE leak -- just as the earlier portrayal of the email chain was a SELECTIVE leak. This only puts pressure on the White House to release ALL of these emails. You can’t start showing some of them without showing all of them.

*** Sanford’s first day back on Capitol Hill: In other news, “Rep.-elect Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) will be sworn in Wednesday as the new representative of South Carolina’s 1st district, his spokesman announced Tuesday,” the Washington Post writes. “In the House chamber, Sanford will be sworn in approximately 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, spokesman Joel Sawyer said. The Republican will rejoin Congress a week after he defeated Democratic nominee Elizabeth Colbert Busch by nine points, even as he was barraged by Democratic outside spending.”

*** Planned Parenthood hits Cuccinelli: In Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, Planned Parenthood Action Fund is launching a web advertisement hitting Ken Cuccinelli on social issues in advance of this weekend’s Virginia GOP convention in Richmond. “That Ken Cuccinelli -- he’s running for governor, and he keeps showing up where he doesn’t belong. He’s trying to put himself in the middle of our most personal decision,” the ad goes. He sponsored legislation to end funding for Planned Parenthood, and Ken Cuccinelli wants to make abortion illegal, even in cases of rape, incest, or when the health of the woman is in danger.” The web ad, which targets women voters, will run through this weekend.

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AP: “President Barack Obama seemed to lose control of his second-term agenda even before he was sworn in, when a school massacre led him to lift gun control to the fore. Now, as he tries to pivot from a stinging defeat on that issue and push forward on others, the president finds himself rocked by multiple controversies that are demoralizing his allies, emboldening his political foes and posing huge distractions for all.”

The Hill: “President Obama’s former press secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday criticized his former boss for what he called a late and ‘exceedingly passive’ response to the controversy surrounding the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) targeting of conservative groups.”

Gibbs said on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports: “The problem is this - the tenor of this briefing would be different if the president had spoken about this on Saturday or Sunday and not on Monday. And if the president had spoken on Monday, less about losing patience on this, which is what I do with my 9-year-old, and used far more vivid language.”

To that point, Dana Milbank labels Obama the “uninterested president.”

USA Today reports that no Tea Party group was approved for 27 months, while dozens of progressive-leaning groups were approved.

It also writes: “An inspector general report into the Internal Revenue Service's heightened scrutiny of Tea Party groups blames ‘ineffective management’ at the agency, but does not address whether the policy was politically motivated.”

But it did say this: “We asked the Acting Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division; the Director, EO; and Determinations Unit personnel if the criteria were influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS. All of these officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS. Instead, the Determinations Unit developed and implemented inappropriate criteria in part due to insufficient oversight provided by management. Specifically, only first-line management approved references to the Tea Party in the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] listing criteria before it was implemented. As a result, inappropriate criteria remained in place for more than 18 months. Determinations Unit employees also did not consider the public perception of using politically sensitive criteria when identifying these cases. Lastly, the criteria developed showed a lack of knowledge in the Determinations Unit of what activities are allowed by I.R.C. § 501(c)(3) and I.R.C. § 501(c)(4) organizations.”

AP: “Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday defended the Justice Department’s secret examination of Associated Press phone records though he declared he had played no role in it, saying it was justified as part of an investigation into a grave national security leak.”

USA Today: “Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Holder said he made the decision to recuse himself in the Justice Department's investigation involving a leak of classified information to the AP, because he was interviewed by the FBI in connection with the probe and had ‘frequent contact with the media.’”

National Journal explores the case for the Justice Department’s investigation.

AP: “The Justice Department is investigating the Internal Revenue Service for targeting tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday, widening a probe that includes investigations by three committees in Congress.”

“President Obama is looking (hoping) to get things back to normal,” USA Today writes. “With his administration buffeted by allegations over the IRS, Benghazi, and the seizure of journalists' phone records, Obama on Wednesday performs a more traditional presidential duty: Speaking to police officers. Obama delivers remarks at the annual National Peace Officers Memorial Service, which the White House describes as ‘an annual ceremony honoring law enforcement who were killed in the line of duty in the previous year.’”

