. from washington the mclaughlin group. brought to you by seamans, we are building them to last, seamans, answers.

. issue one, internal revenue service target range. today we took the first step by requesting and accepting the acting commissioner of the internal revenue service because given the controversy southering this audit, it is important to restore confidence going forward. i reviewed the watchdog's report and the misconduct that it uncovered it inexcusable. americans have a right to be angry about it and i am angry about it. i will not tolerate this kind of behavior, in any agency but especially in the internal revenue service, given the power and reach it has for all of our lives.

>> the internal revenue service had fully targeted the special scrutiny conservative groups like the tea party. president barack obama announced the resignation of the head of the agency. steven miller, its acting commissioner will step down next month and eric holder announced they will determine where the laws were broken and so targeting the conservative groups. the internal revenue service admits to the criminal targeting three years after the complaints began and only because by congress, it had investigated the matter, it was on the verge of making public it's finings and now congress is back in the act. multiple docks were the first to fall, acting commissioner is steven miller was in the hot

seat. >> first and foremost, on behalf of the internal revenue service, i want to apologize for the poor service we provided. the american public an affected organizations deserve better. the people who engaged in the practices described, i do not believe them. i believe its conclusions are consistent with that. i think what happened here was that foolish mistakes were made by trying to be more efficient in their workload selection. and while intolerable, it was a mistake and not an act of parts san ship. -- bipartisanship. >> they targeted explicitly one side and these questions and the pre-versety of it, targeting groups interested in he had kateing people in the --

educating people in the bill of rights. as most government workers, they are working for of the administration and the president of the united states has portrayed these tea party groups as dangerous from the beginning and if it had been progressive groups they were targeting, you better bet it would have been exposed and stopped right away. >> progressive group were targeted when bush was in the white house but that's neither here nor there. it was after the news came out and you have republicans trying to tie it to president barack obama linking the white house to somehow ordering or winking and nodding to the agency to conduct these and you have democrats at the hearing pointing out that there was a bush a point tee as the -- appoint ian the inspector --

appointee and the inspector general said there was no evidence of political by as which was a bone -- bias which is a bone headed reason and it truly looked like a political party and i think it is an explanation as to why they singled out that phrase and other phrases. the real scandal is the 501c4 which claims to be welfare social organizations and they are not supposed to be doing that type much activity and a lot of folks use this designation and they are just under half of their behavior which is political. it is a stupid way to fur retaliate out these -- way to tell lynn wait these groups.

>> do you know several wrote to the internal revenue service requesting if not demanding that the internal revenue service focus on the tea party. >> well, there is a lot of 501c4 privileges but the taint of partisanship comes in a sense from the press and washington which loves stories of partisanship and is board by stories of bureaucracy. 90% of the stories are rooted in bureaucracy. every reporter knows if you have a bureaucrat particular explanation for something your stories goes on a-19 and for a political story it goes on a-1. we will be board to tears if it turns court that the i-g- himself it a political error

not a border record. >> i don't know if it was political but it certainly was idealogical. if you look at them, they had a fast approval. the names they have is progress and progressive and the ones delayed have constitution, the bill of rights, never mind tea party, one of them said to make the american family get along better and do better. i mean anything that looked as if it came out of the more concerned ideology and that to me was political. >> what about the impact on the tea party of their fundraising from the accusations which have been pointed at them by senate democrats? >> well, let me put it this way. >> you think fundraising has become a weaker institution? >> i don't know, because tea party was raising money omgroup

idealogically committed and they expected criticism from senate democrats. >> hold on ellen, let's hear from republican speaker house speaker john boehner. >> mr. speaker, when you say some should go to jail, are you talking about the frontline managers or are you talking about the top brass who didn't admit to congress. >> i want to know who is responsible and somebody made a decision to do this and up doubt it was low-level employees in the field office. >> correct, who is house speaker john boehner referring to? >> i'm not sure who he is referring to and it is just a matter of how seriously he takes this and it's good that he has a bunch of scepticism. the higher ups didn't know

