Comstock Images/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Lois Lerner, the top IRS official who is at the center of the controversy for the targeting of tea party and other conservative groups, will refuse to answer questions at a congressional hearing Wednesday and invoke her Fifth Amendment rights, ABC News has learned.

She is set to appear before the House Oversight Committee.  Congressional aides said Tuesday that they received a notice from Lerner’s lawyers that she would not answer their questions because it is now part of a criminal investigation.

“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation, but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” according to a letter that her lawyer, William Taylor, sent to Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the committee, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Taylor asked that Lerner be granted a reprieve from appearing before the committee, saying it has “no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her.” A congressional aide told ABC News that she is still expected to appear Wednesday.

Lerner is in charge of overseeing requests for tax-exempt status.

Her testimony is key, members of Congress believe, because she found out in June 2011 that terms like “tea party” and “patriots” were being used to flag tax-exempt requests. The practice stopped, according to an inspector general’s investigation, but she did not alert Congress.

A spokesman for the committee said Lerner remains under subpoena to testify.

“The committee has a constitutional obligation to conduct oversight,” spokesman Ali Ahmad said. “Chairman Issa remains hopeful that she will ultimately decide to testify tomorrow about her knowledge of outrageous IRS targeting of Americans for their political beliefs.”

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Hemera/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The first group that claims they were unfairly scrutinized by the Internal Revenue Service filed suit Tuesday against the agency in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking damages and the granting of their long-delayed tax-exempt status application.

True the Vote, a Houston-based voter watchdog group, filed a complaint asking for their tax-exempt status to be granted as well as seeking damages for what they are calling “unlawful actions by the IRS in the processing of its application for exempt status.”  The group was founded in June of 2010 and is affiliated with the King Street Patriots, a Tea Party group started in December of 2009.

The group says they have been waiting three years for their tax exempt status to either be granted or denied, first applying in July of 2010. During that time their president Catherine Engelbrecht told ABC News she has been personally audited and even visited by agents from the Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

They want the IRS Review Policy declared unconstitutional under the First Amendment and they are asking the court to “permanently enjoin the IRS from further implementing and applying the IRS Review Policy and any other similar policies.”  Damages sought include the awarding of $1,000 for “each unauthorized inspection of its return information.”

True the Vote wants “actual damages in excess of $85,000 incurred as a result of the the IRS Review Policy and the IRS Employees’ violations of Plaintiff’s constitutional rights.” They seek the return of their attorney fees, any “other relief as the Court deems just,” amongst other financial and non-financial damages.

In the complaint, True the Vote says because of their “perceived conservative policy positions and affiliation with Tea Party organizations, the IRS and IRS Employees systematically targeted True the Vote’s application for additional review and scrutiny, whereby True the Vote was deliberately subjected to numerous unnecessary and burdensome requests for information about its operations and affiliations.”

“Consequently, True the Vote was forced to furnish to the IRS information and documents wholly unnecessary to the determination of True the Vote’s tax-exempt status, which were repeatedly accessed and inspected by IRS agents. The processing of True the Vote’s application was deliberately delayed and its recognition as a tax-exempt organization has been improperly withheld as a result of Defendants’ actions,” the complaint reads.

“After answering hundreds of questions and producing thousands of documents, we’re done waiting. The IRS does not have the power to pocket veto our application. Federal law empowers groups like True the Vote to force a decision in court -- which is precisely what we aim to do,” Englebrecht said in a statement.

Englebrecht said in her previous interview with ABC News that she was told during the application process by an analyst in Cincinnati: “I’m just following directions and the directions are coming from Washington,” which seems to contradict the IRS’ statements that the unfair scrutiny was solely coming out of the Cincinnati office.

True the Vote says they are “dedicated solely to promoting election integrity in our Republic” and they “do not pick winners and losers,” but they came under scrutiny during the election for its work monitoring polling places, with critics saying it was trying to suppress Democratic and minority voters.

True the Vote is being represented by attorney Cleta Mitchell, who has been closely involved in the case as the scandal unfolded.