USA Today: “The Pentagon announced Tuesday that most of its civilian workforce will be required to take 11 unpaid leave days this year as part of an effort to save money in the face of mandatory budget cuts.”

Charles Krauthammer warns Republicans not to overplay their hand and “exaggerate.” Don’t compare it to Nixon and other scandals. Let the facts speak for themselves, he said. 

A series of recent controversies have forced the Obama administration onto the defensive, emboldening Republicans in Congress and threatening to stymie the president’s already-struggling second-term agenda.

Republicans have already slowed or stopped several of President Barack Obama’s top priorities, including his gun-control proposal, tax plan and a slew of nominations. And this trio of new flaps threatens to further embolden conservatives in Congress, who have at times suffered struggled to unite due to infighting.

Revelations that the Justice Department seized phone records from journalists at The Associated Press as part of an investigation into classified leaks has only added to headaches for the White House. Fresh questions about the administration’s handling of last year’s terrorist attack in Benghazi and reports that the IRS had singled out conservative groups for scrutiny have further galvanized Republican critics to dig in against the president.

“The fact of the matter is House and Senate Republicans have done very little legislating so far this year. This certainly isn't going to help things,” said Jim Manley, a former senior Democratic Senate aide. “Now they're going to feast on investigation after investigation for the rest of the year, while throwing red meat to their base and forgetting about the divisions in their own caucus.”

Indeed, Republicans have quickly rallied around this trio of controversies – particularly the IRS story, and the continued probe into Benghazi.

“If I were in the opposing party, and the White House were having this kind of week, I’d be smiling,” said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist.

Republicans have thwarted many elements of the president’s second-term agenda over the past few months, showing little or no interest in the kind of compromise Obama hoped might come from his and Democrats’ decisive electoral victories last fall.

"My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet," Obama said Monday at a fundraiser, alluding to that phenomenon. "But I am persistent. And I am staying at it."

But the continued probe into Benghazi and the IRS controversy seems to have renewed Republicans’ focus, making the opposition party as energized and focused as ever in pursuing these issues to their bitter end, so as to hasten the onset of Obama’s “lame duck” status.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama walks off stage after speaking at a Democratic fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, Monday, May 13, 2013.

But not all of the administration’s allies are panicking.

“I just think that it’s panicking too quickly. Come back in a month and if nothing has changed, then that’s going to be a very bad sign,” said Michael Podhorzer, political director for the AFL-CIO. “It’s been a tough week for the administration, but things go up and down. We’ll just have to see how things go.”

In fact, one of the administration’s biggest priorities – comprehensive immigration reform – continues to steadily make its way through Congress, with the aid of Republicans. That legislation alone would be as much of a signature second-term achievement for the president as anything else on his agenda.

At Tuesday’s White House press briefing, press secretary Jay Carney disputed a reporter’s question about whether recent controversies threatened to knock Obama’s agenda off-course.

“The president is focused on what he believes the American people expect from him and their elected leaders in Washington,” he said.

And Democrats have begun to punch back.

“It wasn't long ago that the IRS inappropriately targeted the NAACP, Greenpeace and a California church that was really progressive,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Tuesday. “It was interesting at that time, we didn't hear a single Republican grandstand the issue then. Where was their outrage when groups on the other side of the political spectrum were under attack?”

Simmons counseled the administration to focus on notching small victories on other issues in order to turn the political tide back toward Obama – including by fully going after IRS wrongdoing once the facts in that case are clear.

“There are always announcements to make from government initiatives, people to invite from the White House, executive orders to issue,” he said. “The power of the presidency is the ability to move things forward.”

And progressive supporters of the administration are also on the lookout for any indication that Republicans, in their zeal to ding the administration in any of these recent controversies, overreach in their efforts.

