  We investigate selected static and transition properties of $^{12}$C using ab
initio No-Core Shell Model (NCSM) methods with chiral two- and three-nucleon
interactions. We adopt the Similarity Renormalization Group (SRG) to assist
convergence including up to three-nucleon (3N) contributions. We examine the
dependences of the $^{12}$C observables on the SRG evolution scale and on the
model-space parameters. We obtain nearly converged low-lying excitation
spectra. We compare results of the full NCSM with the Importance Truncated NCSM
in large model spaces for benchmarking purposes. We highlight the effects of
the chiral 3N interaction on several spectroscopic observables. The agreement
of some observables with experiment is improved significantly by the inclusion
of 3N interactions, e.g., the B(M1) from the first $J^\pi T = 1^+ 1$ state to
the ground state. However, in some cases the agreement deteriorates, e.g., for
the excitation energy of the first $1^+ 0$ state, leaving room for improved
next-generation chiral Hamiltonians.