“We are not going to allow the IRS to claim, as it has been doing in the past week, that the targeting of conservative groups is over and ‘everything has been fixed.’   It is not yet fixed and this litigation is a vital step both to resolve True the Vote’s status and to learn exactly what happened inside the IRS,” Mitchell said in a statement.

The suit names Steven Miller, the acting commissioner of the IRS who was forced to resign in the scandal, along with Douglas Shulman, the former commissioner of the IRS who left in November, but resided over the agency when this extra scrutiny was said to be taking place, and Lois Lerner, the director the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt organizations.

Others named are Susan Maloney, Ronald Bell, Janine L. Estes, and Faye Ng, all IRS Exempt Organizations Specialists True the Vote says dealt with their application. They are also naming “unknown named employees of the Internal Revenue Service” who “developed, implemented, applied, approved or oversaw the unconstitutional IRS identification, review, and  processing criteria and policies described herein.”

True the Vote is working with the ActRight Legal Foundation on the suit and the group says this is “just the first of several cases” they plan to file against the IRS. Another group, the American Center for Law and Justice, is planning on bringing a suit against the IRS as well. Theirs will be on behalf of at least 17 tea party groups, but possibly more.

And it’s not just conservatives. The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed their own lawsuit against the IRS Tuesday to try and force the agency to be more clear and issue guidelines on what type of organizations qualify for  status as 501(c)(4) groups.

The IRS did not immediately respond to request for comment on the suit.

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Lawmakers have pledged to send aid to tornado-devastated Oklahoma quickly, but the state's Republican lawmakers -- six of whom voted against disaster aid after Superstorm Sandy -- may be forced to reckon with their past votes against emergency disaster funding.

Oklahoma's two Republican senators, Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, opposed a bill that provided more than $60 billion in emergency aid after Superstorm Sandy devastated the East Coast. In addition, three members of Oklahoma's House delegation joined with most Republicans in opposing the legislation.

Nearly all of the lawmakers have pledged that whatever assistance Oklahomans need will be provided, but the devil will be in the details.

Coburn, who opposed the Sandy bill because it did not identify spending cuts to offset the cost of the legislation, said in the immediate aftermath of the tornado that he would "absolutely" demand spending cuts in exchange for aid.

A spokesman for Coburn confirmed Tuesday that he would not change his position on demanding spending cuts in order to fund disaster aid.

Other Republicans opposed what they considered to be unrelated spending in the Sandy bill.

"When a disaster occurs in America and emotions are high, everybody all of a sudden wants to pour money on it," Inhofe said on the Senate floor in 2012.

Asked about his past vote against Sandy funding, Inhofe said that funding for tornado relief would be "totally different."

"That was totally different," Inhofe said on MSNBC on Tuesday. "They were getting things -- for instance, that was supposed to be for New Jersey. They had things in the Virgin Islands. They were fixing roads there. They were putting roofs on houses in Washington, D.C."

"Everybody was getting in and exploiting the tragedy that took place. That won't happen in Oklahoma," he added.

But the $60.4 Sandy relief bill, which languished in Congress because of opposition from Republican lawmakers, may be a cautionary tale.

The public fight over funding pitted congressional Republicans against one of their party's rising stars, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and even some members of their own caucus from the Northeast whose states were affected by the massive storm.

In the heated rhetoric over the bill, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said Republicans were betraying New Yorkers and New Jerseyans.

"I'm saying right now ... anyone from New York and New Jersey [who] contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their minds," King said on Fox News in January. "Because what [they] did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. It's an absolute disgrace."

It is perhaps in light of that public intraparty meltdown that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, Tuesday would not answer questions about whether Republicans would demand that Oklahoma relief funds also be paid for.

"We'll work with the administration on making sure that they have the resources they need to help the people of Oklahoma," Boehner said repeatedly in answer to questions from reporters.

So far, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has about $11 billion in its disaster relief fund and a final tallying of the cost of rebuilding parts of Oklahoma likely won't be finished for weeks.