"If the last six years have taught us not much, it’s that Republicans are willing to drive over the cliff, and in a way that’s unprecedented,”  Podhorzer said. “I’m not saying anything Earth-shattering to say that Republicans are in their partisan bunker, and they’re looking for any reason to go after the administration. This is a party that was pushing birther arguments six months ago.”

Related stories: 

• Recent controversies threaten to bog down Obama's second-term agenda
• IRS mishandling of Tea Party reviews still unresolved, audit charges
• Obama dismisses Benghazi talking points controversy as a 'sideshow'
• First Thoughts: Then there were three

This story was originally published on Tue May 14, 2013 9:07 PM EDT

The IRS acted in an "intolerable and inexcusable" manner in singling out conservative advocacy groups for extra scrutiny, President Barack Obama said Tuesday evening in a statement about the emerging controversy. 

Amid an uproar in Washington over revelations that IRS agents targeted conservative and Tea Party groups as part of their oversight of a new crop of political groups established as tax-exempt groups in recent years, the president roundly criticized IRS employees to subjected those groups to additional scrutiny. 

"[T]he report’s findings are intolerable and inexcusable," Obama said in a statement. "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."

The president had criticized the report during a press conference on Monday, before the publication this evening of an inspector general's report detailing the additional scrutiny of conservative groups. The report pointed to incompetence and poor management for the persistent scrutiny of conservative groups. The IRS also argued that the behavior was relatively isolated, and did not come at the direction of any outside official.

Nonetheless, the IRS controversy has prompted a major uproar among conservatives in Washington, who have openly suggested the Obama administration had deliberately targeted political enemies. Some Republicans have likened Obama to President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. 

The controversy comes at an inopportune time, too, for the White House, which has struggled at times to address other imbroglios regarding its response to the terrorist attack last year in Benghazi, Libya, as well as new reports that the Department of Justice surreptitiously monitored the phone records of Associated Press journalists. 

Of the IRS uproar, Obama said he had directed Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to "hold those responsible for these failures accountable," and implement the recommendations of the inspector general report.

"[R]egardless of how this conduct was allowed to take place, the bottom line is, it was wrong," Obama said. "I expect everyone who serves in the federal government to hold themselves to the highest ethical and moral standards. So do the American people. And as president, I intend to make sure our public servants live up to those standards every day."

NBC News, via a government source, has obtained an email Obama administration officials believe contradicts last week's reporting that Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said that the State Department's "concerns needed to be addressed" in the drafting of the talking points about the Sept. 2012 attack in Benghazi.

In the actual email -- dated Sept. 14, 2012 and with the subject "Re: Revised HPSCI Talking Points for Review" -- Rhodes writes: 

"All--

"Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects equities, particularly the investigation.

"There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don't compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.

"We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies."

CNN was first to report on the actual language from Rhodes' email.

And the email contradicts this reporting on Friday from ABC News, which wrote: 

"In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. - three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows - Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department's concerns needed to be addressed.

"We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation. "We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting."

Then there were three controversies for the Obama administration… The latest: AP says Justice Department secretly obtained two months of phone records in possible leak case… Latest developments with the IRS story… Why did the IRS focus on the small fish -- but not the big ones?... Obama outraged by IRS story, as well as Benghazi “sideshow”… Some perspective, per Charlie Cook: Much of the outrage right now is selective outrage… Dems put changing the filibuster back on the table?... Rubio PAC airs TV ad defending Ayotte … And Christie goes negative.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama speaks at a Democratic fundraiser in New York City, May 13, 2013.

