How your tea party group got added to the IRS’ ‘Be On the Look Out’ list

Screenshot from Inspector General report

The screenshot above is taken from an official review of the Internal Revenue Service's practices for determining which groups were eligible for tax-exempt status between 2010 and 2012.

The report, written by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration and obtained by Yahoo News Tuesday, details missteps the IRS took in targeting certain political groups for additional scrutiny.

The audit confirms previous reports that the IRS flagged applications from organizations that used words like "tea party" and "patriots" in their title. Even groups that said they wanted to advocate for making "America a better place to live" were placed on a "Be On the Look Out" or BOLO list.

From the report:

In May 2010, the Determinations Unit began developing a spreadsheet that would become known as the “Be On the Look Out” listing (hereafter referred to as the BOLO listing), which included the emerging issue of Tea Party applications. In June 2010, the Determinations Unit began training its specialists on issues to be aware of, including Tea Party cases. By July 2010, Determinations Unit management stated that it had requested its specialists to be on the lookout for Tea Party applications.

In "many" cases, the report said, organizations put on the list had to wait more than two years to receive notice from the IRS on the status of their applications.

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After Benghazi, IRS tea party probe: Govt seized AP phone records

President Barack Obama welcomes British Prime Minister David Cameron in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, …Exactly ten days ago, President Barack Obama was piously telling reporters who cover him that free speech and an independent press are “essential pillars of our democracy.” On Monday, the Associated Press accused his administration of undermining that very pillar by secretly obtaining two months’ worth of telephone records of AP reporters and editors.

“We regard this action by the Department of Justice as a serious interference with AP’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news,” AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The latest revelations are sure to pour fuel on the fire of Richard Nixon comparisons in the wake of revelations that the IRS may have improperly scrutinized the tax-exempt status of conservative, tea party-linked groups. This might, in order words, not be a great time to announce a groundbreaking trip to China.

And the news threatens to pile fresh political woes on a second term already burdened by a painful gun control defeat, a seemingly stalled economic agenda, and Republican rage at the botched response to the Sept. 12, 2012 terrorist attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

The revelations that the Justice Department may have sought AP phone records drew an angry response from Republican House Speaker John Boehner's office. “The First Amendment is first for a reason. If the Obama Administration is going after reporters’ phone records, they better have a damned good explanation," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.

And Laura Murphy, a top American Civil Liberties Union official in Washington, D.C., condemned "unwarranted surveillance" of the press and urged Holder to explain what transpired "so that we can make sure this kind of press intimidation does not happen again.”

Holder was expected to face questions on the issue when he appears Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia did not answer a question from Yahoo News on whether other news outlets had been targeted. The spokesman, Bill Miller, did not confirm the AP allegations, but insisted in a statement that "we take seriously our obligations to follow all applicable laws, federal regulations, and Department of Justice policies when issuing subpoenas for phone records of media organizations."

Pruitt, in his letter to Holder, fiercely disagreed.

He said that the Justice Department had obtained telephone records for more than 20 separate phone lines assigned to the AP -- the world's largest wire service -- and its journalists. The records cover a two-month span in early 2012 and cover phones lines for AP in New York City, Washington D.C., Hartford, Conn., and one line at the AP workspace in the House of Representatives.

"This action was taken without advance notice to AP or to any of the affected journalists, and even after the fact no notice has been sent to individual journalists whose home phones and cell phone records were seized by the Department," Pruitt wrote.

"There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters," Pruitt wrote. "These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know."

Pruitt called it "particularly troubling" that the Justice Department "undertook this unprecedented step without providing any notice to the AP, and without taking any steps to narrow the scope of its subpoenas to matters actually relevant to an ongoing investigation."

In his statement, Miller said DoJ regulations "require us to make every reasonable effort to obtain information through alternative means before even considering a subpoena for the phone records of a member of the media."

And "we must notify the media organization in advance unless doing so would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation," he said. "Because we value the freedom of the press, we are always careful and deliberative in seeking to strike the right balance between the public interest in the free flow of information and the public interest in the fair and effective administration of our criminal laws."