But already, Republicans are taking some heat.

After Inhofe's comments Tuesday, he has been the subject of a storm of ridicule.

"Inhofe and Coburn: Red state hypocrites. Apparently we have deserving and undeserving disasters," wrote Joan Walsh, editor-at-large at Salon.com.

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Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- A new version of a bill that targets fake war heroes easily passed the House of Representatives late Monday with a 390-3 vote.

The bill, H.R. 258 also known as the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, is the latest attempt by Congress to push through legislation that would punish people who falsely claim to have won military awards, such as the Congressional Medal of Honor, and profit from those lies.

“The awards, and the men and women who have earned them, in some cases posthumously, are worthy of the utmost respect and sanctity,” said Rep. Bill Heck (R-Nev.), who introduced the bill in January.  “Benefiting from lying about receiving one of these awards is an affront to all who have worn the uniform and especially to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.”

The original iteration of the bill, the Stolen Valor Act of 2006, had been in effect for six years before the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional.  At the time, the law was written to say it was a crime simply to lie about military service and awards -- a broad characterization the Supreme Court said violated a person’s First Amendment right to free speech.

A new version of the bill, introduced by Heck in late 2012, narrowed the act to say the liar must be attempting to somehow materially profit from the lies, making the would-be crime more akin to fraud.  Heck reintroduced tweaked legislation in January.

It’s companion bill in the Senate, S. 210, was introduced by Sen. Dean Heller (R.-Nev.) in February with 21 bipartisan co-sponsors.  That bill has been referred to committee and has not yet seen a vote on the floor.

The new Stolen Valor Act’s sweep through the House comes just a week before the nation’s Memorial Day celebrations, a time when one watchdog said fake military heroes come “out of the woodwork.”

“This is like Christmas for a phony,” former U.S. Navy SEAL Don Shipley told ABC News last Memorial Day.

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Win McNamee/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll sharply reject the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, suspect an administration cover-up of the Benghazi incident and express substantial distrust of the federal government more generally.
 
Yet the national survey also finds no backlash against Barack Obama, at least at this point. His job approval rating is stable, albeit at a tepid 51 percent; he’s aided by accelerating economic optimism as well as by comparison with the much less-popular Republicans in Congress.

See a PDF with full results and charts here.

Longer-term impacts of contentious current issues remain to be seen, but there’s potential for significant damage to the administration. Americans by a vast 74-20 percent see the IRS’ behavior as inappropriate, with most feeling that way strongly – and 56 percent see it as a deliberate attempt to harass conservative organizations, not a mere administrative error.
 
The public divides on whether or not the administration is honestly disclosing what it knows about the IRS’ actions; 45 percent suspect a cover-up, 42 percent instead see full transparency. And more than a third overall in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, think these actions not only are inappropriate, but illegal.
 
Further, on the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last fall, suspicions of a cover-up rise to a majority, 55 percent. And in this case only a third of Americans are persuaded that the Obama administration is disclosing honestly what it knows about what occurred.
 
Beyond this negative view of the administration’s disclosure on Benghazi, Americans divide evenly on whether Republican criticisms on the issue reflect legitimate concerns or “political posturing.” But Hillary Clinton’s reputation thus far is largely intact: Despite criticisms of her handling of the incident, 62 percent approve of her work as secretary of state overall, down a bit from about six months ago but still a strong rating.
 
DISTRUST – Another result underscores the level of general distrust of the federal government. Americans by 54-38 percent say they think the government is doing more to threaten the rights of average Americans than to protect those rights. That’s not IRS-specific, however, since it was about as high in a similar Pew Research question in January.
 
There’s a high level of partisanship in suspicion of the government: Seventy-one percent of Republicans see it more as threatening than as protecting their rights, while just 31 percent of Democrats agree. But the balance is tipped by political independents, among whom a clear majority (61 percent) sees the government more as a threat than a source of protection.
 
