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Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Facing angry lawmakers before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew promised that those involved in the Internal Revenue Service scandal will be held accountable once more facts are known.
“We are going to get to the bottom of it -- anyone who is accountable will be held accountable,” Lew told the House Committee Wednesday. “I have made clear that it is an extraordinarily high priority, my highest priority to restore confidence in the IRS.”
As Lew faced the committee, in another hearing room a few doors down, Lois Lerner, the IRS’
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Photos.com/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The current march on Washington won’t fill the National Mall, or see an influx of buses down Constitution Avenue. But what it will do is clog your inbox.
You can only see it on your computer, or mobile device, but it’s out there: a two-day virtual march on Washington with the goal of demanding immigration reform.
“We don’t see this as exclusive of a regular march,” Jeremy Robbins, director of the Partnership for a New American Economy, told ABC News. “It’s 2013 and the way we communicate is broader and different than it was a generation ago, and we want to be able to
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Peter Kramer/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Ashley Judd may not be running for U.S. Senate in Kentucky, but another possible candidate is thinking about taking on Mitch McConnell, and she has some local star power of her own: former Miss America Heather French Henry.
French Henry, who was crowned Miss America in 2000 and is married to former Lt. Gov. Steve Henry, told ABC News she is being “urged by a number of individuals in political leadership to contemplate the possibility of running for Senate” as a Democrat.
“I feel I owe them the time and consideration to listen to their position,” Henry said in an e-mail. "Is there a political race in my future?
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Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images (WASHINGTON) -- After a key IRS official Wednesday invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself during congressional testimony, Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa said he will review legal precedent in order to determine whether Lois Lerner, the director of Exempt Organizations at the IRS, could be held in contempt of Congress.
Although Lerner, who’s at the center of the controversy, refused to answer questions from members of the committee, she read a brief statement into the record declaring her innocence. Furthermore, at the request of Issa, Lerner authenticated a document containing
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MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Bill Nye may be known as the Science Guy, but his Twitter feed reveals that he has another interest: politics.
On Tuesday Nye wondered what Oklahoma senator and well-known climate change denier Jim Inhofe thought about the tornado that devastated Moore, Okla.
Inhofe did not respond to the question on Twitter and was unavailable for comment when contacted by ABC News.
Nye tweeted, "Oklahoma City was hit hard again. Has anyone asked Oklahoma Senator Inhofe about the three large storms in the [past] 14 years?"
Although Nye and Inhofe have not directly exchanged words about the tornado devastation in Oklahoma
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Gary Gershoff/WireImage(WASHINGTON) -- The GOP's newest opposition-research group has found its first target: Terry McAuliffe.
America Rising PAC, a group devoted to researching Democratic candidates, will look to make its mark on the 2013 and 2014 election cycles, supplying the Republican Party's answer to the Democratic research-only super PAC, American Bridge. Former Mitt Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades is leading the effort.
McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who is running for governor in Virginia, is now getting the America Rising treatment.
The group on Wednesday posted online 688 pages of emails between
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Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The New York City mayoral race got much more interesting Wednesday with Anthony Weiner’s entry, asking New Yorkers in a video to give him a second chance and saying that he’s “learned some tough lessons.” His wife, Huma Abedin, is standing next to him with her own pitch: “We love this city. And no one would work harder to make it better than Anthony.”
The video makes it clear that the famously press-shy Abedin -- a longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and friend to the Clinton clan -- is on board despite her husband’s fall from grace in 2011 when
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Joshua LOTT/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama will travel to Oklahoma on Sunday to see firsthand the areas devastated by this week’s deadly tornadoes, the White House announced.
The president will meet with families affected by the devastation and thank first responders during his visit to the Oklahoma City area, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.
Obama has directed his administration to provide all available resources to help in the recovery.
“As a nation, our full focus right now is on the urgent work of rescue and the hard work of recovery and rebuilding that lies ahead,” Obama said
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Barbara Buono for NJ(NEW YORK) -- The woman challenging Chris Christie in his gubernatorial re-election bid in New Jersey, Democratic state Sen. Barbara Buono, is out with her first television ad.
The ad begins running this week and is a more than $1 million buy, a Buono campaign aide said.
The ad’s goals are two-fold: hitting her opponent on the state of the economy and introducing herself to voters where she still has low name recognition.
Buono, 59, has had digital ads, including one released this week poking fun at the pronunciation of her last name, but this is the first one New Jersey residents will see in their pricey media markets
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Pete Marovich/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service’s director of the Exempt Organizations who is at the center of the controversy after the agency targeted conservative organizations for gratuitous scrutiny, invoked her fifth amendment right against self incrimination Wednesday at a congressional hearing examining the brooding scandal.
Lerner quietly took her seat at the witness table, standing and raising her right hand as she swore to tell the truth alongside other senior IRS officials testifying at the hearing. When it became her turn to speak, Lerner read a brief statement into the record, declaring
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Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- After the Senate Judiciary passed the Gang of Eight’s immigration legislation Tuesday night out of the committee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to bring the bill before the full Senate in June.
“I will bring this bill, which is a strong, bipartisan bill, to the floor in June, sometimes soon after we've returned from the Memorial Day work period,” Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor Wednesday morning.
The Gang of Eight’s bill underwent a painstaking 24-day process through the Senate Judiciary Committee during which over 120 amendments were considered. The bill passed out of
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Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) -- Eric Garcetti has won the bid to become the next mayor of Los Angeles.
The 42-year-old city councilman beat City Controller Wendy Greuel in an election on Tuesday. Results posted on the Los Angeles City Clerk’s website show that Garcetti defeated Greuel 54 percent to 46 percent.
"Thank you Los Angeles -- the hard work begins but I am honored to lead this city for the next four years. Let's make this a great city again," Garcetti tweeted early Wednesday morning.
He will replace Antonio
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Alex Wong/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner has finally declared himself a candidate for New York City mayor.
In an ad posted on YouTube late Tuesday night, the democrat says, "I'm running for mayor because I've been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it my entire life."
Weiner adds that he hopes he gets a "second chance to work for you," admitting that he's "made some big mistakes" and "let a lot of people down."
"But I've also learned some tough lessons," he says.
Weiner resigned from Congress in 2011 after he revealed that he sent sexually inappropriate texts and photos to women
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The bipartisan Senate "Gang of Eight" held together despite an onslaught of amendments and some efforts to kill its comprehensive immigration reform bill.
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday night passed the bill 13-5, largely intact, to the full Senate for a vote.
It is the first step in a series of hurdles for immigration reform that includes increased border security, a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants and reforms to legal immigration designed to streamline the process.
The committee vote was met with cheers of, "Yes, we can," by those in the room.
It took the
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Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call(OKLAHOMA CITY) -- Republican Rep. Tom Cole, whose district took a direct hit from a powerful tornado on Monday, said the residents of the tornado-ravaged towns in Oklahoma need help, not a political battle over funding in Washington.
“Once a disaster starts, to me that’s the end of a discussion. Now we need to focus on the Americans that are in a difficult spot,” Cole told ABC News in an interview Tuesday. “They don’t need to be watching a big political battle, they need to be sure they’re getting help.”
Cole is one of only two members of Oklahoma’s seven-person congressional delegation who voted
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