First of all, this was done without knowledge of the WH, or even of the guys who report to the WH. So, although the POTUS is ultimately responsible for the people underneath him, he trusts the people who report to him. If they don't know about something, they can't report it. But, technically, they SHOULD know because it's their job to know, which means they SHOULD be able to report it to the POTUS. The POTUS is only human, after all, and he has to be able to delegate duties. The people that he delegates these duties to he trusts to do their job - which means that if anyone screws up beneath them, ultimately it means that the POTUS screwed up for trusting them in the first place.
Remembering that "nobody is perfect", the POTUS has to evaluate the entire body of work of his underlings - not just individual lacks of judgement.
In the case of the IRS, they were instructed to search - not for political philosophies such as "progressive vs conservative" - but for keywords, regardless of party affiliation. Many of these keywords were associated with "anti-tax" groups that had publicly advocated "not paying taxes".
Considering the huge influx of groups requesting tax exempt status following the SCOTUS decision of Citizen's United, as a front line worker I can imagine that I would have appreciated any way to focus and/or narrow down my investigations.
Personally, since this tax exempt status was SUPPOSED to be limited to groups with some sort of "Social Impact", they were obviously taking advantage of a loophole to gain tax-exempt status.
Although I find the claims of these groups despicable, they were technically "legal". By the same token, I think that the actions of the IRS were technically "legal".
Although there is plenty of reason for BOTH sides to cry "foul" - I don't think anything illegal was done.
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