Comstock Images/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Sunday morning on ABC’s This Week, White House Senior Adviser Dan Pfeiffer told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that the legality surrounding the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue service is “irrelevant,” but called the behavior “inexcusable.”

“I can’t speak to the law here. The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again,” Pfeiffer said.

Stephanopoulos asked Pfeiffer if he really thought the law is “irrelevant.”

“What I mean is, whether it’s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn’t matter. The Department of Justice has said they’re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again, regardless of how that turns out,” Pfeiffer said.

Pfeiffer also insisted President Obama didn't find out that the IRS was targeting tea party groups until last week, when the scandal went public.

“The deputy secretary of the Treasury was made aware just of the fact that the investigation was beginning last year but no-one in the White House was aware,” Pfeiffer said, stressing that Obama was not involved in the scandal.

“Don't take my word for it,” he said, “take the word of the independent Inspector General who said that he found no evidence that there was any influence from anyone outside of the IRS.”

Several Republicans are not convinced.

“The IG report was an audit, it was not an investigation,” noted Republican congressman Tom Price of Georgia, also appearing on This Week.

“This is just the beginning of this process and we need to get to the bottom of it, we need to find out who made those decisions, hold them to account and see how high up the chain it went,” Price said.

Senator Rob Portman is among the Republicans calling for a Special Counsel in the IRS scandal. The Ohio lawmaker wrote a letter to President Obama wanting to know what if any private pressure was exerted by the White House on the IRS regarding standard for approving and monitoring tax exempt organizations. Portman also appeared on This Week.

“It seems to me that there's a lot of issues here we need to get to the bottom of, we need to find out what really happened and make sure we can begin to regain some trust in our government, that's my concern,” he said.

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The Office of Congressman Darrell Issa(WASHINTON) -- Much has been made of the fact that senior Treasury Department officials were told about the investigation into the treatment of tea party groups in June 2012 — months before last year’s the Presidential election. Republicans who requested the investigation were also told about it at approximately the same time.

In a letter dated July 11, 2012, the man who conducted the investigation, IRS inspector general J. Russell George wrote to Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, telling him that he was investigating the issue and offering to keep him updated as the investigation progressed.

“The Oversight Committee knew about the audit because it requested it,” an Issa aide told ABC News. Issa released the letter, along with his own letter dated June 28, 2012 requesting the investigation, last week.

“We would be happy to provide a status update to the Subcommittee staff and provide a copy of our interim and final reports on the matter when they are issued,” George wrote in the letter to Issa. An identical letter was also sent the Rep. Jim Jordan, who, like Issa had raised the issue with the IRS.

The letter notes that it was Issa who had written him about “questionnaires that the IRS has issued which may exceed appropriate scrutiny and a potential lack of balance in the use of criteria for reviewing organizations that are applying for tax-exempt status.” George offers no confusions but says, “our Office of Audit recently began work on this issue.”

According the Issa aide, the committee received an email update from George in December saying, “We are leaving no stone unturned as part of our due diligence. As such, we won’t be able to provide a detailed, substantive briefing until late April/early May.”

On Friday, in his testimony before the House Ways & Means Committee, George said he had notified top Treasury officials — including Deputy Secretary Neal Wolin — about his investigation in June 2012, part of a routine briefing on the issues he was looking into.

Republicans pounced on that revelation as evidence top Administration officials knew about the targeting of conservative groups well before the 2012 election. It is now clear that at least some key Republicans knew about the investigation as well.

While George informed Treasury officials about the fact he was conducting the investigation in 2012, the Treasury Department says he did not go into detail about his investigation or tell them about his conclusion that IRS had improperly targeted conservative groups. Similarly, the letter to Issa says the investigation had begun but does not say that it had uncovered any wrongdoing.

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Official White House Photo by Pete Souza(WASHINGTON) -- After a week of hearings in Washington and despite cloudy skies, President Obama is spending his Saturday afternoon on the golf course.

Obama's foursome included Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Senior Policy Advisor Sam Kass.

