A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Thursday proposed major changes to military laws for sexual assault cases, backing a bill to prevent military commanders from handling sexual assault cases that involve their subordinates. 

"We believe enough is enough. It is time to change this system that has been held over since George Washington that is simply not working today for the men and women who are serving," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a member of the Armed Services Committee who is spearheading the legislation.

"What does it say about us as a people, as a nation, as the foremost military in the world, when some of our servicemembers both men and women have more to fear from their fellow soldiers than from the enemy?" asked Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The bill would take serious sexual assault cases completely out of the military's chain of command if the potential sentence amounts to more than a year in prison -- the equivalent of a felony in a civilian court.

"When any single victim of sexual assault is forced to salute her attacker, clearly our system is broken," Gillibrand said.

The military has resisted such sweeping changes in the past, but a recent string of incidents has increased pressure on Defense Department leaders to change the policy. The top Air Force officer charged with preventing sexual assault was accused of attacking a woman in a Virginia parking lot, and a soldier at Fort Hood tasked with sexual assault prevention is under investigation for sexual abuse.

Collins and Gillibrand spoke at a press conference Thursday morning, where she was joined by an array of colleagues from both house of Congress and from both parties, including Collins, and Reps. Dan Benishek, R-Mich., and Krysten Sinema, D-Ariz.

Gillibrand's bill also requires that a decision about how a sexual assault case is handled -- whether it goes to trial and how the court-martial proceeds -- is made by someone who holds a rank equivalent to colonel.

It would also allow each military service's chief of staff to establish courts, empanel juries and pick judges to hear sexual assault cases, and write into law a proposal from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that prevents commanders from overturning sexual assault convictions or reducing guilty findings to lesser offenses.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

Senate subcommittee on Personnel Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. addresses the third panel on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, during the subcommittee's hearing on sexual assault in the military.

The event was held in advance of a planned meeting at the White House on the issue. President Barack Obama was to meet with Hagel, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, the military service chiefs, military service secretaries, and the senior enlisted advisers.

Gillibrand and other lawmakers met earlier this month with top White House advisers -- the meeting was led by Valerie Jarrett, who is personally close to the president -- to discuss the problem.

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 11:25 AM EDT

Four of President Barack Obama's nominees moved forward Thursday with one, MIT physics professor Ernest Moniz, being unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be secretary of energy.

Another nominee -- Sri Srinivasan to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- was OK'd by the Senate Judiciary Committee and seems certain of confirmation by the full Senate.

But two other nominees -- Thomas Perez to head the Department of Labor and Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency -- face an uncertain future on the Senate floor.

In a party-line vote, a Senate committee Thursday approved the Perez nomination. 

But Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, strongly opposes Perez, who is now the assistant attorney general for civil rights.

The Iowa Republican accuses Perez of improperly arranging a swap. If the city of St. Paul, Minn., would withdraw a major fair housing case which was about to be argued before the Supreme Court, then the Justice Department would agree to not go to court in support of a whistleblower suing the city.

In his confirmation hearing last month before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Perez said a career Justice Department attorney had decided that the whistleblower had a weak case that didn’t merit intervention by the Justice Department on his side.

Led by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., House Republicans have also crusaded against Perez. Issa got into an angry confrontation with Attorney General Eric Holder over the Perez nomination at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.

Another key Obama nominee, McCarthy, won approval Thursday on a party line vote by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Last week Republicans on the panel boycotted a meeting of the committee to underscore their demand for greater openness from the EPA on how it reaches its decisions and how it strikes deals with environmental groups to settle lawsuits.

Ranking Republican member, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said Thursday Republicans were now willing to move ahead on McCarthy because “we’re finally making real progress on the five key transparency requests that have been the focus of all the Republican members’ concerns about this nomination process.”