about it? that was false and now we no other assurances are false and now we need to know about it under oath. >> let the facts go where they may but it looks like you had mid-level bureaucrats who did this and they are protected and they are only two political appointees. this is inappropriate. >> they hid it from congress. >> i don't know that hiding from something from congress is illegal either. >> i don't know that, that is illegal either. >> it is wrong. how about the hat jack from permitting civil servants from engaging in political activity that is false. >> but an inspector general who

is appointed by former president bush. you really have to stretch -- >> to find a crime. >> to find a crime and a crime that leads to the oval office. >> you said it is a particular concern to the white house and there could be criminal prosecution. >> well, eric holder having a criminal prosecution to see if there is something done illegal. >> in confidence? i don't see how in confidence is the right -- incompetence is the right word. >> you care what the tea party itself says about the internal revenue service quote, unquote crimes. >> this is clearly an over reach of government. they are way outside their bounds. >> many of the tea party groups

singled out and operates with small budgets. lawrence is the executive based virginia tea party. mr. norton says the internal revenue see askehis group beginning in 2010 more than two years ago 500 pages of documents including all of norton's communications and the names of every donor. >> it is not creepy, toes honest with you, to figure they were trying to did i have have i out -- trying to give out who we were and questions who the secret police might ask. >> well, is this the way they do this with the internal revenue service in handling tea party applications? >> not specifically but there was a general atmosphere where people felt they were egged on to do this and this was just

bureaucracy and there was a filter to do this more efficiently. it's not efficient to ask detailed questions to go back around and delay them for years when you are sweeping the progressive groups and giving them a stamp of approval. >> i don't know they were swept in. >> they were. they have the rubber stamp. 250 employees are dealing with 750 applications. they should not have the discretion to make these decisions based on these vague deadlines based on what is political. frankly this -- frankly, this is political to me and they should do away with this tax

exemptings -- he can -- endings left and -- exemption left and right. >> well they would be exempt from certain forms of taxation. the only thing is what laws were broken? >> i don't know what laws are broken but there must be something that requires them to act judicially. if you are asking members of your -- are members of your family going to run for political office and if you only ask a few and there are a few you give the green light and there are a few you hold back, i don't know if that is criminal but it should be. >> there is a new jersey nonprofit and they got the internal revenue service approval for a social nonprofit group. but missouri is organizing and

another legal group, you have progress and you have their expansion -- exemption. >> wait a minute. >> i want to hear from you. >> wait a minute, john -- some have to be denied. >> john, you've got to get the political implications. 49% could have been spent on political campaigns. >> yeah. >> the ones on the liberal side has a political dimension and in terms of who gave their money, they were anonymous. there for it could be used in the political campaigns the money from the conservative side was held back and on the liberal sides it was put forward. >> whatever was held here is not going to make a tingles

worth of difference. >> some of these conservative groups have not been approved yet. straight down the middle, during extensive analysis, during the progressive groups, they were cleared. issue two, were they p od? >> i don't know what happened between the ap and the justice department, i was recused from the case. >> the, a p-is the nations largest news source. from april and may 20th 12, a year ago, they were subpoenaed by the department of justice including office phone lines an ap home lines and cell phone lines. the record sweep was to find out who in the government had

leaked the details of a plot to blow up a u.s. airlinesser by an al qaeda group in yep minute and the plot -- yemen and on monday, the ap blasted the feds over the probe. they say there can be no justification of such an overbroad association of its reporters. they reveal confidential sources across all of the news gatherings undertaken by the ap during a two months period and provide a road map to their operations and disclose a p's activities an operations that the government has no conceivable right to know. we regard this action by the department of justice as a serious interference with a p constitutional rights to gather

question, was the broad sweep of this subpoena intended solely to catch the leak error was it intended to cripple the news gathering. >> 100% to get the leaker. that is what started this. a double agent who we had or the nation had in yemen, looking at the most dangerous terrorist in the world was exposed by somebody, we don't know who, that is what is driving this. the press as far as i know did nothing wrong and even the reporting was not bad but they are getting trampled as always under a leak investigation. >> i make no apologizing and i don't think people would expect me as commander and chief not to be might am

compromise their commissions or get them killed. the flip side, we live in a democracy where free press and free expression and the only flow of information helps hold me accountable and helps hold our government accountable. this promotes interest of how we strike that balance properly and that's a worthy commission to have. >> i think he made sense as far as i am concerned and up do think this is an unbelievable situation. they could have handled it better and to my mind, they were absolutely okay to go after to blow this guy's cover and it was a critical piece of intelligence we had and how

