7 Really Big Deals the Obama Presidency Falsely Claimed to Know Nothing About

Here are 7 really big deals that members of the “most transparent administration in history” denied knowing anything about. But it turns out they actually knew.

1. The IRS Scandal

What was said: “I first learned about it through the same news reports other people learned from,” President Obama said. (May 13th, 2013)

What they knew: The White House Counsel was notified of the investigation into IRS wrong-doing as of April 22nd at the very latest. [Wall Street Journal]

Despite being labeled by the White House press secretary Jay Carney as a “phony scandal,” the IRS actually admitted to the targeting and apologized. [Associated Press].

2. Benghazi

What was said: “What we do know is that the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video were used as an excuse by extremists to see if they can also directly harm U.S. interests.” (President Obama responding to a question about possible involvement of al Qaeda at a Univison interview. September 20th, 2014 – 11 days after the Benghazi terrorist attack.)

What they knew: “The Obama administration was wary to label the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi as an act of terrorism but declassified testimony from a top Pentagon official indicates there was little ambiguity among Defense Department players that terrorism was the likely motive.” [New York Daily News]

 3. DOJ Spying on Fox and AP Reporters

What was said: “With regard to the potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material, that is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy.” (Eric Holder said on May 15th to the House Judiciary Committee.)

What they knew: “Attorney General Eric Holder personally signed off on the warrant that allowed the Justice Department to search Fox News reporter James Rosen’s personal email, NBC News’ Michael Isikoff reported Thursday.” [Huffington Post]

4. Millions Would Not ‘Keep Their Plans’

What was said: “If you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you can keep it – if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.” (President Obama said on November 6th, 2013, despite videotaped evidence of his repeated promise that Americans would “keep your plan… period.” [Daily Mail]

What they knew: “President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.” [NBC News - Oct. 28, 2013]

5. NSA Spying on All Americans

What was said: “To think we’re collecting on every U.S. person… that would be against the law. The fact is we’re a foreign intelligence agency.” (NSA Director Keith Alexander in July 2013.) [Forbes] Obama recently denied knowing the extent of the NSA’s spying on Americans. [Truth Revolt.]

What they knew: Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, after denying before Congress that “the NSA collected any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans,” later admitted that his statement was “clearly erroneous.” [ABC News. See also Washington Post]

 6. Fast & Furious Gunrunning

What was said: “I heard on the news about this story that fast and furious, where allegedly guns were being run into Mexico and ATF knew about it but didn’t apprehend those who had sent it. Eric Holder has — the attorney general has been very clear that he knew nothing about this.” [President Obama said on March 22, 2011. See CNS News] former DHS Head Janet Napolitano denied knowing about Fast & Furious in September 2011. [The Hill]

What they knew: At a press conference in June 2009, Janet Napolitano and Deputy Attorney General David Ogden explicitly discussed the weapons tracing operations of the ATF (which is under the Justice department) in an announcement of Project Gunrunner.

As an ATF-led transnational operation running guns to Mexican drug cartels, the Department of Justice was implicitly involved. Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over documents that would prove the DOJ knew the operation was getting Mexican civilians killed, along with Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

7. ObamaCare Website is a Disaster

What was said: “Sebelius took the blame for giving the impression that the website was ready for launch before Oct. 1. ‘I told the president we were ready to go. Clearly, I was wrong,’ she said.” [Fox News]

What they knew: “When the testing finally took place in late September, the testers started trying to create an application. Just a couple of pages into the process, everything ‘ground to a stop,’ says one source, it ‘it froze,’ ‘it couldn’t go forward,’ ‘it crashed.’ A couple of days later, testers tried again and had a similar outcome. They were never able to successfully browse plans for cost estimates. ‘It was unequivocally clear from testing this wasn’t ready,’ says a source close to the testing.” [CBS News]

There you have it: seven clear cases where major figures in the Obama presidency denied knowing what was going on when a big scandal or major failure hit the headlines. On several occasions, they acted like they “read it in the news.”

But they knew.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/109349-5-scandals-president-obama-claimed-know-nothing/

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/01/109483-ultimate-benghazi-cover-video-will-show-obama-presidency-lied-3-minutes-flat/