Vitter said the EPA had agreed to give GOP senators significantly more information on how it reaches its decisions. He said if the EPA provides more transparency, he would support handling the nomination on the Senate floor without a cloture vote, which would require 60 votes. If all of the Republican’ request for EPA transparency in five areas are met, Vitter said he would vote for McCarthy’s nomination on the Senate floor.

But referring to the Republican opposition, committee chairman Sen. Barbara Boxer, D- Calif., said, “I have never seen a nomination handled this way ... . I’m stunned at this. It’s kind of holding somebody hostage until you get an answer you want to have.”

Even if Vitter relents, the McCarthy nomination still faces a hold from Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who is protesting what he calls “bureaucratic infighting” among federal agencies which have delayed an environmental impact statement on the St. Johns Bayou-New Madrid Floodway Project in his state.

Obama got a significant victory Thursday when the Judiciary Committee unanimously approved his nomination of Deputy Solicitor General Srinivasan to serve on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the nation’s most powerful appeals court.

So far in his presidency Obama hasn’t gotten any nominee confirmed by the Senate to the D.C. circuit appeals court. That court is now divided between four judges appointed by Republican presidents and three judges appointed by Bill Clinton. (There are also six senior judges with a reduced workload who take part in some cases.) The court has four vacancies.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has called that court “more important than the Supreme Court because on so many of the issues that go there, they will have the final word.” It’s the end of the road for most cases since the Supreme Court accepts only a fraction of the requests for appeals. The court hears most of the challenges to decisions of regulatory agencies such as the EPA.

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 10:22 AM EDT

Obama White House moves to stop the bleeding… Success on whether the controversies stay a one-week story rather than a months-long one depends on the follow-through, especially regarding the IRS controversy… But it also depends on whether the GOP overplays it hand… Classic Obama: White House takes days to find the right response… Don’t lose sight on Syria… House votes to repeal Obamacare… Sanford’s first day back… And new Quinnipiac poll: McAuliffe up slightly in Virginia.

*** Trying to stop the bleeding: After his most difficult stretch of days since winning re-election, President Obama on Wednesday tried to stop the bleeding with two different moves just more than an hour apart -- all in an effort to keep a bad week from turning into a bad month and perhaps ending any chances of a serious legislative agenda. First, at 5:00 pm ET, his White House released 100 pages of emails and documents related to the crafting of the talking points to describe the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi. The emails revealed more agency politics (between CIA and the State Department) than electoral politics (as Republicans had accused). Second, a little after 6:00 pm ET, Obama delivered a statement announcing that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had accepted the resignation of the acting IRS commissioner in the wake of the controversy that the tax agency had targeted conservative-sounding groups for additional scrutiny in their application for tax-exempt status. The president also announced that new safeguards would be put in place to prevent it from happening again, and he pledged to work with Congress to get it fixed. And today at noon ET, he holds a news conference -- with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan -- where he’ll likely answer reporters’ questions about both actions. There was also an effort to stop the bleeding on a third front: The White House said it supports the re-introduction of a media-shield bill after the Justice Department’s seizure of AP phone records. (Of course, it’s the somewhat watered down version of the shield law that had originally passed the House in 2009 and died in the Senate when Dems had 60 votes.)  

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama delivers a statement from the East Room of the White House, May 15, 2013.

*** Success depends on the follow-through… : So will yesterday’s actions keep a bad week from turning into a bad month? The answer: It depends on the follow-through, especially as it relates to the IRS issue, which has always been the most problematic controversy for the White House because it’s the easiest one for the public to understand. The immediate challenge for the White House -- besides disciplining IRS employees who engaged in this targeting -- is to find a tough-guy replacement whom the public knows and trusts (a retired Republican, CEO, top cop, you get the idea) to take over the agency’s reins. Make no mistake, this IRS issue has united a Republican Party that had been fraying on topics like immigration, the budget and to a lesser extent guns. So the real test for the White House is to stick to the follow-through and not allow the Republican Party to own it. The more bipartisan the outrage is at the IRS (and assuming there is no connection to the administration in some meaningful way), the more the White House believes it can insulate itself politically on the issue. But if credibility cannot be restored at the IRS, it really does hamper the administration’s ability to implement health care and it certainly doesn’t help get Republicans on board with immigration reform. It’ll be QUITE easy for a Republican to argue: Obama can’t run the IRS, what makes you think he can run health care or secure the border? 

