WASHINGTON –- The head of the IRS on Friday insisted that tea party groups were not targeted for extra scrutiny, but were caught up in a clumsy dragnet by government employees trying to take shortcuts to being more efficient.

Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller's frequent refrain was that of...

WASHINGTON -- The origins of the IRS scandal over its targeting of tea party groups aroused curiosity and suspicion from the beginning.

A senior IRS official, Lois G. Lerner, was speaking on a panel at an American Bar Association conference in a ballroom at the Grand Hyatt...

While former IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, has agreed to testify before Congress next week, the senior manager who oversaw the division that targeted tea party groups has yet to commit to do so.

Lois G. Lerner, who managed the IRS exempt organizations...

One of President Obama's central promises as a candidate for the White House in 2008 was that he would transform the culture of Washington and the country's politics.

"Change has come to America," he declared the night he won the presidency.

There is the hint of...

WASHINGTON -- Stu Stevens' recounting of the 2012 campaign is a tale of woe.

The former senior strategist for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign on Wednesday played up the campaign's disadvantages -- so much so that he seemed to be arguing the election was unwinnable.

Stevens, who is now helping...

WASHINGTON -- The IRS Inspector General said Tuesday that incompetence, not malice, was behind the tax agency’s heavy scrutiny of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the lead-up to the 2012 elections.

A 48-page IG report explicitly stated that the IRS behavior was “not politically biased,” that it...

WASHINGTON -– At least one senior IRS official knew the agency was targeting tea party groups with what the agency later called "troubling questions" for months before it stopped. And when the IRS finally did change course, it did so in response to mounting public scrutiny in the press, documents...

WASHINGTON -- In 2010, as the tea party was arriving on the political scene, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the movement would "die out."

"The problem with the tea party, I think it’s just unsustainable because they can never come up with a coherent vision for governing the country," Graham...

WASHINGTON - A conservative researcher's 2009 dissertation, which argued that Hispanic immigrants to the U.S. have substantially lower IQs than whites, put one of the biggest opponents to an immigration reform bill in Congress on the defensive on Wednesday.

The dissertation by Jason Richwine, then a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard...

WASHINGTON –- Americans, journalist David Halberstam once wrote, are "remarkably tolerant of error, particularly if it is self-confessed."

Mark Sanford is thanking his lucky stars that's the case. The former South Carolina governor won his old seat in Congress back on Tuesday, after voters in the state's coastal 1st...

BEAUFORT, S.C. -- It may have been a slip of the subconscious, or a phrase often used in small talk that sneaked out of the candidate's mind before she got a good look at it.

"I love this."

Wearing a bright orange overcoat that radiated positive vibes, Elizabeth Colbert...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -– In the space of a few minutes here Friday night, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) went from talking about constitutional amendments to asking for people to send him text messages.

That's what talk of a presidential run will do to a politician when he comes to an...

WASHINGTON -- Three former top campaign aides to President Barack Obama are starting consulting firm, continuing an ongoing trend of former Obama staffers entering the private sector to rake in large consulting fees.

Stephanie Cutter and Jen O'Malley Dillon, both deputy campaign managers on Obama's reelection campaign, and Teddy...

WASHINGTON –- Mitch McConnell does not seem like an obvious choice to help lead the GOP out of the digital wilderness it has found itself in when it comes to political campaigns.

The Senate minority leader most often emerges into the public eye from the floor of the Senate,...

WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush may feel "no need to defend" himself this week before the opening of his presidential library on Thursday, but that's not true for many of those who served in his administration.

Bush loyalists have been working for weeks, if not months, on a...

WASHINGTON -- The official line from conservatives who oppose the immigration reform bill is that it will cost too much money.

The real reason is a total lack of trust.

According to many conservatives, the GOP's Washington establishment is selling its soul over immigration, Sen. Marco Rubio...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), one of the most adamant opponents of the Senate's immigration reform bill and a longtime hardliner on immigration, said Thursday that there are not currently enough no votes in the House to stop the Senate legislation from passing.

"They're not here yet," King told...

WASHINGTON -- The limits of Marco Rubio's persuasive powers and charm, and the depth of conservative reservations about immigration reform, are beginning to show themselves.

Rubio, the Republican Florida senator who is spearheading outreach to the Republican base and to conservative talk radio hosts, was unable to persuade one...

WASHINGTON -- It's been a bumpy few weeks for the Republican Party's Hispanic outreach effort.

A Republican congressman referred to Latino laborers as "wetbacks" late last month, and later apologized. Another Republican congressman on Wednesday said terrorists were being trained to "act like Hispanic" in order...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) on Wednesday accused President Obama of using the families of gun violence victims for political purposes.

"I think gun control is a legitimate issue for us to debate," Paul said. "I hate to see using people, I think, as props and politicizing people's tragedy. When I...