A bipartisan House group says it has reached a deal in principle on its version of comprehensive immigration reform.

"The bipartisan group working on #immigration in House has made a deal in principle" Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart tweeted late Thursday after the eight members met.

That's good news for immigration advocates, who feared that the years-long work of the House group would break apart over disputes involving the parameters of a mandatory E-Verify system and other issues. While the Senate Gang of Eight bill remains the more high-profile template for final immigration legislation, a breakdown in House negotiations wouldn't have been a positive sign for the progress of compromise immigration measures in the House.

Things didn't look good earlier this week, with one Republican in the group saying he was likely to leave if a resolution wasn't reached.

House Speaker John Boehner said earlier Thursday that he was "concerned" that the group - which includes four Republicans and four Democrats - was still hung up without a deal.

"I am concerned that the bipartisan group has been unable to wrap up their work, there are very difficult issues they're working on," he said. "But I continue believe the House needs to do something and I believe works it will, how we get there, we'll see."

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 7:36 PM EDT

President Barack Obama will appoint a White House budget officer to the be the new acting Internal Revenue Service commissioner, an announcement made following a fresh declaration from the president that he knew nothing about the inspector general’s report detailing improper IRS actions until it was leaked.

After announcing the resignation of acting IRS Director Steven Miller on Wednesday evening, the president emerged Thursday afternoon to answer questions from the press about actions taken by IRS employees to single out conservative and Tea Party advocacy groups for extra scrutiny in their applications for nonprofit status.

"I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the I.G. report before the I.G. report had been leaked ... through the press," said Obama. "Typically, the I.G. reports are not supposed to be widely distributed or shared. They tend to be, you know, a process that everybody's trying to protect the integrity of. But, what I'm absolutely certain of is that the actions that were described in that I.G. report are unacceptable."

The president declined to endorse appointing an independent counsel to investigate the controversy -- an idea that some Republicans have demanded. The criminal investigation initiated by the Justice Department, combined with the administration's efforts to cooperate with lawmakers in their investigations, Obama argued, should be sufficient.

"I think it's going to be sufficient for us to be working with Congress," he said.

Just hours after that event, the White House said that Daniel Werfel, current controller of the Office of Management and Budget, would be named acting IRS chief, effective May 22.

In a press release, Obama said, "The American people deserve to have the utmost confidence and trust in their government, and as we work to get to the bottom of what happened and restore confidence in the IRS, Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time."

Later Thursday, NBC News confirmed that a second top Internal Revenue Service official has announced plans to leave the agency. An internal IRS memo says that Joseph Grant, commissioner of the agency's tax exempt and government entities division, will retire June 3.

Of the three controversies that dominated Washington this week, the IRS issue has proven the most politically noxious for Obama.

The White House has also been besieged by new questions about its response to last year's terrorist attack against a diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya, along with revelations that the Justice Department had monitored Associated Press journalists' phone records.

The IRS and AP cases have been particularly thorny politically for one of Obama's top allies in the cabinet, Attorney General Eric Holder, who on Wednesday faced grilling on Capitol Hill for his role in both controversies. Republicans renewed some of their longstanding demands that Holder resign his position, demands which the president rejected on Thursday.

"I have complete confidence in Eric Holder as attorney general," Obama said.

After weathering blistering criticism from Republicans, the administration has begun trying to craft its response to all three issues.

To that end, Obama on Thursday announced new measures meant to enhance security for U.S. diplomatic postings abroad as part of the administration's continued reaction to the Benghazi incident.

"I am intent on making sure we do everything we can to prevent another tragedy like this from happening again," Obama said at the White House.

His remarks come amid intensified efforts by Republican members of Congress to probe the Obama administration's reaction to the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens.

The administration has sought to turn the narrative on that matter in its favor beginning Wednesday, when it released emails documenting how the administration crafted its first public responses to the attack.

Obama called on members of Congress in both parties to "come together" and work to authorize legislation to help fortify embassies and other diplomatic installations as a tribute to the deceased in Benghazi.

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obamaand Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrive for a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden in Washington, May 16, 2013.

Still, the controversy involving the AP helped prompt the administration to renew its efforts to have Congress authorize a federal shield law that would protect journalists from having to disclose confidential details of their work in court.

"To the extent that this case has prompted renewed interest with respect to how do we strike that balance properly, I think that now's the time for us to revisit that legislation," Obama said. "I think that's a worthy conversation to have."

Whether any of Obama's actions will placate Republicans, who are eager to use these controversies to gain political traction and slow or halt the president's second-term agenda, remains to be seen.

Lawmakers in both parties plan a series of high-profile hearings, beginning on Friday, on each of the controversies. And Republicans in particular have been eager to make political hay of the administration's recent missteps.

Speaking before the president this morning on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the controversies were a mark of “remarkable arrogance” by the president and his administration, though Boehner said that the Republican-controlled House was still primarily focused on the business of legislating.

NBC's Peter Alexander and Kelly O'Donnell contributed to this report.

Related stories:

• First Thoughts: White House makes moves to stop the political bleeding
• Obama calls IRS flap 'inexcusable,' announces resignation of acting IRS chief

This story was originally published on Thu May 16, 2013 12:06 PM EDT

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

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

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

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

Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters Tuesday that he recused himself last year from any involvement in an investigation of national security leaks.

Holder also announced Tuesday that he has ordered an investigation to see if there were criminal violations in the Internal Revenue Service scrutiny of conservative political groups that had sought non-profit status.

On the leaks case, Holder – who is slated to testify before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday afternoon -- reminded reporters that he testified to a congressional committee last year that he had recused himself to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

The Associated Press reported Monday that phone records of its reporters and editors had been subpoenaed and seized in that probe.

Holder said decisions in that investigation were being made by Deputy Attorney General James Cole and “the deputy attorney general would have been the one who ultimately had to authorize the subpoena that went to the AP.”

He added that since he was recused from the investigation, “I’m not familiar with all that went into the formulation of the subpoena.”

He also said he could not explain why voluntary cooperation wasn’t sought from the Associated Press before the subpoena was executed.

 “I am confident that the people who are involved in this investigation, who I know for a great many years and who I’ve worked with for a great many years, followed all of the appropriate Justice Department regulations and did things according to DOJ rules,” Holder said.

He added that it “certainly not the policy of this administration” to target reporters. What has been done in the leaks investigation was, he said, “not as a result of a policy to get the press.”

Referring to the leaks of national security information, Holder said, “This was a very, very serious leak. I’ve been a prosecutor since 1976 – and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, in the top two or three most serious leaks that I’ve ever seen. It put the American people at risk – and that is not hyperbole.”

Trying to find out who leaked the information “required very aggressive action,” Holder said.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D- Nev., on Tuesday joined other congressional critics of the Justice Department’s search of SAP’ phone records telling reporters  “I have trouble defending what the DOJ did. It’s inexcusable. There is no way to justify this.”

In a letter to Holder on Monday, Associated Press President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said, "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters.” Pruitt complained that the records could “disclose information about AP's activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know."

In a response, Cole wrote to Pruitt Tuesday that seeking phone records from media organizations “is undertaken only after all other reasonable alternative investigative steps have been taken.” He said that the Justice Department sought the AP phone records only after a comprehensive investigation which included conducting over 550 interviews and reviewing of tens of thousands of documents.

This story was originally published on Tue May 14, 2013 7:57 PM EDT

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