Obama has frequented the golf course often this spring, but until Saturday always with male golfing partners. Sebelius is the first woman to join the president on the golf course this year.

Sebelius was seen getting into the president's SUV before the motorcade left the White House.

Kass is also the executive director of Let's Move! and an assistant chef at the White House.

The president’s golf outing comes after the White House spent a week dealing with a series of political scandals, from the IRS targeting conservative groups seeking tax exempt status for extra scrutiny, to the administration’s release of a trove of e-mails about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last year, to the Department of Justice obtaining phone records of Associated Press reporters.

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US House of Representatives(WASHINGTON) -- Congressman Andy Harris of Maryland delivers this week's Republican address, joined by Sen.  Mitch McConnell's Red Tape Tower, a seven-foot tall collection of "all the regulations already associated with President Obama's health care law." Harris, also a physician, argues for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and claims the law only limits job opportunities for Americans.

"Obamacare is knocking American off the ladder of opportunity, and the sooner we repeal it, the sooner we can start fixing health care for working families," Harris says in the address.

The Red Tape Tower, standing "20,000 pages high and seven feet tall," says Harris, includes "the taxes, the mandates, the tricks, the traps [and] the fine print" that he warns will be enforced by the IRS.

"If we've learned anything this week, it's that the IRS needs less power, not more. As a matter of fact, it turns out that the IRS official who oversaw the operation that that's under scrutiny for targeting conservatives is now in charge of the IRS's ObamaCare office," Harris says.

"As a physician for nearly 30 years, Ive always believed the power in our health care system should belong to patients and their families, not politicians -- and certainly not the taxman," he adds.

But Republicans' plan for jobs includes repeal of the president's health care law and focus on patient-centered reforms that include disease prevention research to improve care and bring down costs, Harris says.  

"This week marked the third time in three years that the people's House has listened to the people and voted for full repeal of the health care law," says Harris. "Now it's time for the Senate to listen to the people as well."

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The Internal Revenue Service planted a question at an American Bar Association conference in order to reveal that it had inappropriately targeted conservative groups prior to the 2012 elections.  But members of Congress are questioning why they weren’t told earlier.

The question that prompted Lois Lerner, IRS director of tax exempt organizations, to apologize for the agency’s actions came from Celia Roady, a prominent Washington lawyer in private practice. Roady said that she received a call from Lerner the day before the May 10 conference, requesting that Roady ask a question about tax exempt groups.

“I received a call from Lois Lerner, who told me that she wanted to address an issue after her prepared remarks at the [American Bar Association] Tax Section’s Exempt Organizations Committee Meeting, and asked if I would pose a question to her after her remarks,” Roady said in a statement obtained by ABC News.

“I agreed to do so, and she then gave me the question that I asked at the meeting the next day. We had no discussion thereafter on the topic of the question, nor had we spoken about any of this before I received her call. She did not tell me, and I did not know, how she would answer the question.” (The event was not recorded.)

But at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Friday, lawmakers questioned why Lerner had appeared before the committee just days before the conference and failed to disclose what she knew about the targeting.

“A little more than a week ago Lois Lerner was in front of our Oversight Subcommittee. She serves as the director of the Exempt Organization Division, and she has been directly involved in this matter, yet she failed to disclose what she knew to this committee, choosing instead to do so at an ABA conference two days later,” Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., said on Friday morning. “This is wholly unacceptable.”

Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller was grilled by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) over what he called the IRS’s “scheme” to plant a question at the ABA but not inform Congress.

Miller said he spoke with Lerner about how to make the information in the inspector general’s investigation public.

“So we were going to do it at the same time, I believe, that our intent was to talk to [Congress] at the same time,” Miller said.

Asked by Roskam whether Congress was informed “at the same time,” Miller said, “It did not happen, I don’t believe.”

In a conference call with reporters on May 10, Lerner said that she did not publicly reveal the fact that the IRS had targeted conservative groups earlier because she had never been asked.