or other it got leaked. >> plus the reaction, john, it is so inn strucktive, -- instructive and on the first amendment, they treat the nra as if it is paranoia and they treat the tea party the same way when it cares about all the amendments in the constitution. >> the head of the a p said it is deeply damaging, do you believe them or don't you? >> well, it has a chilling affect on sources which is why journalists fight it, but the

white house has their side which is a legitimate side. i have to listen to the president on this one and the justice department was operating legally within the patriot act and now the white house is apparently backing a shield law for the media and that's a worthy thing to have. >> and remember, the republicans have been crying for this. >> that's right because they said they leaked this themselves to make the president look good during the election. >> would president barack obama be likely okay to like this with their own campaign staff to probe for their cooperation? >> that is a silly rant that does not deserve an answer. the answer is no.

>> the ap says their sources are frozen. we rely on them to give us news. >> this is a legitimate pursuit on the part of the government and i support the president's commons on those. >> they have -- comments on those. >> at 6:14 p.m. they broke the internal revenue service story. and they broke a story about ap's phone records from the last year. this is the aftermath of the internal revenue service story. issue three, benghazi document dump. >> the white house has released 10 pages -- 100 pages on the attacks on benghazi libya and the atck on ber 11th

resulted in the deaths of four americans. christopher stevens was among those killed. some members of congress has accused the white house for intentionally changing how it was covered by blaming them about an anti-muslim video rather than an intentional attack. they revealed the talking point from the cia which was produced at 2:27 p.m. three days after the attack. it says the attack may have been spontaneously inspired by the u.s. embassy in cairo and evolved into a direct assault on the u.s. consulate and that quote, we do know that islamic he can supreme mists -- extremists anticipated in the

attack. at least five others involving benghazi, and that quote, we cannot rule out that individuals previously surveyed the individuals and the final version of the talking points, after numerous revisions produced on september 15thth, removed all references to extremists or al qaeda or premeditated... >> benghazi was the result of a respond stain house in -- spontaneous addition five-days following -- five days following the attack. it was then done by the then cia director after a meeting at the white house. question, was there any foreign policy done by thish wants of the -- issuians of the furious

talking points? >> this was the ultimate collapse of a conspiracy theory and the e-mails showed susan rice was not any part of the talking debate. the previous republican attacks have been proven to be spurious. it was the real leaking of the fabricated quotes of these e- mails by the republicans by jonathan carl, the reporter which started a frenzy this week and now we know it started the e-mails which essentially -- >> do you know any such fabrication as alleged to? >> yes, he quoted one of the e- mails from somebody in the white house saying the state department was involved -- >> the e-mail was. >> right the e-mail was but

what it said about the process was absolutely correct. they took out the al qaeda retch runs and to the -- references and they did not want congress to be concerned about it and then you had susan rice going out there talking about the you tube videos on what the secretary of state did as well and the videoing after fur is in -- individual -- video graph was in jail -- >> did you see the video? >> yes, but everybody knew from the beginning -- >> what we learned from the e- mail trail that it was basically a knife fight between the state department and the cia because the consulate attack was under cia

installation. they did not want to be blamed for not having proper security there. >> the immigration is more touch and go and will be declared dead even if it passes. >> republicans will use the internal revenue service scandal to inn still fear about obama care because it has to be implemented through the internal revenue service and the white house has to redouble its efforts for 37 votes and they will not reveal it. >> in the wake of that information that president barack obama is not a good manager attention will focus on governor o'malleyly who is a good man engineer. >> the efforts of the ben bernanke and the federal reserve board... >> democrats former chair of

the dnc, attorney general, the winner will be cushion eli. byebye. >> are we on schedule?

schools are the big winner in governor jerry brown's revised budget while he pushing back on calls to spend elsewhere. >> this is not the time to break out the champagne. >> over $1 billion unspent in a home loan program for veterans while thousands of vets go homeless. will the new bay bridge be safe? a federal probe puts transportation officials on the hot seat. >> what is caltrans going to do to earn the trust of the public? and anna deavere smith on the value of empathy from the board room to the court room.