An Associated Press news story on the Justice Department's actions noted:

The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have leaked information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

Ever since the days of his history-making 2008 presidential campaign, Obama has repeatedly cast himself as a champion of open government and reform. Aides are fond of praising "the most transparent administration in history" -- a moniker that might be accurate, but mostly because of poor standards set by his predecessors. It's like being the most powerful cricket team in Alaska.

And the Obama administration has not been shy about taking steps to deny Freedom of Information Act requests on national security grounds.

Just ten days ago, on May 3, Obama noted during a visit to Costa Rica that it was "World Press Freedom Day."

"So everybody from the American press corps, you should thank the people of Costa Rica for celebrating free speech and an independent press as essential pillars of our democracy," he said.

On Monday, Obama was scooping up cash for Democrats in New York City. His spokesman, Jay Carney, referred questions about the AP letter to the Justice Department.

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Cameron to publish EU vote bill in bid to defuse party revolt

By Andrew Osborn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Britain's ruling Conservatives will unveil a draft bill on Tuesday that could make Prime Minister David Cameron's promise of a referendum on Britain's European Union membership legally binding.

In a political gamble aimed at shoring up Cameron's leadership, the bill would pave the way for an in-out vote by the end of 2017 that will decide Britain's geopolitical and economic destiny for decades ahead.

However, the Conservatives are part of a two-party coalition and do not have a parliamentary majority, so the bill's chances of success aren't guaranteed. Rebels from other parties would need to support it too for it to become law.

Cameron's highly unusual decision to sanction the draft bill was announced in the United States on Monday evening and comes less than four months after he pledged to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership and then hold an in-out vote before the end of 2017.

Many Conservatives say they want to be part of the EU's single market but want to ditch many other aspects of a relationship they fear is becoming increasingly anti-democratic and bureaucratic.

Cameron's referendum promise in January failed to satisfy Conservative critics who have been pressing him to bring forward the vote to before the next national election in 2015 or to pass a law committing the party to holding a vote by the end of 2017.

He decided to partially accede to their demands to try to end a public debate that has made his party look divided, threatening his own re-election chances.

"The Conservative Party will publish a draft bill to legislate for an in-out referendum by the end of 2017," a senior Conservative source told reporters in Washington after Cameron met U.S. President Barack Obama On Monday.

"We will examine all opportunities to bring the bill before parliament, including a private member's bill," the source said.

Conservatives believe the demarche should draw a line under weeks of internal bickering that has damaged the party's image while piling pressure on the opposition Labor party to explain why it doesn't favor such a referendum.

It will be hard for the Conservatives to push any referendum bill through parliament because it will almost certainly be opposed by their pro-EU coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, as well as by Labor.

Despite the move up to 100 Eurosceptic Conservative members of parliament are still expected to back an amendment this week criticizing legislative plans unveiled by the government because they did not include such a bill.

Conservative lawmaker John Baron, one of the two figures behind the amendment, said Cameron's promise of a draft bill would not persuade him to back down.

"I am sticking by what I am saying. They know that this option could very well fail," he told Reuters. "A far better approach would be to have the courage to support our amendment on Wednesday."

Cameron came to power in a coalition government three years ago after telling his party in 2006 to "stop banging on about Europe", an issue that has divided the Conservatives for decades and helped bring down two of his predecessors, Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

But Conservatives in parliament have been rattled by the growing popularity of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), which campaigns for Britain's withdrawal from the EU and tighter immigration laws. A Guardian/ICM poll showed on Tuesday that UKIP's support had surged to a record high of 18 percent.

UKIP's poll rating has climbed steadily since Cameron's EU referendum pledge in January, with the party taking a quarter of the vote in local elections earlier this month.

Labor, which has a 10-point lead over the Conservatives, said Cameron had "lost control of the agenda and lost control of his party" at a time when he should be working on reviving Britain's economy.

"This seems to be just the latest panicked response from the prime minister who is now following, rather than leading his backbenchers," Labor foreign affairs spokesman Douglas Alexander said in a statement.