“Somebody asked me a question today, so I answered it,” Lerner said.

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ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Irate lawmakers Friday accused the acting IRS commissioner of misleading them about the agency's selective scrutiny of tea party-affiliated groups, demanding to know who was responsible and why no one told Congress about it.

"Why did you mislead Congress and the American people on this?" Louisiana GOP Rep. Charles Boustany, who chairs the Ways and Means panel's Oversight Subcommittee, asked Steven Miller.

"I did not mislead Congress or the American people," Miller replied.

Miller apologized but maintained that politics did not motivate the perceived targeting.

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"First and foremost, as acting commissioner I want to apologize on behalf of the IRS for the mistakes that we made and the poor service that [we] provided," Miller told the House Ways and Means Committee in his opening statement. "Partisanship or even the perception of partisanship has no place at the IRS."

Miller has effectively been fired by the Obama administration. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew requested his resignation, but Miller remains acting commissioner until his appointment expires June 8.

"I think that what happened here is that foolish mistakes were made by people who were trying to be more efficient in their workload selection," Miller told the committee.

Asked by Georgia GOP Rep. Tom Price whether he thinks the IRS's actions were "illegal," the outgoing commissioner said it is not.

"It is absolutely not illegal," Miller told Price.

Miller asked Price to clarify his question, which Price did: "Do you believe it is illegal for employees of the IRS to create lists to target individual groups and citizens in this country," the conservative congressman asked Miller.

"I don't believe it is. I don't believe it should happen," Miller said, after indicating that the legality of the IRS' practices is for others to decide.

Committee members grilled Miller on who at the IRS knew what, and when. Miller said that after initially becoming aware of problems last year with conservative groups' 501(c)4 applications, he asked an IRS official "to lead a team and take a look and see what was going on in terms of cases that had gotten those letters."

One employee was reassigned, and managers were instructed that the targeting should not continue, Miller said.

Miller said he became aware of the activity in May 2012.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., asked Miller why he failed to mention it in July 2012, when he appeared before a subcommittee hearing and was asked about conservative groups' difficulties with the IRS.

"How can we not conclude that you misled this committee?" Ryan asked. "You knew of our concern of this targeting … You knew that, but you didn't mention this to the committee. Do you not think that that's a very incomplete answer?"

Miller said he didn't mention the actions because the question had implied political motivation, which he did not believe existed. Miller said he was only asked about letters from conservative groups.

"I did not mislead the committee. I stand by my answer then, and I stand by my answer now," Miller said. "Harassment that was part of that question implies political motivation."

At a July 25, 2012 subcommittee hearing on tax-exempt organizations, Texas GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant asked Miller about conservative groups that had complained of IRS scrutiny.

"I have been contacted by several of the groups in my district. And they feel like they are being harassed. I don't have any evidence that that is the case.

"But they feel like they have been harassed and feel like the IRS is threatening them with some kind of action or audit. What kind of a letter or action is taking place at this time that you are aware of?" Marchant asked Miller at that hearing, after Miller had been briefed on the scrutiny of tea party groups.

Miller responded, at the time, without mentioning the actions of which he now says he was aware.

"I am aware that there is an uptick of organizations that came into us for exemption," Miller said in July 2012. "So it was the determination letter process, not the examination process. I am aware that some 200 501(c)4 applications fell into this category. We did group those organizations together to ensure consistency, to ensure quality. We continue to work those cases."

Ohio Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi pressed Miller on why he appointed Sarah Hall Ingram, who led the division in charge of tax-exempt organizations, to run the IRS's Affordable Care Act Office.

"Because she's a superb civil servant, sir," Miller explained, noting that he did not think Ingram was involved in the scrutiny of tea party groups.

In the course of asking extra questions of tea party groups, IRS officials requested lists of their donors. Miller told the committee Friday that he believes the agency destroyed those lists.

Miller also defended former commissioner Douglas Shulman's testimony in March 2012 that "there's absolutely no targeting," explaining that at that time, he and Shulman were aware of problems with conservative groups' processing, but not that keywords and groups' policy missions were being used to single them out.