Beyond politics, there’s an apparent economic element to trust in government, suggesting a perceived right to economic opportunity. People who see or expect economic recovery are much more likely than economic pessimists also to think that the government is protecting rather than threatening most people’s rights – regardless of their political or ideological preferences.
 
Beyond a sense of general distrust, there’s broad public concern about press freedoms, an issue related to federal prosecutors obtaining Associated Press telephone records in an effort to find the source of classified information about terrorism that was leaked to the news agency. Americans by 69-29 percent in this poll say they’re concerned that in trying to protect classified information the federal government will improperly intrude on the freedom of the press.
 
Specific to the AP issue, however, the public by 52-33 percent says prosecutors were justified in obtaining phone records via a court order, with results, in this case, similar across partisan and ideological lines. That may be because the leak related to terrorism, an issue on which the public tends to side with investigative efforts over privacy rights. Further, it’s not clear if the administration used a court order or instead a grand jury subpoena, which is not technically a court order but has a similar effect. Specifics on this issue, as well as other particulars of the case as they become known, could influence public attitudes.
 
OBAMA/ECONOMY – None of these issues appears to have impacted views of the president’s job performance; his approval rating, now 51 percent, has been essentially unchanged after slipping in March from a brief post-election foray into the mid-50s. An open question, though, is whether the president may have gained ground had these controversies not arisen.
 
In any case, strong sentiment about the president now divides evenly, after tilting slightly more negative in March and April. Moreover, the partisan gap in views of his performance, while still vast, is its smallest since December 2011, and Obama has majority approval among men for the first time since December 2010. Both may reflect the effects of an improving economy.
 
On that score, 56 percent of Americans now say the economy is beginning to recover, up by a dramatic 20 percentage points in the past year and a half, to the most since ABC and the Post first asked the question in late 2009. The change is broadly based, but strongest among financially better-off adults.
 
Additionally, more than half, 53 percent, now say they’re optimistic about the economy’s prospects in the year ahead, a majority for the first time in four years. (A steadier majority, two-thirds, expresses optimism about their own finances.)
 
These economic views, as noted, are closely related to political sentiment; Obama’s rating is far higher among those who see economic gains.
 
None of this means the economy’s in great shakes; Americans divide evenly, 48-48 percent, in approval or disapproval of how Obama’s handled it overall, with more “strongly” negative views than strongly positive ones. But that’s still one of his best scores on the economy since mid-2009. A little more than a year ago, by contrast, more disapproved than approved by a 21-point margin.
 
THE GOP – Obama also benefits from a comparative advantage vs. the Republicans in Congress. Regardless of his own rating on the economy, he leads the GOP in trust to handle it by 46-37 percent. That’s fluctuated; it’s a bit better for the president now than in March, but down from his wider 18-point advantage on the economy during his post-election bump in December.
 
Obama has a larger advantage in a more general question: Fifty-one percent of Americans say he is “mainly concentrating on things that are important to you personally.” That’s 8 points more than say the same about the Democrats in Congress – and 18 points more than say so about the Republicans.
 
Notably, Obama also is well ahead of his predecessor. At about this point in George W. Bush’s second term just 41 percent said he was focused on issues important to them, 10 points weaker than Obama’s score. Similarly, at that point 55 percent said Bush had done more to divide than to unite the country; 45 percent say the same about Obama now, with more undecided.
 
TEA TIME – In one division of interest, this poll finds a continued roughly even split in views of the Tea Party political movement, with 40 percent of adults saying they support it overall, 43 percent opposed. “Strong” support for the movement, at 10 percent, is numerically its lowest on record, and just about half the level of strong opposition, 22 percent.
 
Sizable majorities of Tea Party supporters and opponents alike say it was inappropriate for the IRS to single out conservative groups for extra scrutiny on their applications for tax-exempt status. At the same time, Tea Party aficionados are much more apt than its critics to think the IRS’ actions constituted intentional harassment, were illegal and are the subject of an attempted cover-up by the Obama administration.
 