*** … And also whether the GOP overplays its hand: But there’s also a danger for Republicans: Do they overplay their hand when it comes to the IRS? Already, the Benghazi talking-point emails don’t reveal the political conspiracy that many Republicans and conservatives had openly theorized, and they also reveal that Susan Rice -- whose reputation was dragged through the mud -- was a relatively innocent victim (though no one likes to be exposed as someone who was simply following a set of talking points about which they had little input). What’s more, the Benghazi emails have all come down to State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland’s concerns. Were they simply about trying not to hinder the investigation into the Islamic extremists in the attack (as Democrats say)? Or were they about trying to clean the State Department’s hands (as Republicans allege)? By the way, as for how government works, this email release reveals something that many in Washington have known for years but the public is less familiar with: These emails show how deputies are often the ones making key governmental decisions, with the principals later signing off.

*** Taking days to find that right response: All that said, yesterday’s moves were typical of Team Obama -- it often takes them days to find a suitable response to a controversy. Think Jeremiah Wright (which it finally solved with a famous speech), the bitter/cling remarks (which it first embraced and them condemned), and the BP spill (which took several tries to strike the right tone). Obama supporters argue that taking time to find the right response is more of a virtue than a vice, especially when dealing with complex issues. Additionally, they might say this criticism is more of a reflection on a 24-7 media culture than demands immediate answers and explanations. But there’s also no doubt that the White House would prefer finding a suitable response on Day 1 than Day 4 or 5. And, as we said above, we’re not sure the Obama White House has still found that sweet-spot response on these controversies; a lot is riding on its replacement pick to head the IRS.   

*** Don’t lose sight on Syria: While today’s news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan will likely be dominated by questions regarding the domestic controversies over the last several days, don’t lose sight how important Erdogan’s visit is regarding Syria. The situation there has become a HUGE problem for Turkey, which is the United States’ most important ally in the Middle East besides Israel. And Turkey wants the U.S. to take a greater role in resolving the civil war in Syria. 

*** House votes to repeal Obamacare: Also today, around 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm ET per NBC’s Luke Russert, the House will hold its 38^th vote -- per NBC’s count -- to repeal part or all of the federal health-care law. House Republicans are quick to point out that today’s vote is only the third time Republicans have voted to FULLY repeal the law; the other efforts were regarding parts of the law. As the New York Times wrote earlier this week, “Three dozen is a lot for a bill that currently has no prayer of becoming law. But the figure …  actually understates the amount of time Republicans have devoted to litigating and trying to dismantle the president’s biggest legislative accomplishment. The repeal vote, which is likely to occur Thursday, will be at least the 43rd day since Republicans took over the House that they have devoted time to voting on the issue. To put that in perspective, they have held votes on only 281 days since taking power in January 2011. (The House and Senate have pretty light legislative loads these days, typically voting only three or four days a week.) That means that since 2011, Republicans have spent no less than 15 percent of their time on the House floor on repeal in some way.”

*** Are we witnessing Holder’s last hurrah? Before 5:00 pm yesterday, the biggest story in Washington was Eric Holder’s combative hearing with House Republicans. Few punches were pulled, and personal frustrations surfaced rather easily. There is clearly no love lost between Holder and Darrell Issa, for instance. While the hearing was all over the map, Holder struggled to explain when he recused himself in the national security leak investigation. While he explained WHY he recused himself, the fact he had nothing in writing or could not say when was something that just seemed odd for America’s top law enforcement official to admit. How does he not have the recusal in writing? Don’t lawyers put everything in writing?

