Eric Holder navigates bumpy House hearing as IRS blames 'rogue' staffers Attorney general Eric Holder reacts to aggressive questioning from representative Darrell Issa. The Internal Revenue Service blamed two "rogue" staff for the targeting of Tea Party groups as the Obama administration on fought in vain to dampen a series of growing scandals on Wednesday. At a bumpy congressional hearing, Eric Holder, the attorney general, was confronted with questions on a range of thorny issues from the IRS controversy to the row over a secret investigation into the Associated Press. It was not clear by the end of the day whether he had done enough to face down calls for him to resign. Steven Miller, the acting IRS commissioner, attempted to head off the scandal when he blamed two employees in the agency's Cincinnati office for being "overly aggressive" in handling requests from conservative groups seeking tax exempt status. Miller, who faces tough questioning from another congressional committee on Friday, is also fighting to save his job. Holder, who has already announced an FBI investigation into the affair, told the House judiciary committee on Wednesday that people would be held accountable. "As of Friday last week, I ordered that a criminal investigation begin ... the facts will take us wherever they take us," he said. In one of his most uncomfortable sessions since taking the job in 2009, Holder was questioned for the entire afternoon on issues ranging from the seizure of the AP's phone records to the Boston Marathon attack, the Benghazi killings, abortion, banks and a host of other controversies. He appeared rattled at times and had several testy exchanges with Republican members of Congress. Holder's predicament highlighted one of the worst weeks the Obama administration has yet faced. In an effort to try to neutralise the AP story, the White House announced on Wednesday that it would seek to revive proposed legislation to give greater protection to journalists. The White House contacted the senator originally behind a proposed "shield law," Democrat Chuck Schumer, asking him to reintroduce a bill that got lost in the row over mass release of State Department documents to WikiLeaks. It was not clear, however, whether the shield law would have protected the AP in this case. The White House move comes after it was disclosed on Monday that the Justice Department secretly seized the phone records of about 100 AP reporters and editors over a two-month period last year. There were repeated condemnations at Holder's hearing of the DoJ's action, which was portrayed as an attack on press freedom. Asked at the congressional hearing about the AP seizures, Holder stonewalled, saying he had had to recuse himself because he had had prior knowledge of the leaked story about an alleged Yemeni bomb plot that led to the raid on AP's phone records Holder initially said he did not know for sure who had issued the subpoenas for seizing the records. He then said he was 99% certain it was the deputy attorney general James Cole. Later, he confirmed it had been Cole. In response to one question about AP, he replied: "I don't know what happened in this matter." It summed up his testimony on the issue. Outrage over the AP seizures have united both Republican and Democratic members of Congress. One of the most outspoken critics on the committee, Democratic congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, described the damage done to a free press as "substantial." Another member of the committee, Republican Jim Sensenbrenner, suggested Holder take responsibility for the actions of his department and reminded him of the saying "the buck stops here." In a sign that Republicans are not about to let this or any of the other issues die away, all 45 Republican senators signed a letter to Obama asking his administration to fully comply with the congressional investigation into the IRS. "The American people deserve to know what actions will be taken to ensure those who made these policy decisions at the IRS are being held fully accountable and more importantly what is being done to ensure that this kind of raw partisanship is fully eliminated from these critically important non-partisan government functions," they said. House speaker John Boehner, at his weekly press conference, echoed that sentiment. My question isn't about who's going to resign, my question is, who's going to jail over this scandal? Former White House adviser David Axelrod, in a television interview, insisted those in the IRS responsible had not been put up to it by the White House. Also, one prima facie evidence that nobody political was involved in this, was that if anybody political was involved in this, they would say: 'Are you kidding me? Are you nuts? What are you doing?' Axelrod said.