In Today’s Times:
- The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service resigned on Wednesday as the Justice Department continued its nascent investigation of accusations that the I.R.S. targeted conservative groups for additional scrutiny. Jonathan Weisman reports that the Senate Finance Committee will look into the matter on Thursday, a day before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hears testimony from Lois Lerner, who heads the agency’s division on tax-exempt organizations.
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One hundred pages of e-mails released by the White House on Wednesday show intense fighting between officials at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency over how much information to reveal after last September’s terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, Mark Landler, Eric Schmitt and Michael D. Shear report.
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The chasm between the reality and the actuality of President Obama’s second term, dogged by recent controversies, has raised questions about whether the president can rise above scandal and wrest the powers of his office to achieve his latter-term goals, Peter Baker writes.
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The series of embarrassing revelations about the sexual violence in the military may force Congress to address the issue, but lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee are split on how or whether to change how the military handles the cases, Jennifer Steinhauer writes. As President Obama meets with Pentagon officials on Thursday, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, is expected to introduce legislation that would give military prosecutors rather than commanders the power to decide which sexual assault cases to try.
Happening in Washington:
- Economic reports expected Thursday include April housing starts, last month’s consumer price index and weekly jobless claims at 8:30 a.m., followed at 10 a.m. by weekly mortgage rates.
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During a visit to Washington on Thursday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey will meet with President Obama at 9:50 a.m. and the two will give a joint press conference at noon. At 1:30 p.m., Mr. Erdogan is the honoree at a lunch held by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Biden will speak at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at 5:15 p.m., before Mr. Erdogan rejoins Mr. Obama for a working dinner at 6:30 p.m.
- Separate Senate committees are expected to vote on President Obama’s nominees to run the Department of Labor (9:15 a.m.) and the Environmental Protection Agency (noon).
- At a 10 a.m. oversight hearing focused on the Securities and Exchange Commission, the agency’s chairwoman, Mary Jo White, will testify before the House Committee on Financial Services.
- Also at 10 a.m., an Appropriations subcommittee in the Senate will hold a hearing on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s budget request for 2014 with testimony from the agency’s director, Robert S. Mueller III.
- When the House gathers at noon, lawmakers are expected to pass (again) a bill to repeal President Obama’s health care law that, like its predecessors, is unlikely to go anywhere in the Senate.