ONWARD AND (POLITICALLY) DOWNWARD? – This survey, in sum, finds items for individuals across the political spectrum to enjoy, and others for them to worry about. After years in the tank, views on the economy unabashedly are improving, a positive result any way you slice it. That’s helping to support the president’s ratings, as are his comparisons to the long-lagging GOP. But the IRS issue, in particular, looks to pose a real risk to the administration, given the depth and breadth of criticism about it.
 
Most threatening, perhaps – to both sides of the aisle – is the public’s political mood more broadly. Views of the government as a threat ebb and flow, but are not new; as long ago as 1995, 55 percent in a Los Angeles Times poll said the government’s activities threatened their constitutional rights. But the return to that sentiment is a clear negative.
 
There are others: Even with improving economic views, 57 percent in this poll say the country continues to head “seriously off on the wrong track.” And while a majority now expresses economic optimism, when Americans are asked the likelihood that Obama and the Republicans will work together in the year ahead, the response is pessimistic by a resounding 2-1 margin.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

David De Lossy/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The "Fast and Furious" gun-walking controversy is back in the headlines.

This time, a Justice Department Inspector General's report says that a former top federal prosecutor decided to get back at whistleblower John Dodson by leaking a story that Dodson also supported allowing guns to get into the hands of U.S. criminals and Mexican drug cartels.

Former Arizona prosecutor Dennis K. Burke told the Justice Department that he gave Fox News an internal memo, stating that Dodson, an ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives) Special Agent, supported walking guns along the Southwest border.

In actuality, Dodson proposed going undercover in 2010 as a straw purchaser and delivering firearms to suspected traffickers.  He later criticized the operation to Congress.

Burke said that he didn't think he did anything illegal by leaking the document implicating Dodson.  Meanwhile, he also turned over documents to The New York Times that one of the guns used in the "Fast and Furious" operation was at the scene where a U.S. Border Patrol agent had been murdered.

The prosecutor and several other officials resigned as a result of the botched operation in which law enforcement officials lost track of hundreds of firearms.

Meanwhile, Burke has since joined a global security firm.

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- In yet another Justice Department leak investigation of journalists, the U.S. Department of Justice reportedly seized emails and phone records of Fox News correspondent James Rosen, and even tracked his comings and goings into the State Department by tracking when he scanned his ID at the building’s entrance.

The story was first reported Monday by The Washington Post.

Court documents in the case quote extensively from Rosen’s personal emails in making the case against the alleged leaker, former State Department adviser Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. The New Yorker has posted the documents online.

It was all part of an investigation into a story Rosen did in 2009 about intelligence officials warning that North Korea was likely to respond to U.N. sanctions with more nuclear tests.  Kim was one of 95 people who saw the intelligence report.

For First Amendment advocates, the most chilling part of the court documents is the suggestion by DOJ that Rosen was, “an aider and abettor and/or co-conspirator in the crime” because he was trying to get the information, which was classified, from his source.  Seeking sensitive and secret information is something reporters do every day.

The Rosen story comes after news the Justice Department had also subpoenaed the phone records of 20 employees of The Associated Press a different leak investigation.

White House spokesman Jay Carney was peppered with questions about this at Monday’s briefing, beginning with this exchange with ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl:

KARL: And just one more question. Does the president approve of the Justice Department’s handling of the Jin-Woo Kim leak investigation? We now know that the FBI investigators in this case not only seized James Rosen’s phone records, they went through and read his emails, they tracked his comings and goings inside the State Department. Does the president approve of that kind of action by the Justice Department against a reporter?

CARNEY: I will refer you to what the president said in response to a question about another matter along these lines, and that is that he is a strong defender of the First Amendment and a firm believer in the need for the press to be able to conduct investigative reporting and facilitate a free flow of information.

He is also, as a citizen and as commander in chief, insistent that we protect our secrets, that we protect classified information, and that leaks -- that we take very seriously the leaks of classified information because leaks can endanger the lives of men and women in uniform and other Americans serving overseas for our country.