*** Sanford’s first day back: Don’t miss Jessica Taylor’s dispatch of Mark Sanford first day back on Capitol Hill. “As Sanford took his official oath late Wednesday afternoon, he echoed the same themes of redemption he used in his winning campaign. ‘I stand before you with a whole new appreciation for the God of second chances,’ Sanford said. The Republican’s return nearly 13 years after he left Capitol Hill is all the more remarkable for his having overcome the scandal that derailed his governorship.” 

*** New poll: McAuliffe up slightly in Virginia: And in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, a new Quinnipiac poll shows Terry McAuliffe (D) with a slight lead over Ken Cuccinelli (R) among registered voters, 43%-38%. That pretty much mirrors our NBC/Marist poll from last week, which had it McAuliffe 43%, Cuccinelli 41% with registered voters -- although among likely voters, the numbers were reversed: Cuccinelli 45%, McAuliffe 42%. 

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After Eric Holder blasted Darrell Issa yesterday for his “shameful” demeanor, former Amb. Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen sent Issa a letter asking to testify publicly to combat his public contentions about them.

They write, per CNN: “Having taken liberal license to call into question the Board's work, it is surprising that you now maintain that members of the committee need a closed-door proceeding before being able to ask ‘informed questions’ at a public hearing.” 

Mark Sanford was sworn in yesterday, completing his comeback from the public spotlight to the Appalachian Trail and back to Congress. NBC’s Jessica Taylor reports.

NPR: “Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York will be introducing legislation with other lawmakers Thursday that would change how the military handles sexual assault cases. The proposal would let military prosecutors — rather than commanders — decide whether to bring serious military crimes to trial. It's the latest high-publicity move for a senator who was virtually unknown four years ago when she was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's senate seat. Now, she's on some lists for possible candidates for vice president — even president.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Speaker of the House John Boehner, left, greets Peggy Sanford, right, mother of U.S. Rep. Mark Sanford, second from right, Sanford's fiancee, Maria Belen Chapur, center, and members of Sanford's family before a ceremonial swearing-in at the U.S. Capitol May 15, 2013, in Washington, D.C.

Mark Sanford’s comeback story is complete.

The former South Carolina governor is now officially a congressman again, sworn in Wednesday on the House floor after winning last week’s competitive special election in the state's 1st District.

As Sanford took his official oath late Wednesday afternoon, he echoed the same themes of redemption he used in his winning campaign.

“I stand before you with a whole new appreciation for the God of second chances,” Sanford said.

The Republican’s return nearly 13 years after he left Capitol Hill is all the more remarkable for his having overcome the scandal that derailed his governorship.

In 2009, Sanford disappeared from the state, telling his office he was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, only to reveal in a teary press conference that he had actually been having an affair in Argentina. Sanford and his wife divorced, and he is now engaged to that same Argentinian woman, Maria Belen Chapur.

After he left the governor’s office following his second term, Sanford's political career appeared to be finished.  But when Gov. Nikki Haley tapped Rep. Tim Scott to fill an open seat in the U.S. Senate, Sanford was presented with an opportunity to reclaim the district he once represented.

Sanford won the special election primary and runoff with relative ease, but soon news leaked that his ex-wife had accused him of trespassing at her home earlier this year. Many Republicans began to distance themselves from Sanford, and the National Republican Congressional Committee pulled funding from the race.

Sensing an opportunity, Democrats poured money into the race, hoping that Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, could pull the upset. Though polls showed the race was close, Sanford won by nine points on May 7.

But on Wednesday, as he began his first official day back on the Hill, Sanford said there were no hard feelings for House Republicans who spurned his campaign and said he'd been welcomed by the state's congressional delegation and by many current members, some of whom he had served with in his first stint.

Related:

• Once disgraced, Sanford victorious in SC special election
• Sanford challenges questions with spontaneous poll of women
• More on Mark Sanford

"If there's anybody who believes in putting the past behind them, it's me," a smiling Sanford told reporters outside his new congressional office before a noon lunch for supporters. In the afternoon, more than 50 supporters walked with him across Independence Avenue to the Capitol steps for a photo and filed into the gallery to watch his swearing-in at 5:30 p.m. on the House floor.

