WASHINGTON — The chief White House lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, learned last month that a Treasury inspector general had concluded an audit of the Internal Revenue Service ’s targeting of conservative groups, weeks before the matter became public, according to a senior White House official. 
 
 The White House counsel’s briefing came about the same time that Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew met with the Treasury inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, to learn his draft audit of the controversial I.R.S. effort was complete, the official said. 
 
 The acknowledgment that Ms. Ruemmler knew about the I.R.S. inquiry weeks before it became known publicly came as a senior adviser to President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, mounted a combative defense of the administration on Sunday. He said the controversies enveloping the White House were the result of Republican lawmakers’ trying to “drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations.” 
 
 Mr. Pfeiffer fanned out to all five major Sunday morning talk shows to move the administration past what commentators have described as a “hell week” of controversy and missteps. He rejected Republican criticisms of the president’s actions and leadership style, calling them “offensive” and “absurd,” and said the administration would not be distracted from doing the nation’s business. 
 
 But Republicans pressed their suspicions of a broad cover-up, with several demanding that an independent counsel investigate the I.R.S. efforts. Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee in 2012, said on “Fox News Sunday” that investigators examining the I.R.S. scandal needed to answer critical questions: “Who knew? When did they know? Why did they do this? How high up in government did it go?” 
 
 Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, had acknowledged last Monday that Ms. Ruemmler’s office was notified in April of the audit’s completion. Republicans may latch onto the disclosure that knowledge of the inquiry reached the West Wing weeks before it went public to cast doubt on Mr. Obama’s assertion that he learned of the effort from news reports this month. But it did nothing to bolster the Republicans’ central contention that senior administration officials must have known of the targeting in 2012 and kept it under wraps during the presidential campaign. 
 
 White House and Treasury officials have tried to regain their footing since a combative hearing Friday before the House Ways and Means Committee. 
 
 Mr. George, the inspector general, revealed during the hearing that he had informed the Treasury Department’s general counsel and its deputy secretary, Neal Wolin, early last summer that he was auditing the I.R.S.’s screening of political groups seeking tax-exempt status. That revelation meant that the matter of political targeting had been brought to the attention of senior officials outside the independent I.R.S. during the campaign year. 
 
 But administration allies have portrayed that information as an open secret. In a letter dated July 11, 2012, Mr. George informed Representative Darrell Issa, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, as well. 
 
 “We would be happy to provide a status update to the subcommittee staff,” Mr. George assured Mr. Issa after telling him that the audit of tax-exempt screening had begun. 
 
 Mr. Wolin may have learned of the inspector general’s inquiry, but he let it go forward without interference, administration officials said. That audit was hardly undisclosed. In October, the inspector general staff posted on its public Web site a list of active investigations and audits, including an examination of the screening of political groups seeking tax-exempt status. 
 
 But Republicans were not letting up, with the Senate Finance Committee set to hold a hearing on Tuesday and Mr. Issa’s first hearing on I.R.S. targeting on Wednesday. 
 
 Mr. Pfeiffer accused Republicans of exploiting three issues — I.R.S. political targeting; the attack in Benghazi, Libya; and the Justice Department’s subpoenaing of phone records from The Associated Press — for political purposes, even as he urged them to work with the administration on legislation to revamp the immigration system and trim the budget deficit. 
 
 But his own words only fed the attacks. On ABC’s news program “This Week,” Mr. Pfeiffer said that he did not know whether laws had been broken at the I.R.S., but that regardless, the agency’s actions were seriously wrong. 
 
 “I can’t speak to the law here,” he said. “The law is irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped, and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again.” 
 
 Republicans jumped. 
 
 “It is shocking but quite telling that the senior adviser to President Obama, Dan Pfeiffer, would say that ‘the law is irrelevant’ in relation to the I.R.S. scandal,” said Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and a leader of House conservatives. ||||| The White House's chief lawyer learned weeks ago that an audit of the Internal Revenue Service likely would show that agency employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups, a senior White House official said Sunday. 
 
 The White House's chief lawyer was told in the middle of April that an audit of the IRS would show IRS employees inappropriately targeted conservative groups. Peter Nicholas has details. Photo: Getty Images 
 
 That disclosure has prompted a debate over whether the president should have been notified at that time. 
 
 In the week of April 22, the Office of the White House Counsel and its head, Kathryn Ruemmler, were told by Treasury Department attorneys that an inspector general's report was nearing completion, the White House official said. In that conversation, Ms. Ruemmler learned that "a small number of line IRS employees had improperly scrutinized certain…organizations by using words like 'tea party' and 'patriot,' " the official said. 
 
 President Barack Obama said last week he learned about the controversy at the same time as the public, on May 10, when an IRS official revealed it to a conference of lawyers. The president's statement drew criticism, focusing attention on his management style and whether he has kept himself sufficiently informed about the agencies under his authority. 
 
