White House Press Secretary Jay Carney appeared to walk back a statement made minutes earlier in which he asserted categorically that no one in the White House was involved or knew anything about IRS targeting in Tuesday's White House Press briefing.
Bloomberg's Hans Nichols challenged Carney on the point, asking how the White House Press Secretary could be so sure that no individuals in the White House knew or were culpable to the IRS' conduct:
HANS NICHOLS: You just said categorically that no one from the White House or on the president's political team was involved, that's a pretty unequivocal answer. And yet the bulk of this press conference saying you don't have all the facts, it's a wait and see approach.
JAY CARNEY: What I can tell you is that --
HANS NICHOLS: What gives you that confidence?
JAY CARNEY: I can tell you that as I think I said yesterday, the White House counsel was alerted about this -- alerted about this IG review and the general topic of it just a few weeks ago. And prior, I mean, I --
HANS NICHOLS: How do you compare from being categorically certain that anybody from the team -- or the political team was involved.
JAY CARNEY: I have no reason to believe.
HANS NICHOLS: So you're doing this on good faith, this is just an assumption?
JAY CARNEY: Well, I can tell you that I am not aware of anyone here knowing about it. It would be, obviously --
HANS NICHOLS: So it's not your direct knowledge of being aware of anyone here.
JAY CARNEY: You know, you can ask me if, you know, somebody --
HANS NICHOLS: You've asserted something categorically and I'm trying to understand how do you know that --
JAY CARNEY: I am certainly not aware of and am confident that no one here was involved in this. We found out about it just a few weeks ago and when I say, "we," I didn't, the president didn't, the White House counsel's office only found out about the review being conducted and coming to conclusion by the Inspector General.
HANS NICHOLS: So what gives you the confidence?
JAY CARNEY: I can say I feel confident, but I don't have any --
HANS NICHOLS: But do you have any facts?
JAY CARNEY: You're asking me to prove a negative, Hans.
HANS NICHOLS: Well, you've made the assertion. You've asserted that you're confident, you're the one that actually put the, you know, put it out there.
JAY CARNEY: Again, you heard the president express his views. And we're going to wait and see what the facts are based on the independent Inspector General view. And then we will make judgments about those facts and what next steps might be taken and by whom and what actions might be taken. But I'm not going to get into any more details about it, because it would be inappropriate to do so.
Nichols' objections reflected the concerns of former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who reacted incredulously to Carney's categorical denial on Twitter:
How can Jay say w certainty no one at WH, or on political staff, spoke w IRS?Has he interviewed everyone? Who did he ask?
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) May 14, 2013
Minutes later, as Carney was challenged by Nichols, Fleischer chastised Carney for prematurely issuing the complete denial:
Now Jay is walking back what he said about no 1 at WH was aware of IRS actions. He should never have given the earlier answer.
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) May 14, 2013