*** Then there were three: Finding itself already under siege on two different fronts -- the Benghazi and IRS stories -- the Obama administration now encounters a third controversy, and this one features one of the most influential news organizations in the world. The Associated Press revealed yesterday afternoon that the Justice Department “secretly obtained two months of telephone records” of AP reporters and editors “in what the news cooperative's top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news.” Per NBC’s Michael Isikoff, DOJ confirmed that it obtained these phone records without notifying the news organization, saying the step was needed to avoid "a substantial threat to the integrity" of an ongoing leak investigation. When it rains, it pours, as the conservative Drudge Report gleefully notes. While this Justice Department move is sweeping, chilling for journalists (why didn’t DOJ attempt to negotiate?), and an apparent attempt to intimidate future leakers, let’s don’t forget that Congress asked the Obama administration to investigate all the national-security leaks. “Republicans accused the administration of deliberately leaking classified information, jeopardizing national security in an effort to make Mr. Obama look tough in an election year — a charge the White House rejected. But some Democrats, too, said the leaking of sensitive information had gotten out of control,” the New York Times says.

*** Three makes it harder: While the president’s defiant tone on Benghazi probably would have been enough to quell things under normal circumstances, the times aren’t normal right now. The rule of three (toss in IRS and AP) means the president’s credibility is truly on the line right now with the public. No amount of denial or outrage will be as persuasive to the public right now and the president’s political foes know it. And that’s why you saw some senators yesterday going even further, hitting the White House on the implementation of health care or Mitch McConnell who attempted to use the IRS news to connect the dots and claim a concerted effort was taking place all over the government to target conservatives or limit freedoms. Many of these charges are baseless but the environment right now for the White House is a mess and they are in a position where it’ll be a lot easier for issues to stick to them. The Teflon is wearing off. 

*** Latest developments with the IRS story: The IRS controversy is only growing as more organizations come forward about exactly how the IRS went about investigating conservative groups. The Washington Post: “Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved with investigating conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status… IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations.” (However, it’s unclear in the story if these Washington employees were only targeting conservative groups or if they were scrutinizing a wider scope of groups applying for tax-exempt status.) What’s more, Politico notes That the IRS’s acting commissioner “first learned about the agency’s targeting of conservative political groups more than a year ago, the agency revealed Monday.” As for the White House, the president claimed he only heard about the IRS story when it went public on Friday. Jay Carney later said, the White House Counsel’s office was made aware of the IG investigation in late April but that the president was NOT informed at the time and that the Counsel’s office wasn’t told many specifics about the report.   

*** Focusing on the small fish -- but not the big ones: Also regarding the IRS story, the New York Times’ Confessore makes a great point: While the IRS scrutinized relatively small conservative-sounding groups in their application for tax-exempt 501c4 status, the agency has hardly lifted a finger when it comes to the bigger political players. “The I.R.S. has done little to regulate a flood of political spending by larger groups — like Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, co-founded by Mr. Rove, and Priorities USA, with close ties to President Obama… ‘We’ve complained about a few big fish and we’ve heard nothing from the I.R.S.,’ said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, which filed many of the complaints with the agency. ‘We would far rather see scrutiny of these big fish — the groups that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence elections — than to see the resources spent on hundreds of small groups that appeared to spend very little on elections.’” One of the unintended consequences of this IRS story: It probably will set back any effort to close the loopholes that allow overtly political organizations to obtain tax-exempt status and to shield their donors.

*** Obama outraged by IRS actions and Benghazi “sideshow”: In his news conference with British Prime Minister Cameron yesterday, President Obama called the IRS story “outrageous,” saying: “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. And they have to be held fully accountable.” But in the outrage department, the president got a lot more animated when the topic turned to Benghazi, making it clear he believes it’s nothing more than a partisan sideshow. “The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow. What we have been very clear about throughout was that immediately after this event happened we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were. It happened at the same time as we had seen attacks on U.S. embassies in Cairo as a consequence of this film. And nobody understood exactly what was taking place during the course of those first few days.”