"It was incorrect, but whether it was untruthful or not -- look, when you talk about targeting … it's a pejorative term," Miller said. "What happened here is that someone saw tea party cases come through, they were acknowledging that they were going to be engaged in politics. This is the time frame in 2010 when Citizens United was happening … people in Cincinnati decided, 'Let's centralize these cases.'"

Miller took issue with the term "targeting" multiple times.

"Again, I'm going to take exception to the term 'targeting,'" Miller said when Texas GOP Rep. Kevin Brady asked him, directly, who was responsible.

Miller said he prefers the term "listing" and that he didn't have any names of IRS employees to supply.

Both Republican and Democratic members voiced frustration with the activities, by any name, that Miller and others failed to mention to Congress before now.

"We are all outraged," New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley said.

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Comstock Images/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Despite her congressional testimony, the Internal Revenue Service on Friday denied that the former commissioner of tax exempt and government entities -- now running the agency’s health care office -- was in charge of the unit’s day-to-day operations after Dec. 2010.

Sarah Hall Ingram retained the title of commissioner, with oversight over tax-exempt groups, but the IRS says she moved to the agency’s Affordable Care Act office full time by the end of 2010, six months after the tax agency began selectively scrutinizing conservative groups.

Her successor as commissioner, Joseph Grant, said Thursday that he would retire from the IRS in early June.  Grant received the post on a permanent basis last week.

“Sarah has been assigned full-time to ACA activities since December 2010,” an IRS spokesman said in a statement. “Joseph Grant began acting as Commissioner [of tax exempt and government entities] in December 2010. Ingram was not running TE/GE on a day-to-day basis during the time frame in question.”

Despite the agency’s assertion Friday, however, Ingram maintained her title as commissioner of tax exempt and government entities, using it in testimony she delivered to congress in November 2011 and May 2012.

In late 2011, Ingram indicated that she served in two positions simultaneously.

“My name is Sarah Hall Ingram and I’m commissioner of the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Operating Division at the Internal Revenue Service. And I also serve as the executive lead for the IRS Operational Planning and Implementation of the Tax Law Provisions of the Affordable Care Act of 2010,” she testified before the House Ways and Means Committee Nov. 15, 2011.

And in this May 2012 testimony in the Senate Finance Committee over Indian tribes’ tax-exempt status, Ingram testified in her capacity as commissioner of tax-exempt groups, despite the IRS’s assertion that she was only responsible for the Affordable Care Act after 2010.

According to an inspector general report, a group within the IRS’s Cincinnati office began the practice of scrutinizing tea party applications for 501(c)4 tax-exempt status in July 2010, during Ingram’s tenure over the tax-exempt and government-entities division.

Her subordinate, Lois Lerner, director of tax-exempt organizations, did not learn about the practice until June 2011.

Speaking during a congressional hearing Friday morning, outgoing acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller defended his decision to elevate Ingram to her latest position.

“She’s a superb civil servant, sir,” he said in response to a question from Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio.

When asked whether she was involved in the recent controversy, Miller said, “I wouldn’t imagine so.”

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David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Richard Milhous Nixon was “not a crook,” or so the 37th U.S. president would have us believe.  But such denials at a Nov. 17, 1973, news conference meant little or nothing by then, six months to the day after North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin opened two weeks of often-riveting, live televised hearings on the Watergate scandal.

Millions of U.S. households bore witness to the Senate Watergate Committee’s tactical destruction of White House subterfuge, methodically convincing Americans that perhaps “Tricky Dick” was more than some absurd distortion of the president’s legacy-in-waiting.

A month after the televised hearings, which started on May 17, 1973, an astonishing 97 percent of Americans had heard of Watergate, according to the U.S. Senate website.  And 67 percent believed that President Nixon had participated in a cover-up of the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington.

Nixon never confessed and declared that “I have never been a quitter” right before he did just that.

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