Free Republic

It’s a tough time for President Obama’s former lackeys. One day you’re day dreaming of how you’ll continue scheming in Hillary Clinton’s administration, and the next you’re stuck sitting at home with no pants on and a hungry cat whose litter box is full. No one thinks you’re relevant anymore, so the only platform you have to bitch and moan is Twitter. Maybe you’ll get lucky and Chuck Todd will mention one of your trivial tweets on Meet the Press. One of the prime examples of this harrowing existence is Ben Rhodes, an ex-foreign policy advisor and speechwriter for Obama....

Following Trump's stunning allegation that Obama wiretapped the Trump Tower in October of 2016, prior to the presidential election, which may or may not have been sourced from a Breitbart story, numerous Democrats and media pundits have come out with scathing accusations that Trump is either mentally disturbed, or simply has no idea what he is talking about. The best example of this came from Ben Rhodes, a former senior adviser to President Obama in his role as deputy National Security Advisor, who slammed Trump's accusation, insisting that "No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place...

Obama administration denies Towergate: Insiders blast Donald Trump's claims Obama wire-tapped his phones at Trump Tower before the election in 'Nixon/Watergate' style scandal Trump has accused Obama of wire tapping his phones at Trump Tower on Twitter The president tweeted that Obama had been spying on him in October He claims the phones in Trump Tower were 'tapped' before his election victory A former senior intelligence official said 'it's highly unlikely there was a wiretap' According to official, wiretap can't be directed at US facility, without probable cause the phone lines were being used by agents of a foreign power...

A former policy adviser to President Obama is firing back at President Trump's claim that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower, saying it didn't happen — at least not under Obama's orders. "No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you," Ben Rhodes tweeted Saturday morning. He also said "only a liar" could make the case, as Trump suggested, that Obama wire tapped Trump Tower ahead of the election. No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw

Last week, Edward Price, a former CIA analyst, became a media darling after the Washington Post published Price’s op-ed announcing his resignation from the CIA because he was unable to serve the Trump administration in good faith because of President Trump’s policies and disregard for the U.S. Intelligence Community. While several media outlets rushed to interview Price and depict him as an ethical, non-political CIA officer who rejected what he claimed was the “deceitful” and “delusional” Trump administration, a brief look at the facts suggest not only is this a blatant instance of fake news, but that Price is a...

Obama's "echo chamber" lives on and the media are still buying... In an article on the Atlantic website, a former Obama White House staffer explains why she resigned from the Trump White House after only eight days. . . . Hers was the second story in less than a week in which a government official explained that they’d resigned because of Trump’s policies. Ned Price, a CIA analyst who worked at the Obama White House, authored a cri de coeur for the Washington Post to explain why his disagreements with Trump’s policies prompted him to leave government service. “To be...

(Watch video at link) The Obama administration will go down in history as one of the worst presidencies in the United States, and it just keeps getting worse as more information comes forward with Obama trying to sabotage Trump. Tony Shaffer, a retired lieutenant colonel and an expert in intelligence, has stated that Obama has laid “tripwires” down to disrupt Trump’s presidency. Obama left liberals loyal to him in office, who laid the traps against our President. On Fox News, Shaffer stated that Obama’s senior adviser, Ben Rhodes among them, planned for the resignation of Gen. Michael Flynn. According to...

...While Panetta pointedly never mentions Rhodes’s name, it is clear whom he is talking about. “There were staff people who put themselves in a position where they kind of assumed where the president’s head was on a particular issue, and they thought their job was not to go through this open process of having people present all these different options, but to try to force the process to where they thought the president wanted to be,” he says. “They’d say, ‘Well, this is where we want you to come out.’ And I’d say ‘[expletive], that’s not the way it works....

Besides the Department of Justice, the Central Intelligence Agency, and perhaps former national security adviser Michael Flynn himself, the latest name to emerge in the spreading swamp of connivers who did Flynn in this week is none other than the Obama administration's former National Security Council deputy adviser for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes. According to a report in the Washington Free Beacon, Flynn's resignation: ... is the culmination of a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump's national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran, according to multiple sources in and out of the...

The fallout from the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is not over. We have Russia, leaks, and palace intrigue about former Obama administration officials laying the foundation to topple Flynn, who was knows for being staunchly opposed to the Iran nuclear deal. Guy wrote a post about the allegations. Frankly, Flynn misled the vice president, which alone is an act that warrants him being shown the door. Multiple writers, namely Damon Linker at The Week and Eli Lake at Bloomberg have noted another sinister angle to this story, which is the number of leaks of highly sensitive information coming...