(Writing by Andrew Osborn and Peter Griffiths, Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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Anti-EU party pressures Britain's PM Cameron in local vote

By Andrew Osborn

ASHFORD, England (Reuters) - Britain's ruling Conservatives are set to lose hundreds of seats in local polls on Thursday that will go some way to measuring the threat the surging anti-European Union UK Independence Party (UKIP) poses to their hopes of re-election in 2015.

Even in towns like Ashford in southeast England, which has returned a Conservative MP to the national parliament at every election since 1945, surveys suggest UKIP could win up to one fifth of the votes.

History shows Britons often use mid-term council elections to punish their favored party for perceived failings by temporarily forsaking it only to return when it really counts.

But polling data shows UKIP, which wants to radically tighten immigration rules into Britain, is luring Prime Minister David Cameron's traditional supporters away.

That trend risks splitting the center-right vote in 2015, making Cameron's task of beating the main opposition Labour party even harder.

The Conservatives, the senior partner in a two-party national coalition, trail Labour by up to 10 percentage points in opinion polls, but they are banking on an economic rebound by 2015 to lift Britain from its torpor.

If a national election were held today, Labour would win.

"I've been a Conservative all my life but I'm going to vote for UKIP," said Bill Newton, 76, a retired businessman, out shopping in Ashford's futuristic tented mall. "I want the Conservatives to get the message that they need to change."

More than 2,000 council seats in largely English rural counties and in one Welsh area are up for grabs on Thursday. One national parliamentary seat is also being contested in northern England where UKIP hopes to come second to Labour.

Heavy Conservative losses could renew pressure on Cameron's leadership ahead of a national election in 2015, and the vote is being seen as one of the last chances to test the political climate before that ballot.

UKIP WANTS END TO "OPEN DOOR" IMMIGRATION

Campaigning on a promise to take Britain out of the EU and to end "open-door" immigration, UKIP's policies appeal to many traditional Conservatives who feel Cameron has taken their own party in too liberal a direction.

But though UKIP has surged in the polls, it has no MPs in the national parliament and Thursday's election will indicate if its swelling poll support translates into votes. Full results of the council ballots will not be known until Friday.

"One local poll put our support at 60 percent," Norman Taylor, the UKIP candidate for Ashford Central, told Reuters in an interview. "I don't believe we'll get that, but we should get around 20 percent. From now on we're going to be a dominant force in politics."

The main reason for UKIP's growing popularity is its immigration policy, he said.

"Say NO to mass immigration," proclaim colorful leaflets being handed out to voters on the streets of Ashford.

Taylor, 74, said Ashford and its periphery, which has a population of about 80,000 and is close to the tunnel that links Britain to France, had been "particularly hard hit" by immigration.

An area the former government designated a growth zone, he said it had seen an influx of British migrant workers moving from London for lower housing costs coupled with the arrival of foreign immigrants, particularly from Eastern Europe.

"Everything here is crumbling in every way," he said. "Public services can't cope. They let everyone in and only then did they start to think about the infrastructure."

Taylor said his views and those of his party were not racist but reflected the concerns of many local blue collar workers.

"I've got nothing against them (immigrants). The only problem is we can't handle the numbers."

The background of some of the party's candidates has stirred controversy, however. Several have been suspended after it emerged they had once belonged to far-right groups and a photograph of one candidate making what looks like a Nazi salute has been plastered on newspaper front pages.

Nigel Farage, the party's leader, has said UKIP was unable to vet all of its some 1,700 candidates properly, saying a few undesirables had got through.

On Ashford's main shopping street there are mixed feelings about UKIP, especially from the town's large Nepali diaspora.

A British army battalion of Gurkha soldiers is based nearby and many ex-soldiers have settled in Ashford.

One retired Gurkha who declined to be named said he felt uneasy. "I'm not convinced by UKIP," he said, saying he feared its policies could stoke hostility towards his own community.

