Amid the political boiling oil of three simultaneous scandals, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney continued Monday to defend the Obama administration's handling of troubles involving the Departments of Justice, Treasury and State. But reporters' eyebrows raised when he said that White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough knew about abuses taking place in the IRS and decided not to tell the president. In a briefing that started 45 minutes late after a one-hour announced delay, Carney said that 'no one in this building intervened in an ongoing, independent investigation' by the IRS Office of Inspector General, which was examining 'line IRS employees' who were targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny.
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White House didn't take action on a politicized IRS, Carney said. 'The cardinal rule' is that 'you do not intervene in an independent investigation'
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Obama wasn't told about IRS scandal because 'some matters are inappropriate to convey to him'
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White House got first whiff of Inspector General report on APRIL 16
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Carney, a former reporter, dodges questions about the ethics of government spying on journalists
He also said the @placeholder chief of staff learned about it, as 'some other members of the senior staff - I don't have a list.'
A recently released @placeholder Inspector General's report indicated that 501(c)(4) applications actually declined between 2009 and 2010, from 1,751 to 1,735.