Chapur, his fiancée, was with him throughout Wednesday’s events. His two oldest sons were also present for his swearing-in, along with his mother, sister and brother-in-law and nephews.

Sanford said he and Chapur haven’t yet set a date for their wedding “that you know,” he joked with reporters.

The famously frugal governor, who slept in his office for his first six years in Congress, says he hasn’t decided whether he’ll bunk in his Cannon House office this time as he did before, but did laugh that he brought a futon with him.

Before his swearing-in, Sanford said he had to go through the same formalities any new member has to do, like getting his new member pin and congressional license plates.

“To a degree it’s deja vu; to a degree it’s a brand new experience,” said Sanford, noting the heightened security around the Capitol since the 1990s.

After being a chief executive for eight years, Sanford said he didn’t care whether he might experience some of the same frustrations with the slow legislative process many other former governors have. For Sanford, he’s just happy to be here, given the bumpy road that brought him back to D.C.

“Everybody travels their own path. Given the path I’ve traveled, it’s a chance to serve in the Congress of the most powerful country on Earth, to deal with financial issues that were really the reason I ran for office in the first place,” said Sanford. “It’s a chance to come back and work on the issues I’ve long cared about, long talked about, long been an advocate on.”

Democrats, however, weren't so ready to forgive and forget. Even though they may have lost the heavily Republican Charleston-based district that voted for Mitt Romney by 18 points last fall, they quickly worked to continue to hang Sanford’s scandals on him.

“Today when Mark Sanford raised his right hand, he became the newest face of a Republican Congress already struggling with women voters,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Emily Bittner. “Good luck with that.”

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 5:01 PM EDT

There’s never been much love lost between Attorney General Eric Holder and Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California – who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The tension between the two men was on full display Wednesday, when Holder flatly labeled Issa’s conduct during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee “shameful.”

The charge came after an aggressive exchange about Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez, whom Republicans say acted inappropriately during his time at the Justice Department.

“I am not going to stop talking now," Holder countered as Issa objected to the attorney general’s attempts to interject.

"It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress," Holder said. "It is unacceptable. It is shameful."

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 3:33 PM EDT

Under fire for secret subpoenas of Associated Press phone records, the Obama administration has asked a key senator to revive legislation that would enhance protections for journalists trying to protect their sources.

A White House official called Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Wednesday to ask him to reintroduce the media shield law that he supported in 2009 but that never received a vote on the Senate floor. The push comes in the wake of Department of Justice subpoenas of a broad swath of AP's phone records, including several main numbers used by more than 100 reporters.

"This kind of law would balance national security needs against the public's right to the free flow of information. At minimum, our bill would have ensured a fairer, more deliberate process in this case," Schumer said in a statement.

The shield law would insulate journalists from fines and prison time when they refuse to reveal their sources in court cases. It allows journalists to appeal to a federal judge when they don't want to give up their sources to subpoena -- and let the judge decide whether public interest in the journalist's story outweighs the interests of the government.

But the bill also says that in some national security matters, this "balancing test" wouldn't be applied.

That's in part because of White House concerns about the law. In 2009, the White House objected to the shield law's use in national security situations -- like the one the AP believes triggered the secret subpoenas. The wire service reported in 2012 that a double agent had foiled a bomb plot in Yemen.

Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday called that leak "a very, very serious leak."

"This is among the top two or three serious leaks that I’ve ever seen," he said.

House Republicans debuted a new line of attack against Democrats on Wednesday, calling the GOP the party of "accountability and trust in government" in the wake of several recent controversies involving the Obama administration.

