White House Aide Calls Criticism of Obama ‘Offensive\'

A senior adviser to President Obama mounted a combative defense of the administration on Sunday, saying the controversies enveloping the White House were the result of Republican lawmakers' trying to “drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations.”

The remarks came from Dan Pfeiffer, a member of the president's inner circle, as he appeared on all five major Sunday morning talk shows in an effort to move the administration past what commentators have described as a “hell week” of controversy and missteps. He pointedly rejected Republican criticisms of the president's actions and leadership style as “offensive” and “absurd,” and he said the administration would not be distracted from doing the nation's business.

In his appearances, Mr. Pfeiffer faced often tough questioning over the Internal Revenue Service's targeted reviews of conservative groups; the attack on an American diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, in September; and the Justice Department's seizure of journalists' records.

He repeatedly pointed the finger at Republicans, saying they were exploiting the three issues for political purposes, even as he urged them to work with the administration on legislation to revamp the immigration system and trim the budget deficit.

His warning against “fishing expeditions” came when he was asked on the CBS program “Face the Nation” about a remark by the White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough, who said he instructed staff not to spend more than 10 percent of their time on the three controversies.

The program's host, Bob Schieffer, asked whether that meant that the White House did not take the issues seriously.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “There are some very serious issues here, particularly the I.R.S., where there was inexcusable conduct that needs to be fixed. And that's going to happen.” But he said the president and his staff needed to keep “actually doing the people's work and fighting for the middle class.”

Republicans appearing on the Sunday shows insisted that they would be aggressive in pushing for fuller investigations, particularly of the I.R.S. and Benghazi matters. The administration has promised to cooperate, but is also fighting to keep the problems from overshadowing its agenda.

Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said on “Fox News Sunday” that investigators examining the I.R.S. scandal needed to answer critical questions: “Who knew? When did they know? Why did they do this? How high up in government did it go?”

Mr. Ryan, a member of the Ways and Means Committee, which on Friday held an often testy hearing about the I.R.S. matter, said Americans had lost confidence in their government. “This is arrogance of power, abuse of power, to the nth degree,” he said.

Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican who is also on the committee, said on ABC's “This Week” that an inspector general's review of the I.R.S. matter, which was released last week and largely blamed ineffective I.R.S. management for undue scrutiny of Tea Party groups, was “just the beginning of this process.”

Mr. Pfeiffer tried to clarify a main point - Mr. Ryan's “when did they know” - about when Mr. Obama learned that an I.R.S. unit had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, saying repeatedly on Sunday that the president had learned about the matter only weeks ago. That was appropriate, he said, given the importance of insulating the I.R.S. from White House pressures.

“There is no question Republicans are trying to make political hay here,” Mr. Pfeiffer said of the I.R.S. scandal. And regarding Benghazi, he said on Fox, “there's a series of conspiracy theories the Republicans have been spinning about this since the night it happened.”

Chris Wallace, the Fox host, pressed Mr. Pfeiffer to explain exactly what Mr. Obama was doing on Sept. 11 as reports of the attack on the United States Mission in Benghazi emerged - specifically whether the president had gone to the Situation Room to monitor events. Mr. Pfeiffer dismissed the question as irrelevant and rejected what he said was an implication of presidential inattention. The attack killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

“The assertions from Republicans here that somehow the president allowed this to happen and didn't take action is offensive,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “There's no evidence to support it.”

But the minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, picking up a Republican theme, cast the disputes as symptoms of a deeper problem. “There is a culture of intimidation throughout the administration,” he said on NBC News's “Meet the Press.” “The I.R.S. is just the most recent example.”

The president has insisted that it would have been wrong to have been involved earlier in the I.R.S. matter or to interfere with the Justice Department's investigation into leaks that led to the seizure of the journalists' records. That has provoked criticism that his management style leans too far in the other direction - so detached as to be ineffectual.

“I think that's an absurd proposition,” Mr. Pfeiffer said on Fox. “What would be a real problem is if he was involved in those things.”