GOV/MIL White House won't let Rhodes testify about the selling of Iran deal

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog...s_testify_about_the_selling_of_iran_deal.html

May 17, 2016

White House won't let Rhodes testify about the selling of Iran deal

Comments 48

Citing "constitutional concerns," the White House says it will not allow senior national security adviser Ben Rhodes to testify about his controversial comments made to the New York Times Magazine about how the White House lied to sell the Iran deal to Congress and the public.

Washington Examiner:

"While the administration will continue to consult closely with Congress on this important matter, testimony by one of the most senior advisers to the president raises significant constitutional concerns rooted in the separation of powers," he wrote.

"Specifically, the appearance of a senior presidential adviser before Congress threatens the independence and autonomy of the president, as well as his ability to receive candid advice and counsel in the discharge of his constitutional duties," he added.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters shortly after 1 p.m. Monday that there was no decision yet on whether Rhodes would testify. "I don't have an answer for you. We're going to continue to review the letter," Earnest said.

But according to a House aide, the White House quickly made up its mind. Eggleston's letter was delivered less than two hours after Earnest's briefing was over.

The answer is likely to further anger Republicans, who say Rhodes revealed in a New York Times interview that he created an "echo chamber" among foreign policy experts in order to help sell the deal. Chaffetz said the decision was "disappointing but typical."


Amazing. The irony of this White House worried about the separation of powers is astonishing. Nevertheless, it appears that if the members of Congress wants to hear from Mr. Rhodes, they are going to have to issue a subpoena.

The "echo chamber" that helped sell the Iran deal constantly hit upon the theme that it was either approve the deal or war with Iran – no other option was mentioned by the White House or the numerous reporters, academics, and think-tanks that weighed in on the deal.

That the White House didn't think to go back to the table to renegotiate some of the more egregious sections of this deal shows how eager it was to grovel before the Iranians. Iran needed this deal at least as much as Obama did. The difference was that Obama was building a "legacy" – and to hell with national security interests of the U.S.

Rhodes claims that his words were often taken out of context by the Times. Even if that's so, it doesn't change the notion that the creation of the narrative to sell the deal was done dishonestly and ended up being a process to conceal the worst of it from the American people.
 

Housecarl

On TB every waking moment
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-testify-to-congress-on-iran-deal-narratives/

Congress

Ben Rhodes won’t testify to Congress on Iran deal ‘narratives’

By Mike DeBonis May 16 at 8:05 PM
Comments 319

The senior White House official who recently became a lightning rod for critics of President Obama’s foreign policy after he made brusque comments in a recent magazine profile has declined an invitation to testify before Congress.

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was invited to address a Tuesday hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on “White House narratives” surrounding last year’s nuclear deal with Iran, joining a panel of foreign policy experts.

The subject gained new currency this month after the New York Times Magazine, in a lengthy profile of Rhodes, quoted him saying that the White House “created an echo chamber” to advocate for the deal, by enlisting likeminded policy groups and journalists to say “things that validated what we had given them to say.” He also made uncomplimentary remarks about journalists and the Washington foreign-policy establishment, calling the former callow and the latter infested with groupthink.

Rhodes responded to the controversy last week, writing that the White House effort to sell the Iran deal “wasn’t ‘spin,’ it’s what we believed and continue to believe, and the hallmark of the entire campaign was to push out facts.”

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Oversight Committee chairman, invited Rhodes to last week to make that case to his panel, where he undoubtedly would have faced hostile questioning from Republicans. White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston responded Monday to decline Chaffetz’s invitation on Rhodes’s behalf, citing “significant constitutional concerns rooted in the separation of powers.”

“Specifically, the appearance of a senior presidential adviser before Congress threatens the independence and autonomy of the President, as well as his ability to receive candid advice and counsel in the discharge of his constitutional duties,” Eggleston wrote.

Chaffetz on Monday tweeted his response: “Talks to reporters and his ‘echo chamber’ but not Congress. Disappointing but typical.”
 
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