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting that former Obama officials waged a secret campaign against national security adviser Mike Flynn which ultimately lead to Flynn being forced to resign. The report says that Flynn was targeted because he was strongly opposed to the Iran Nuclear deal which former President Barack Obama wants protected. The Obama loyalists conducted a behind the scenes attack against Flynn by injecting damaging stories on Flynn into the national media. According to the Free Beacon the attack was lead by former Obama administration adviser Ben Rhodes.

I get the first part of this story, not so much the second. The bit about Obama alumni targeting Flynn? Highly plausible if not likely. Flynn was a harsh Obama critic ever since O fired him from his position as DIA, and Flynn more than anyone else in the administration seemed prepared to guide Trump towards detente with the same Putin regime that had tried to sink Democrats’ chances during the campaign with the DNC and Podesta hackings. Flynn is also famously an Iran hawk, something which the Obama administration was, er, not. Did Team O have the means...

President Donald Trump wants to drain the swamp. Well here's the perfect place to start. Remember this name: Ben Rhodes. I’ll get back to Ben in a moment. He is the centerpiece to Obama’s final vicious attack on Israel. Obama made many shocking, damaging attacks on Israel. The list is so long it would take me an entire book to list them all.Need proof? It accelerated in his final days. It was as if he had to show his true hatred for Israel with his last official acts.Many Americans know Obama allowed the United Nations and their anti-Semite representatives to condemn Israel for...

Wiith three days left in his presidency, Barack Obama made his final appointments to administration positions, including adding 10 members to the Holocaust Memorial Council. Most notable on that list is Ben Rhodes, a long-time Obama aide and speechwriter who managed the White House messaging on selling the Iran deal and explaining the US decision to abstain on a United Nations Security Council resolution last month that condemned Israeli settlements as illegal. Rhodes, whose official title is deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, was a source of controversy after a New York Times Magazine profile portrayed him as bragging...

President Barack Obama, on his final Tuesday in office, appointed soon-to-be former staffers and supporters to administration posts, including senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Jarrett and Rice were both appointed to the Board of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts as General Trustees. While Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes was appointed as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Lawmakers and congressional insiders continue to raise questions about a senior Obama administration official and proponent of its Iran diplomacy following revelations he was denied interim security clearance before being given a senior role in the White House, according to conversations with multiple sources. The Washington Free Beacon first disclosed last week that Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser who handled the administration’s efforts to mislead the public about the terms of the Iran nuclear agreement, is being probed by Congress following disclosures the FBI may have denied him top-level security clearances. Lawmakers told the Free Beacon...

Much ink has already been spilled on the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report. Welcomed by liberals and condemned by conservatives, more importantly it has been rejected by just every public figure in Iraq. Without a doubt, the report’s most controversial recommendation was the call for direct talks with the governments of Syria and Iran. What has gone unrecognized, however, are the stunning misconceptions underlying that recommendation. (Note: the page references below all refer to the PDF version of the report, which can be downloaded here. All emphasis is my own). Misconception #1: “Given the ability of Iran and Syria to...

Anbar Province and the Iraq Study Group Report Iraqi Politicians and Tribal Sheihks are concerned about the implications of the Iraq Study Group report The release of the Iraq Study Group report, a 79 point plan to address Iraq, created by a blue ribbon panel lead by former Secretary of State James Baker and Representative Lee Hamilton, has implications far beyond domestic U.S. politics. I've been asked numerous times how this report has effected the U.S. troops serving in Iraq. The answer is very little. Most shrug their shoulders at the news reports, and haven't had time to digest the...

ISG moves from consensus to conflictBy DANIEL LIBIT 4/22/08 4:32 AM EST In December 2006, in an effort to build a national consensus on a “new way forward in Iraq,” the Iraq Study Group painted itself as a portrait of bipartisan chumminess, with all political hackery checked at the door. Sixteen months later, seven of the 10 ISG members are backing presidential candidates with radically different views about how to proceed in Iraq. Republicans James Baker, Lawrence Eagleburger and Ed Meese are supporting Sen. John McCain, who argues that the United States should be sending more troops to Iraq. Democrats...

Jeb adviser James Baker to keynote J Street conference Leading talk show host and best-selling author Mark Levin assailed Jeb Bush last night over the revelation that one of his top foreign policy advisers, James Baker, will keynote an anti-Israel conference this weekend. The annual conference of the activist group J Street features an array of anti-Israel speakers, including proponents of the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divest (BDS) movement, which seeks Israel’s destruction, and advocates for the terrorist group Hamas. Jeb Bush’s selection of Baker as a foreign policy adviser has sparked concern among conservatives and in the Jewish and pro-Israel...