*** Dems put changing the filibuster back on the table? Largely lost by all the Benghazi/IRS/AP coverage has been this fact: Senate Republicans have used procedural tactics to so far block many of Obama’s nominees, including his picks to head the Labor Department and EPA. That has spurred Democrats and their allies to reconsider ways to change the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, which has been used for even the most routine of measures. The Hill: “Senate Democrats frustrated with the GOP’s blocking of a string of President Obama’s nominees are seriously weighing a controversial tactic known as the ‘nuclear option.’ The option — which would involve Democrats changing Senate rules through a majority vote to prevent the GOP from using the 60-vote filibuster to block nominations — was raised during a private meeting Wednesday involving about 25 Democratic senators and a group of labor leaders.” Remember, it was that same “nuclear” option threat that spurred Senate Democrats and Republicans to reach the “Gang of 14” compromise to approve some of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees.

*** It’s the eye of the beholder: That said, political analyst Charlie Cook provides an important historical perspective: Right now, much of the controversy the White House is facing is selective outrage. “Whether the White House is in Democratic or Republican hands, we have to put up with a degree of selective outrage from one side and the turning of a blind eye from the other,” Cook writes. “Democrats who were quick to pounce on any possible transgression during George W. Bush’s presidency are noticeably quiet these days. At the same time, one wonders whether the same Republicans who are frothing over Benghazi would have been quite as vigilant had they been in Congress after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, which killed 220 U.S. Marines, 18 sailors, and three Army soldiers.” And that selective outrage makes many of the “Nixon” comparisons seem VERY premature right now. Regarding Nixon, Watergate, and that administration’s cover-ups, the condemnation -- of activity that went straight to the top -- was bipartisan.

*** Rubio PAC airs TV ad defending Ayotte: We’ve been covering politics for a while, but we don’t think we’ve ever seen this -- a possible presidential candidate’s PAC airing a TV ad to help a COLLEAGUE who represents an early-nominating state. “Sen. Marco Rubio's political action committee is going up with a TV ad defending New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte's votes on gun control. ‘Safety, security, family - no one understands these things like a mom, and no one works harder for them than this one,’ the ad says, showing a photo of Ayotte. ‘A former prosecutor, Kelly Ayotte knows how to reduce gun violence.’”

*** Christie goes negative: And it’s rare you see this, too: A political candidate who’s leading his opponent by 30-plus points is going negative. But that’s exactly what New Jersey Chris Christie is doing with this new TV ad. As Politico writes, “Sky-high approval ratings be damned — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is going on air next week with an ad that paints his Democratic rival Barbara Buono as a tax-hiker who is yoked to unpopular former governor Jon Corzine, POLITICO has learned.The spot, which begins running Monday, is part of an $800,000 ad buy over the course of roughly a week.” Per last week’s NBC/Marist poll, Christie was leading Barbara Buono 60%-28% among registered voters.

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AP: “The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into how news organizations gather the news. 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.”

USA Today: “They say these things come in threes. Already facing criticism over the Benghazi attack and Internal Revenue Service problems, President Obama and aides must now deal with news that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of journalists who work for the Associated Press.”

“Journalists on Monday called the news the Justice Department seized records from phone lines assigned to Associated Press offices and its reporters over a two month period ‘chilling’ and a ‘dragnet to intimidate the media,’ Politico writes.

By the way, Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to testify before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday.

“President Barack Obama tried to swat down a pair of brewing controversies Monday, denouncing as ‘outrageous’ the targeting of conservative political groups by the federal IRS but angrily denying any administration cover-up after last year’s deadly attacks in Benghazi, Libya,” AP writes. “Simultaneous investigations — and demands by Republicans for more — have put the White House on the defensive, emboldened GOP lawmakers and threatened to overtake a second-term Obama agenda already off to a rocky start.”

“Huddling with A-list celebrities and top re-election donors, President Barack Obama bemoaned the partisan forces that have stymied compromise in Washington as he raised campaign cash for Democrats in New York,” AP writes. Of the GOP “fever,” Obama said at film producer Harvey Weinstein’s house, “It’s not quite broken yet. I am persistent, and I am staying at it.

And Obama said this: "I want to get some stuff done -- I don't have a lot of time. I've got three and a half years left -- and it goes by like that."