And that is a balance he seeks, and it is reflected in the media shield law that his administration negotiated with the Senate in 2009 and which the president is very happy to see the Senate take up again. That’s a balance that was endorsed at the time by -- you know, from media organizations to federal prosecutors. I cannot, of course, comment on a specific ongoing criminal investigation.

Q: Jay, do you, as a former reporter, approve of those kind of tactics -- reading through the emails of a reporter?

MR. CARNEY: Again, I cannot comment on a specific ongoing investigation. I certainly share -- and I think most Americans do -- the president’s belief that we need to have, you know, a press that is able to pursue investigative journalism and that we have to defend the First Amendment. I also think it’s very important, as I think members of both parties have said, that we need to make sure that leaks are not tolerated, because leaks that can endanger the lives of our men and women and endanger our national security need to be taken very seriously. But that is, again, not a comment on a specific case, because I cannot comment on a specific case.

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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Senators amended the bipartisan immigration bill on Monday to require all non-U.S. citizens to be fingerprinted when leaving the U.S. through the country's 30 busiest airports.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved several changes to the bill during a markup session that's expected to stretch into the evening. The fingerprinting system, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), is a gesture towards Republicans who favor stronger enforcement methods against unauthorized immigration. It passed on a bipartisan 13-5 vote.

The Hatch proposal would require the so-called "biometric" entry/exit system to be put into place at the 10 U.S. airports with the highest volume of international air travel within two years of the bill's passage. After six years, the system would be expanded to 30 airports, pending a study of the system's effectiveness.

Non-citizens entering the country are already required to submit fingerprints, but federal officials currently rely on a combination of flight records and databases to determine who has left.

Last week, the Senate panel rejected a broader biometric system backed by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a chief opponent of the Gang of Eight bill.

Supporters of the biometric system say the language is necessary to enforce a law that's been on the books since 2001 to track foreign citizens entering and leaving the country. An estimated 40 percent of the undocumented population in the U.S. entered legally on visas, but overstayed them.

However, members of the Gang of Eight, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said that a full biometric tracking system could cost as much as $25 billion to implement, and would thus prove too expensive. Schumer supported the more limited Hatch proposal on Monday.

"Moving to a biometric system at our airports will bolster our national security," Schumer said in a statement. "It will not be easy to get this cutting-edge system up and running at all 30 of the biggest airports, but we believe it's doable in the next five years."

Sen. Marco Rubio, a key Republican member of the Gang of Eight, said he would fight to include a biometric system in the bill after the Sessions amendment failed last week. In a statement Monday, he applauded the amendment as a "good start" but indicated he would push for further biometric provisions.

"I will continue to fight to make the tracking of entries and exits include biometrics in the most effective system we can build when the bill is amended on the Senate floor," he said.

Rubio does not have a seat on the Judiciary Committee, which is considering the amendments.

The committee approved another GOP-backed amendment that would terminate the asylum or refugee status of individuals residing in the U.S., if they returned to their countries of origin "without good cause," as determined by the Department of Homeland Security.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Gang of Eight member, sponsored the proposal and called it a necessary change in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. The accused bombers were of Chechen ethnicity and their father reportedly sought asylum status to move his family to the U.S.

But immigration-reform advocates were frustrated by the amendment, especially since it included a carve out for Cubans, who are automatically granted legal status if they reach the shores of the United States.

Immigrant rights activist Gaby Pacheco tweeted that "folks in the audience all jumped" out of frustration when the amendment passed.

"OH MY WORD! How in the world did that pass? Graham 1? #Fearshouldneverdrivelegislation," she continued. "Now, Sen. Graham is a friend, & I love my Cuban community (husband is Cuban) but excluding Cuban's just doesnt seem fair Graham 2 #CIRMarkup."

The committee has hours of work left to go and some of the most controversial amendments have yet to be addressed. That includes a provision backed by Hatch, a potential swing vote, that would expand the number of H-1B visas available for high-skilled workers. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) the chairman of the judiciary committee, is also pushing an amendment that would allow gay and lesbian Americans in a long-term relationship to sponsor foreign partners for green cards.

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