 Others, including veterans of previous scandals, said the counsel—whose role is to advise the president on all legal matters concerning his job and the White House—was right to avoid telling Mr. Obama about the audit's early findings. Doing so could have caused a new storm by creating the appearance of meddling in an independent investigation that hadn't yet concluded, former officials said. 
 
 The White House, which declined to make Ms. Ruemmler available for comment Sunday, wouldn't say whether she shared the information with anyone else in the senior administration staff. 
 
 The new detail doesn't help answer some fundamental questions about the IRS scandal, including how it began and who, if anyone, in the administration was aware of the severity of the inspector general's probe before last November's presidential election. 
 
 Instead, it focuses attention on the White House's handling of the matter, which has blown up into the kind of crisis that could persist. 
 
 When findings are so potentially damaging, the president should immediately be informed, said Lanny Davis, who served as a special counsel to President Bill Clinton. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Associated Press White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer speaking on CBS's 'Face the Nation' on Sunday. 
 
 Of the controversies dogging Mr. Obama, including the terrorist assault in Benghazi, Libya, and the Justice Department's seizure of phone records of Associated Press journalists, the IRS case "is the most nuclear issue of all," Mr. Davis said. It involves the "misuse of the IRS" and "anyone who knew about this a few weeks ago and didn't tell the president shouldn't be in the White House," Mr. Davis said. 
 
 On the Sunday political talk shows, the White House rejected suggestions that the president should have taken action before the inspector general's office released its report May 14, a few days after the probe's findings were disclosed in news accounts. 
 
 Dan Pfeiffer, a White House senior adviser, said on NBC that the matter "was handled in the exact appropriate way. As I said, we do not ever do anything to give the appearance of interference in an investigation. What would be an actual scandal would be if we somehow were involved" in such interference. 
 
 Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was notified in a March 2013 meeting with the Treasury inspector general for the IRS that an audit was "forthcoming," according to the Treasury Department. But at that meeting, the inspector general didn't provide details of his findings, the Treasury said. 
 
 Jack Quinn, who served as White House counsel under former President Bill Clinton, said Ms. Ruemmler's office acted correctly in not sharing the information directly with the president. 
 
 If she had instead gotten "involved and called people over to the White House for a full briefing to know all the details, you know what we'd be talking about now? We'd be talking about whether she had tried to interfere with the IG's investigation," Mr. Quinn said. 
 
 John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff under Mr. Clinton, said: "The worst thing is if you do anything that is perceived to be interfering with an independent investigation" especially if it isn't fully complete. "That gets you in such trouble your head spins." 
 
 Republicans are expected to zero in on the question of who in the Obama administration's senior ranks knew about the IRS's targeting of conservative groups, especially before the November election last year. 
 
 Republican lawmakers on House oversight committees are pressing the investigation, with more hearings set for this week. 
 
 "Exactly who in the administration knew what about the IRS targeting is one of the key outstanding questions," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.), chairman of a House oversight committee that plans to hold a hearing Wednesday on the matter, in an emailed statement. 
 
 "In waiting so long to address wrongdoing and inform the public, President Obama and his administration seem more preoccupied with having deniability than quickly addressing serious wrongdoing," Mr. Issa added. 
 
 In his comments Sunday, Mr. Pfeiffer suggested that more personnel changes could come at the IRS, after last week's ouster of acting commissioner Steven Miller by the president. Mr. Pfeiffer also went on the offensive, saying that White House cooperation with GOP investigators has its limits and that Mr. Obama won't take part in "partisan fishing expeditions." 
 
 —John D. McKinnon contributed to this article. 
 
 Write to Peter Nicholas at peter.nicholas@wsj.com
– Several weeks ago, the White House's chief counsel heard that a nearly-finished investigation of the IRS pointed to Tea Party targeting—and apparently kept President Obama in the dark about it, a top administration official tells the Wall Street Journal. The White House hasn't said whether chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler told any other top-ranking officials, and the revelation has prompted a debate about whether she should have. Observers weigh in on the news: A scandal like this needs immediate reporting to the president, says a former Bill Clinton counsel. "Anyone who knew about this a few weeks ago and didn't tell the president shouldn't be in the White House." But had Ruemmler "called people over to the White House for a full briefing to know all the details, you know what we'd be talking about now? We'd be talking about whether she had tried to interfere with the IG's investigation," argues another former counsel to the Clinton White House. Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer, who dropped by all the top morning talk shows yesterday, says the situation "was handled in the exact appropriate way ... We do not ever do anything to give the appearance of interference in an investigation. What would be an actual scandal would be if we somehow were involved." He called the current controversies surrounding the White House "partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings, and false allegations," the New York Times notes.