Armed with new uproars involving the IRS's admission that it had targeted conservative advocacy groups, the release of more emails involving the administration's response to last year's terrorist attack in Benghazi and the Justice Department's having monitored the phone record of AP journalists, the House GOP leadership said that they would emphasize transparency in the coming weeks, and hope to make it a central issue in the 2014 midterm elections.

"The public is beginning to raise questions in their mind as to is this government accountable? We are going to work here in the House to restore the trust in government," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Wash., added: "What the American people expect from their government is accountability."

The new line of attack comes amid a terrible, five-day stretch for the White House. Republican aides told NBC News that the trifecta of controversies had breathed new life into the GOP conference, which recently had been riven my internal disagreements, especially as most legislative action plays out in the Democratic-held Senate.

Democrats, of course, took issue with Republicans' efforts to seize the mantle of transparency.

"Members of both parties want to exercise the appropriate oversight role of Congress into these matters, but the idea that this Republican leadership has been interested in doing anything to the federal government other than destroying it, would be a thorough rewrite of the last two years," said Drew Hammil, a spokesman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Republicans would have another opportunity to drive their new message on Wednesday afternoon, when Attorney General Eric Holder appears for a House committee for a general oversight hearing. There, he'll he’ll be peppered with questions about why the Justice Department went after reporter’s phone records. And next Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on the political targeting by the IRS. Aides say also to expect more hearings related to Benghazi throughout the year.

For his part, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, stressed the party would still push the economy as an issue but would also uphold their “responsibility under the Constitution to provide oversight over the Executive Branch."

As the White House faces a trio of burgeoning controversies that have put the administration and agencies throughout Washington on the defensive, Attorney General General Eric Holder reiterated before a House panel Wednesday that he was not involved in the Justice Department's decision to seize two months of phone records from Associated Press journalists as a part of a leak probe.

LIVESTREAM: House Judiciary Committee hearing

The Justice Department has also opened an investigation into revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for additional scrutiny. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder said that prosecutors are looking at several different statutes in the investigation of those actions. 

He said those potential violations could include an IRS statute that requires employees to do their jobs without favoritism, civil rights laws, the Hatch Act that restricts a federal employee's political activities, or the law against making false statements to investigators.

“The facts will take us wherever they take us,” he added, promising a nationwide investigation. 

Asked about the leak probe, Holder confirmed that Deputy Attorney General James Cole authorized the subpoenas on AP reporters' phone records after Holder recused himself from the matter.

Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images

Attorney General Eric Holder is sworn in during a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill May 15, 2013 in Washington, DC.

Holder first announced Tuesday that he had recused himself from the AP leak probe because he had previously been questioned by the FBI about the intelligence breach.

He added Wednesday that he also turned over his own phone records as a part of that questioning. 

He told the committee that he recused himself because he was one of the “relatively limited number of people” who had first-hand knowledge of the leaked information – and also because he had more regular communication with reporters than Cole.

“I was a possessor of the information that was ultimately leaked,” he added. “And the question then is, who of those people who possessed that information – which was a relatively limited number of people  within the Justice Department – who of those people actually spoke in an inappropriate way to the Associated Press,” he added.

In response to questions, he said that he did not know the date of his recusal for certain and that there was not a written record of it.  He also said that the White House would not have been informed of the recusal. 

Holder has been widely criticized by Republicans for DOJ's handling of the matter, scrutiny Holder noted at the beginning of his remarks.

"The head of the [Republican National Committee] called for my resignation in spite of the fact that I was not the person who was involved in that decision," he said.

The routine Justice Department oversight hearing became a hot ticket after two scandals – the DOJ probe and the revelations about the IRS – erupted since the end of last week. The Obama administration also continues to be dogged by lingering questions over its administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.

In opening remarks he was set to deliver before the House Judiciary Committee, Holder says the Justice Department “has taken critical steps to prevent and combat violent crime, to confront national security threats, to ensure the civil rights of everyone in this country, and to safeguard the most vulnerable members of our society.”

NBC's Pete Williams contributed to this report. 

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 1:07 PM EDT

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