Obama Says Had no Prior Knowledge of Tax Abuses

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday he had not known about abuses by tax officials who targeted conservative groups until a report into the affair was leaked to the press last week.

"I promise you this. The minute I found out about it, then my focus has been about making sure we get the thing fixed," Obama told reporters.

The president spoke just a day after sacking acting Internal Revenue Service chief Steven Miller over reports that some agents had singled out groups affiliated with the ultra-conservative Tea Party and other right-wing causes.

As the scandal widened, a second top IRS official announced he planned to step down.

An internal IRS memo said that Joseph Grant, commissioner of the agency's tax-exempt and government entities division, will retire on June 3. His division is alleged to have scrutinized Tea Party groups when they sought a tax-exempt status.

Obama vowed to work with Congress to ensure a full investigation into the affair uncovered by an inspector general's (IG) report, details of which were leaked to the press Friday.

"I can assure you that I certainly did not know anything about the IG report before the IG report had been leaked to the press," Obama told reporters.

"Typically, the IG reports are not supposed to be widely distributed or shared. They tend to be, you know, a process that everybody's trying to protect the integrity of."

Obama said that the abuses uncovered in the report were "unacceptable" and promised to hold anyone involved accountable.

"We're going to make sure that we identify any structural or management issues to prevent something like this from happening again," he said.

"I'm looking forward to working with Congress to fully investigate what happened, make sure that it doesn't happen again."

As a first step of moving on from the scandal, Obama announced that he had asked Daniel Werfel, currently controller of the Office of Management and Budget, to be the new acting head of the IRS.

Appointing a permanent chief of the agency would have caused a delay in the overhaul of operations, as the post requires Senate confirmation.

Werfel, who has agreed to serve until the end of the fiscal year on September 30, has previously worked in Democratic and Republican administrations.

Republicans have used the affair to accuse the Obama administration of being guilty of a massive abuse of power. But the White House says none of the president's governing or political aides were involved.

The scandal erupted when it emerged that officials studying tax exempt status applications singled out groups with names including phrases like "Tea Party" or "Patriots," which could thus be expected to be fiercely opposed to Obama.