(Editing by Mike Collett-White)

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Anti-euro party a wildcard in German elections

BERLIN (AP) — The leader of a new anti-euro party called Sunday for Germany to leave the common currency, telling an inaugural convention that the euro forces German taxpayers to rescue bankrupt southern European countries whose people denounce them as Nazis for their efforts.

A crowd of about 1,500 mostly older men cheered as the leader of the Alternative for Germany party, economics professor Bernd Lucke, said the euro had done little to bring Europeans together, tapping into public anger at southern European protesters who have compared Chancellor Angela Merkel to Adolf Hitler over the demands for reforms and austerity in return for bailout funds.

"Because of the euro, people in southern Europe don't hesitate to express their disgust toward Germany, using old Nazi comparisons," Lucke said. "This is not what I imagine Europe to be like."

The convention adopted a platform calling for changes in the European treaty to allow each of the 17 European Union countries that use the euro to "decide democratically which currency it wants to use."

Such sentiments are still the exception in Germany, where a sense of obligation to help fellow Europeans in distress is rooted in shame for the crimes of the Third Reich. But the new political party hopes to capitalize on simmering fears that the euro crisis could deepen and drag down Europe's biggest economy. It aims to garner enough votes in the federal elections to reach the 5 percent minimum needed for seats in Parliament.

"The euro was a failure, and it would be bad if we continue to believe in this fairy tale," Lucke said. "If the euro fails, Europe doesn't fail."

The stance puts the party in sharp opposition to Merkel's position that there can be no Europe without the preservation of the single currency, with her repeated insistence that "if the euro fails, Europe will fail." While still a fledgling movement, the new party could hurt Merkel by sapping support from her main coalition partner — which she has relied on for a stable government.

Alternative for Germany wants to introduce Swiss-style national referendums so voters can have a say on important matters, including economic rescue packages. The party congress, at Berlin's upscale Intercontinental Hotel, plans to adopt a program and vote for a party board on Sunday.

Many of the attendees expressed anger about what they said have been unfair money transfers from German taxpayers to help bail out countries such as Cyprus and Greece.

"This party has good ideas," said Andreas Fluegge, 49, a software specialist from Limburgerhof in the country's southwest. "The euro is a big problem for us. Since we have had the euro I'm making less money and paying more taxes for things I don't understand. I hope these politicians will change this."

For all the talk about what it doesn't like, however, the party has been short on what it does like, and its leaders were slammed in an editorial this week in the top-selling Bild newspaper as "political amateurs."

The conservative tabloid has never shied away from accusing southern Europeans of being lazy, nor has it stopped deploring the cost Germany shoulders to bail out other nations, but turning against the euro itself remains unthinkable.

"They can craftily explain what is wrong with rescuing the euro, but they have no concept on how the future of Europe should look," Bild wrote.

Experts believe the party has little chance of garnering enough of the protest vote to reach the 5 percent threshold. But it could draw enough voters away from Merkel's center-right coalition to force her into an alliance with the opposition or give the opposition an outright majority.

"There is space for an anti-euro party in Germany," said Oskar Niedermayer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University. "So far this position hasn't really been represented in the German party system."

Underlining the potential appeal, a recent poll showed that even though 69 percent of Germans now back the euro — up from about 50 percent last year — a significant minority of 27 percent said they'd like to see a return to the mark. The survey of 1,003 people was conducted April 2-3 for the business daily Handelsblatt. The poll had an estimated margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Abandoning the euro currency would have significant costs, especially for Germany as a heavily export-oriented economy. According to analysts' estimates, it could easily knock down the country's annual output by a double digit percentage figure.

"I think the Germans know, and to some extent accept, that they have to pay the bill for saving the euro," said Ursula Weidenfeld, an economist and author. "They just want to make sure that they aren't paying more than necessary."

Other nations such as the Netherlands, Austria and Finland have also insisted on the same austerity measures that Germany has demanded in exchange for European bailouts, but as the bloc's largest economy and the largest single contributor to the funds, most of the anger has been directed at Germany and Merkel.

