
Washington (CNN) - Commerce Secretary nominee Penny Pritzker denied any role Thursday in the creation or control of offshore tax accounts used to help manage her family's vast fortune - a politically sensitive issue for President Barack Obama in the wake of last year's election.
Democrats repeatedly criticized GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 for stashing some his wealth outside of the United States.
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(CNN) – One day after squaring off with reporters in an especially combative White House daily briefing, Press Secretary Jay Carney underwent a major shift in tone as he faced the same reporters Wednesday.
Gone were Tuesday's repeated expressions of frustration, stern demeanor, and the suggestion that questions about scandals relating to the IRS, Benghazi talking points, and investigations of media outlets had become as frivolous as those that were raised about President Obama's birth certificate.
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Washington (CNN) - White House press secretary Jay Carney acknowledged Tuesday that senior Obama administration officials discussed when and how Lois Lerner, an IRS official, should roll out news that the tax agency had improperly targeted political groups.
At the White house briefing, Carney revealed that Deputy White House Chief of Staff Mark Childress twice discussed communications strategy with Treasury Department officials.
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Washington (CNN) - New details emerged Monday of what the White House knew about the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups, with spokesman Jay Carney disclosing Chief of Staff Denis McDonough was among the top officials made aware of the matter late last month.
In a new timeline provided by Carney to reporters, General Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler learned on April 24 of a pending Treasury inspector general's report on how IRS staff used criteria targeting conservative groups in assessing eligibility for tax-exempt status.
FULL STORY(CNN) – President Barack Obama will deliver a statement from the East Room at the White House on the situation involving the Internal Revenue Service at 6 p.m. ET, the White House announced Wednesday.
The president will discuss "IRS changes" when he makes his statement, a Democratic source told CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash.
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(CNN) - The White House released more than 100 pages of e-mails on Wednesday in a bid to quell critics who say President Barack Obama and his aides played politics with national security following the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.
The e-mails detail the complex back and forth between the CIA, State Department, and the White House in developing unclassified talking points that were used to underpin a controversial and slow-to-evolve explanation of events last September 11.
(CNN) – Top Democratic strategists have been invited to the White House for a meeting Thursday morning with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
The source presumes that the meeting is an effort to discuss ideas for damage control, as the White House faces an onslaught of questions regarding its handling of the Benghazi attack, the Internal Revenue Service scandal and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone records.
(CNN) - A former spokesman for the National Security Council is offering new insights into how and why administration talking points on last September's attack in Benghazi were altered.
Tommy Vietor, who left the administration earlier this year, wrote in an e-mail to journalists Wednesday that various agencies editing and revising talking points was routine, and that Republican allegations the changes were politically charged are "just silly."
READ THE FULL E-MAIL AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST
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(CNN) – The White House asked Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., to reintroduce reporter shield legislation, White House officials told CNN on Wednesday.
The push comes just a few days after word that the Justice Department seized phone records from the Associated Press as part of a national security leak investigation. The legislation, which passed the Judiciary Committee in 2009 but never advanced, would provide more protection to reporters from penalties for failing to reveal their sources and more protection to protect their phone records.


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