Jill Lawrence: “The bombshell disclosure that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of Associated Press reporters and editors could be dramatic enough to move even the phlegmatic Obama administration to action. Three concurrent scandals or controversies are just too many. Could that mean we will be bidding farewell soon to Attorney General Eric Holder?”

George Condon notes that Obama appears more outraged with Republicans than the IRS.

On Benghazi, so why wasn’t it Hillary Clinton on the Sunday shows instead of Susan Rice. Glenn Thrush reports: “Three sources” say “it was less a matter of fatigue, and more a matter of Clinton not wanting to go on the shows. The aides said Clinton had a ‘default’ policy of rejecting all Sunday requests. None of the officials was willing to speculate on why the secretary wouldn’t make an exception after such an extraordinary event — or whether Clinton had wanted to avoid a controversy that could have compromised her political future.”

Vice President Joe Biden wrote a 7-year-old Wisconsin child a hand-written note praising his idea for guns that shoot chocolate. Biden writes, “Dear Myles, I am sorry it took so very long to respond to your letter. I really like your idea. If we had guns that shot chocolate, not only would our country be safer, it would be happier. People love chocolate. You are a good boy, Joe Biden.”

Donald Rumsfeld’s back on the scene appearing mellower as he promotes his new book. He was on Today Tuesday morning. 

Amid outcry over revelations that Internal Revenue Service specialists specifically targeted conservative groups for scrutiny before the 2012 elections, President Barack Obama said Monday that the tax agency employees' reported conduct was "outrageous" and "contrary to our traditions."

Alex Wong / Getty Images

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House May 13, 2013.

Appearing at a White House press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, the president said he does not want to judge the findings of an Inspector General investigation "prematurely" but said that if the reports of political targeting are found to be correct, those responsible must be held "fully accountable."

"If in fact IRS personnel 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," he said.

"I've got no patience with it," he added. "I will not tolerate it and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this."

Reports surfaced Friday that an IRS official had apologized for the targeting by staffers in a Cincinnati field office, which singled out groups for additional review if they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status.

A partial draft report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration -- obtained by NBC News -- shows that top officials knew about the targeting nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, testified to Congress in March 2012 that no singling out of conservative groups ever occurred.

The House Ways and Means Committee announced after the president's remarks that it will hold a hearing on the alleged targeting on Friday, May 17. Acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and J. Russell George, the Inspector General who headed up the IRS report, are expected to testify.

And the IRS confirmed Monday night that Miller was informed in May of last year that "some specific applications were improperly identified by name and sent to the [IRS] Exempt Organizations centralized processing unit for further review."

In a statement earlier Monday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president is “concerned” about the reported conduct of “a small number of Internal Revenue Service employees.”

“If the Inspector General finds that there were any rules broken or that conduct of government officials did not meet the standards required of them, the President expects that swift and appropriate steps will be taken to address any misconduct," Carney said.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have called for extensive investigation into the IRS practices.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida called for the resignation of Acting Commissioner Miller, who previously served as Shulman’s deputy.

"[I]t is clear the IRS cannot operate with even a shred of the American people's confidence under the current leadership," Rubio wrote. "I strongly urge that you and President Obama demand the IRS Commissioner's resignation, effectively immediately. No government agency that has behaved in such a manner can possibly instill any faith and respect from the American public."

Top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell went further, calling the burgeoning IRS scandal "just one example of an administration-wide effort to silence critics."

"The Obama effort to shut up opponents isn't limited to the IRS," he told conservative outlet Breitbart News. "It applies to the FCC [Federal Communications Commission], SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission], FEC [Federal Elections Commission], HHS [Department of Health and Human Services]." 

A McConnell spokesman told NBC News that the senator was specifically referring to those agencies’ attempts to implement rules requiring that third-party groups and businesses disclose donors or political activities. 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Democrat, also called the targeting "intolerable" and an "outrageous abuse of power."