Some of Merkel's voters are now beginning to wonder whether their country — and their savings — should be tied to the struggling euro project, and Weidenfeld said support for the euro "could quickly change if a new rescue package has to be negotiated."

Should the eurozone's woes spread to fully engulf Italy or Spain — the bloc's third- and fourth-largest economies — and require them to ask for a bailout, German voters could panic, said Niedermayer.

In Germany's election in September, the issue poses the greatest threat to the Free Democratic Party, Merkel's junior coalition partner, which has a pro-business platform. Because the party has polled only slightly above five percent, even the loss of a few thousand voters could mean disaster.

"It's not impossible that this new party could sap half a percent from the FDP and thereby kick them out of parliament," said Niedermayer. That could create a huge headache for Merkel, who may find it hard to form a workable majority in parliament without the FDP.

Merkel's own party, too, could suffer if conservative voters see Alternative for Germany as a credible way to express their frustration about her leadership.

Economist Rudolf Hickel told Germany's Deutsche Welle, however, that even though there is anti-euro sentiment out there, Alternative for Germany doesn't have broad enough appeal to effectively tap it.

"They are professors and frustrated economists," he said. "If the party were headed by a populist, I'd consider them dangerous."

___

AP correspondents Kirsten Grieshaber and Kerstin Sopke contributed from Berlin.

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Irish PM's party wins by-election, junior partner suffers

By Stephen Mangan

ASHBOURNE, Ireland (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael party held its seat in a by-election on Thursday, but its junior coalition partner Labour was beaten into fifth place in a humiliating defeat.

Labour went into government for the first time since the late 1990s two years ago on a promise to end the previous administration's adherence to "Frankfurt's Way", an austerity plan the party said was dictated by the European Central Bank.

However the centre-left party has angered supporters by pursuing the tough austerity required under the country's EU/IMF bailout and its vote in the Meath East constituency collapsed to 4.6 percent from 21 percent last time.

Fine Gael's Helen McEntee captured 38.5 percent of the vote to win the seat left vacant when her father committed suicide last year. The coalition would have kept its record parliamentary majority even if she had lost.

"I voted for Labour last time out but will never vote for them again," said Abigail Flores, a mother-of-two living in Ashbourne, a town 20 km north of Dublin where so-called "ghost estates" lie unfinished after a spectacular property crash. She said she had no interest in voting this time around.

"I would have always voted for Labour and so would my parents and sisters but they've shown in the last two years that they're just spineless and are no different from Fine Gael or Fianna Fail. They don't actually stand for anything."

By fielding the daughter of the late junior minister Shane McEntee, analysts said Fine Gael sheltered itself somewhat from voter anger. Political dynasties are common in Ireland, Kenny won his first election 38 years ago after his father's death.

The fellow centre-right Fianna Fail, which dominated Irish politics before losing three-quarters of its seats in humbling elections held after it signed up to the bailout, came second after jumping to 32.9 percent from 19 percent two years ago.

A rise of just four percentage points to 13 percent for Sinn Fein, the only major party rallying against austerity, showed the limited Irish appetite for the type of populist political movements making inroads elsewhere in Europe.

"DIFFICULT DAY"

A lack of opposition to deep tax hikes and spending cuts has helped Ireland hit the targets set under its bailout and close in on getting off emergency EU and IMF assistance, a move cemented last month by a landmark 10-year bond sale.

But that has meant little to Labour's traditional working class support base which has been hit hard by high unemployment. State workers face fresh cuts in a new public sector pay deal.

"It's a difficult day for Labour, people are very angry out there and clearly the Labour Party has been singled out for the brunt of responsibility," Pat Rabbitte, a senior Labour minister, told the Today FM radio station.

"There's little point in trying to explain to the individual voter that bond prices are cheaper, that butters no parsnips as far as they're concerned."

Analysts said the loss poses little threat to the coalition and its austerity push as Labour, which has already seen five of its 38 MPs defect from the party, would be unlikely to leave government and force an election with support so low.

"It will make life a bit more uncomfortable but I can't really see what they can do to stem to flow other than to steady the nerves and hope that the economy turns around," said Eoin O'Malley, politics lecturer at Dublin City University.

(Writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Top Democrat Vows to Take on the 'Tea Party' GOP

2010 may have been the year the Tea Party reigned, but top Democrats are planning to revive their tactic from 2012 and focus on the group this cycle as well. Their aim is to paint Republicans as extremists and the cause of obstruction and dysfunction ahead of 2014 midterm elections.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-NY) outlined his early recruitment strategy to a group of lobbying and trade association groups, as well as other allied organizations. Reporters also attended.

"2012 was a referendum on President Obama and Gov. Romney," Israel said. "2014 will be a referendum about one thing: tea party extremism. That's the deal, that's the campaign, that's the cycle. Do you think these tea party extremists are making life better for you? Are they growing our economy, do you feel more secure with their agenda or is our agenda of solutions and progress a better deal for you?"

"We are recruiting solutionists to antidote tea party extremists," he said, repeating the phrase "extremists."

But Israel didn't go so far as to predict Democrats would take the 17 House seats needed to flip control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"I can't tell you today we will be north or south of 17 seats," Israel said. "I can tell you we're doing everything we can to put it in play."

They'll get some campaign help from President Obama, according to Israel.

"He made commitments that he would help us raise the resources we need," Israel said. "The White House is very good on the president's commitment…And the president is very good on the president's commitment."

Israel added that President Obama has asked the DCCC to "keep him apprised on some of our recruiting priorities and we've been sharing that information with the White House and they have been very receptive."

Israel touched on themes sure to pop up during the 2014 fight to regain the House including a "civil war in the Republican Party," saying the fight has made the party "inherently unstable."

"It's the Tea Party, but it's more their agenda," Israel said. "It's an agenda that says we will cut Medicare, but we will not invest in rebuilding a single bridge or a single highway, but we will continue to protest tax incentives to ship jobs to China so that is their agenda and we will make that agenda a referendum."

As for one of the closest races of 2012, which pit tea party leader Michele Bachmann against Jim Graves - Bachmann won by a single percentage point - Israel acknowledged the DCCC could have done more and said he believes Graves will try to take Bachmann on again next year.

"Jim came very, very close to winning. We are very upbeat about his prospects in 2014." Israel said. "You are always going to have regrets, like any football coach there are plays you look back on and say, 'Gee maybe I should have gone a different play.'"

Midterm elections are traditionally tougher on the party in the White House. In the 2010 midterm, Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives. That means they could face an uphill climb next year too, but Israel said his party won't be caught by surprise this time. They have already had nearly 100 recruiting meetings stressing elections are "not won on election night," but "18 months before."

He highlighted a few of the party's top recruits naming New York City Councilman Domenic Recchia and Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff as two that are already on board.

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Merkel party loses mayor's job in state capital

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's opposition has ousted Chancellor Angela Merkel's party from the mayor's office in the capital of a traditional battleground state — a blow ahead of national elections in September.

Center-left Social Democrat Sven Gerich won election in the western city of Wiesbaden in a runoff ballot Sunday with 50.8 percent of the vote, defeating incumbent Helmut Mueller of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats.

Wiesbaden is the capital of Hesse state. Merkel's party has run the state, which has swung between left and right over the decades, since 1999, and hopes to extend that run in a state election Sept. 22 — the same day Germany elects a new Parliament.

The result extends a run of poor results in major cities for Merkel's party, which lost Frankfurt and Stuttgart last year.

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Clegg on defensive as sexual harassment claims batter party

LONDON (Reuters) - Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Sunday denied covering up allegations of sexual misconduct by a former senior member of his Liberal Democrat party, already floundering in opinion polls.

Allegations of sexual impropriety by former party chief executive Chris Rennard threaten to engulf Clegg and further undermine the Lib Dems, the junior member of Britain's coalition government.

The latest furore comes at a bad time for the party, after the resignation of cabinet minister Chris Huhne this month who admitted he had asked his then wife to accept a penalty for a 2003 speeding offence he had committed.

