0 continue to serve, i don't know, at least until kindergarten starts, anyway. "outfront" next, the white house in damage control mode. obama administration hit with three controversies. does the buck stop with the president? plus the latest from the investigation in boston. a note found in the boat where dzhokhar tsarnaev was hiding written by him. going to tell you what it says. first big break in that case. and the company that told angelina jolie she could face cancer is under serious fire tonight. we have a special investigation. let's go out front. good evening, everyone. i'm erin burnett. there are three controversies threatening the white house and the response from the obama administration sounds -- well, why don't you take a listen? >> i can assure you that i certainly did not know anything about the ig report before the ig report had been leaked through press -- >> i would as the cia. >> i was not the person involved in that decision. >> so who was? where exactly does the buck stop? who knew that the irs was targeting conservative groups that were trying to get tax exempt status? who led the american public to believe something that turned out not to be true? and why did the department of justice secretly obtain associated press phone records. the white house director of communications joins us tonight. jennifer, thank you very much for taking the time. when you hear those sound bites, it does sound like a lot of blaming other people. >> you know, the president is the chief executive of the government. and understands that it doesn't matter how these problems arose, it's his problem -- it's his responsibility and problem to fix them. and in each of these -- in each of the controversies, if you will, that have arisen this week from the inspector general's report on the irs to the e-mails around benghazi and to the court case you mentioned involving the subpoena of ap, he's taken steps in each of these cases to deal with the actual underlying substantive problem there. perhaps much -- perhaps less focus on the politics. >> let me ask you though. it seems like when all this became public then action is being taken. let's take the irs scandal. the agency as we now know was targeting conservative groups. the president learned about it on friday from press reports. you heard him there. he said he didn't know about the inspector general report prior to. that jay carney said earlier this week the white house council's office was alerted several weeks ago. they knew about a scandal that president called outrageous but nobody told the president? >> so the inspector general process that reviews -- that does con duct the investigations, that was create sod an investigation can go on without any sort of politics interfering. then it can happen outside of -- outside the political process and that a career investigator can come in and look at a problem and make his own judgments and then put that report out there and the recommendations, let them see it. the worst -- we do the white house counsel's office will be alerted to let -- to know that such report may be coming. there are hundreds of them that are done each month within the government. but the worst possible thing that we could have done is to get -- to involve ourselves at that point in an independent investigation of the irs. so we knew the best thing for us to do is to let the investigator do their job, come to -- come public with their report and recommendations and we pickeded it up and taken it from there. secretary lu and the president have taken some pretty strong steps since then. but, you know, when these controversies arise, you know, my communication is professional. the first instinct is to deal with them right away and answer all the questions right away. what you can't do is take any action that will make the situation worse. >> right. >> you need to wait especially when you're the president or speaking for the president of the united states. >> right. you said there were hundreds of these. obviously, there are hundreds and none of them almost get to the status of this one. this one in the inspector general report, one of the key sentences, the irs uses inappropriate criteria that reviewed tea party applying for exempt status. that would get leaked to the press and the press would be aware before the president of the united states and the irs reports to him? >> that is not -- that's not a situation that we welcome or happy w the fact that someone -- it's obviously unclear who but made the report available to the press before they made it -- officially made it available to capitol hill and made it available to us. so, you know, that made it more difficult to deal with the press around this. but it doesn't make it more difficult to deal with the substance which is, you know, which is what we have -- which is what we have done. but i can't emphasize enough how -- what a huge mistake it would have been for the white house to hear about press reports of an independent inspector general investigation of possible political activity at the internal revenue service and then have the white house insert itself and possibly contaminate in effect what needed to be an independent investigation. so did it make for a couple of uncomfortable days? yes. >> i see your point. i see your point. it also, of course, does seem shocking. he is the guy who runs all this. people would run amok and giving it to other people fern first. how does that happen? >> all we all had was press reports. nobody had the facts. we wanted -- we waited as was appropriate as is incumbent upon the white house and the president to act responsibly. we waited until we actually knew what the facts were. we were not going to make decisions that are as important as how you operate the irs and how you respond to a problem like this based on unconfirmed press reports. >> okay. but do you have frustration that the man who runs the irs runs the state department. all the organizations seem to be kind of doing what they want to do. he's the last one to know. shouldn't he be the first one before the media, before other people so he can say, look, the buck stops here? i'm not going to tolerate this or that? >> he wants the best possible government run -- he wants the best government possible. and in an important way that you do that is you allow the independent investigations within the department to police themselves, if you will, to root out problems, to have a place where employees are concerned about how their agency may be doing can go privately and hope that an inspector general will look at these problems for them. that's an important part of how the government operates. >> right. >> what the president doesn't want to do is involve himself in a process like that that's working to fair out the problems. >> jennifer, thank you for taking the time. appreciate it. >> thanks for having me, erin. still to come, it's been a month since the west texas explosion that killed 15 people. to night investigators are saying what caused that. and it's been 99 days since prisoners as guantanamo bay began a hunger strike. our exclusive and unprecedented access to gitmo continues tonight. we have a look at the extreme and the controversial methods that guards are using at this moment to keep those prisoners alive. and then a new development tonight in the boston bombing investigation. the major revelation in a note written by dzhokhar tsarnaev found in the boat that night that he managed to scribble out. at least six people killed when tornadoes touched down in texas. we're going to go there. oing on. wife, mother, marathoner. but one day it's just gonna be james and her. so as their financial advisor, i'm helping them look at their complete financial picture -- even the money they've invested elsewhere -- to create a plan that can help weather all kinds of markets. because that's how they're getting ready, for all the things they want to do. 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