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid also weighed in, saying the allegations would represent a "terrible breach of the public trust" and pledging that the chamber will "quickly take appropriate action" based on the inspector general's findings. 

NBC's Kelly O'Donnell, Luke Russert and Mark Murray contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 7:40 PM EDT

President Barack Obama repeatedly said during last year's presidential campaign that a partisan "fever" in Washington would break after the 2012 election, but on Monday, he acknowledge it hadn't broken yet.

Almost four months into his second term, the president told Democratic donors at a fundraiser in New York City that the nation's capital is still ensconsed by "hyper-partisanship."

"My thinking was when we beat them in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet," Obama said, according to pool reports of his remarks. "But I am persistent. And I am staying at it."

Obama had outlined an agenda heading into his second term headlined by immigration reform, gun control and reaching a wide-reaching fiscal deal with Republicans. So far, immigration reform only seems realistically attainable; a scaled-back version of Obama's gun control proposals was blocked in the Senate. A "grand bargain" on taxes and spending appears out of reach, as well.

Obama told his supporters that he still intended to seek a broad agenda, rather than succumb to the ennui of a lame-duck presidency. That included an allusion to forcing Republicans to pay a price at the polls in 2014 should they continue to block his agenda.

"My intentions over the next 3 ½ years are to govern," he said. "If there are folks who are more interested in winning elections than they are thinking about the next generation then I want to make sure there are consequences to that."

President Barack Obama on Monday derided the controversy over inter-agency talking points drafted in the wake of last year’s Benghazi attack, saying that charges of a politically motivated cover-up are a “sideshow” and  little more than a “political circus.” 

Jim Bourg / REUTERS

President Barack Obama talks about the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya as Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron listens during a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House, May 13, 2013.

“The whole thing defies logic,” Obama said at a White House event with British Prime Minister David Cameron. “And the fact that this whole thing keeps getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations.” 

The president  defended his administration against persistent allegations that it tried to disguise the Benghazi attack as a spontaneous riot instead of an act of terror – charges Obama dismisses as little more than a “political circus.” 

Those accusations again dominated headlines last week, when leaked emails showed that State Department officials suggested changes to the official talking points crafted after the Sept. 11, 2012 incident. That attack on the diplomatic compound left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Those changes included the deletion of mentions to specific terrorist groups. 

On Monday, Obama said those edits reflected the intelligence agency’s lack of immediate clarity about exactly what prompted the attack, which occurred at the same time that a video offensive to Muslims had prompted spontaneous riots elsewhere in the Middle East. 

“The whole issue of talking points, frankly, throughout this process has been a sideshow,” he said. “What we have been very clear about throughout was that immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were.” 

“There’s no there, there,” he said of the leaked emails, which congressional investigators reviewed earlier this year but which were not reported on until last week. 

Noting that National Counterterrorism Center chief Matt Olsen specifically labeled the assault “an act of terrorism” just days after attack, Obama said Republicans who characterize the administration’s response to the attack as anything other than due diligence on the part of intelligence officials are merely trying to exact political damage on their Democratic opponents. 

“Who executes some sort of cover up or effort to tamp things down for three days?” he asked. 

Despite the president’s evident frustration with the GOP’s line of questioning on Benghazi, the administration will get little respite from congressional skeptics, who have pledged to keep probing its response to the Libya attack. 

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has asked that Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Admiral Mike Mullen – the two officials who conducted an independent review of the incident on behalf of the State Department – be interviewed by investigators. 

Issa has said that the independent review failed to adequately question top State Department officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire have called for a Joint Select Committee to investigate the matter. 

The three Republicans said that the president's statements Monday run counter to his public descriptions of Benghazi in the weeks after the deaths. 

Obama "repeatedly and specifically refused, in the heat of his re-election campaign, to label Benghazi a terrorist attack," they wrote in a statement Monday afternoon. 

This story was originally published on Mon May 13, 2013 3:42 PM EDT