A local election to replace Huhne is to be held on February 28.

Rennard, the mastermind behind the party's election strategy before quitting in 2009, was accused in a report by Britain's Channel 4 television channel on Thursday of inappropriately touching female party members and activists several years ago.

The report has since triggered a flurry of similar allegations in the British media.

Lawyers for Rennard, a member of parliament's upper house, said after the Channel 4 report that he was "deeply shocked by and strongly disputes" the allegations made against him.

Media reports have since then accused Clegg of knowing of the allegations long ago but not investigating them.

"I am angry and outraged at the suggestion that I would not have acted if these allegations had been put to me," Clegg said late on Sunday, rejecting suggestions of a "cover up".

He said was made aware of "indirect and non-specific concerns" about Rennard in 2008, and had acted on them, but there was a limit to how far the party could take the matter given sources of the concerns were indirect and anonymous.

The Lib Dems have announced two internal inquiries since more detail has come to light, one into how the party handled the allegations, and another into the allegations themselves. Clegg said they would reveal the truth of what happened.

"But in the meantime, I will not stand by and allow my party to be subject to a show trial of innuendo, half-truths and slurs," Clegg said.

Britain's opposition Labour party demanded an independent investigation.

"This series of allegations are too serious to allow the Lib Dems to investigate themselves," said Labour lawmaker Bridget Phillipson.

"Nick Clegg and other senior Liberal Democrat lawmakers and officials must come clean about what they knew and what action was taken about these serious allegations," she added.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Stephen Powell)

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Tunisia Islamist party chooses new prime minister

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia's ruling Islamist party has chosen an interior minister seen as a hardliner to form a new government, a top official said Friday, in a signal the government is unlikely to back down to opposition demands to try to smooth over the country's political crisis.

The Ennahda party named Ali Larayedh to take over after Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali resigned when it rejected his proposal to form an apolitical government of technocrats.

The split between the party and Jebali was seen as a deep disagreement between the party's hardline and moderate wings. Tunisia plunged into its deepest crisis since its dictator was deposed two years ago with the assassination earlier this month of a secular opposition leader. The killing set off days of rioting and highlighted divisions between secular Tunisians and within the ruling party itself.

Larayedh, who has been widely criticized by the opposition for failing to ensure stability, is believed to come from the wing of the party that has been less willing to compromise with secular parties. His nomination could make the task of finding consensus and building a coalition with Tunisia's other political parties more difficult.

The party chose Larayedh, 57, in an overnight meeting and he will be presented to President Moncef Marzouki later Friday, Moadh Ghannouchi, the son of Ennahda's leader, told the Associated Press.

Larayedh spent 15 years in prison under the previous regime and has attempted to reform the police force which was widely hated as the enforcer for dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Security, however, has been a problem under his watch, especially with regular attacks by extremist Islamists over the past year against targets they deem impious, culminating in the Sept. 14 assault on the U.S. embassy over an amateur film made in the United States attacking the Prophet Muhammad.

Larayedh also announced late Thursday the arrest of several suspects in the assassination of opposition lawyer Chokri Belaid, saying "rapid progress" had been made in the investigation.

He gave few details, however, and could not confirm whether those arrested were the suspected killers or say who was behind the assassination.

Belaid was shot four times outside his home on Feb. 6, provoking days of unrest as many Tunisians held the government responsible for his death.

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GOP senators are treading carefully with tea party

WASHINGTON (AP) — Twice burned, Republicans are treading carefully around tea party groups as they pursue a Senate majority that slipped through their fingers in 2010 and 2012.

While incumbents work to ward off or repel challenges from the right, a Republican tempest already is flaring in Georgia, where GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss is stepping down. Party officials also are looking apprehensively toward Iowa, where Sen. Tom Harkin's decision to retire opens up a seat long in Democratic hands.

In all, Republicans must gain six seats in 2014 to win a majority in the Senate, and can ill afford the sort of upheaval that led to unexpected defeats in Nevada, Colorado and Delaware in 2010, and in Missouri and Indiana last year.

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