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So what's Ben Rhodes been up to these days? His unmaskings and leaks are over, he doesn't have Seb Gorka to lie about, and his failures as a national security official have pretty well been exposed. I kid you not: he hasn't been idle. His latest scheme is launching a "shadow" National Security Council, called "National Security Action," co-chairing the operation with Jake Sullivan. Showing that he was always the one running things in the Obama White House, despite his creative writing major, his past career as a failed novelist, and his lack of national security experience, he's herded a...

A top White House national security adviser and key proponent of the Obama administration's diplomacy with Iran is the focus of a congressional inquiry following disclosures the FBI may have denied him top-level security clearances, according to communications exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser who led the administration's efforts to mislead Congress about the terms of the Iran nuclear agreement, is under scrutiny in the wake of disclosures he was declined interim clearance status by the FBI in 2008, when the administration was moving into the White House. Since that...

One of the faux scandals to have emerged in this crazy past week was the revelation that in December, President Trump allegedly asked his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, “Are you on my team?” Opined a trio of reporters from CNN, presumably with a straight face, “The episode is the latest to come to light portraying a President whose inquiries sometimes cross a line that presidents traditionally have tried to avoid when dealing with the Justice Department, for which a measure of independence is key.” Obama White House speechwriter Ben Rhodes was not directly referencing these reporters when he told...

This is what actual "smart diplomacy" looks like. Under Obama, Iran knew that it could do anything short of nuking Chicago and get away with it. Once Obama made the Iran deal the centerpiece of his foreign policy legacy, any attack on it was an attack on him. Anything that might make Iran "walk away from the table" was taboo. So Hezbollah got a blank check to smuggle drugs. Members of Congress were spied on to protect the Iran deal. (Even well before Trump, Obama was using the NSA as a tool against his political opponents.) American personnel could be...

Now that the new year has blown in with full force, most of the holiday goodies have been consumed and thoughts turn to taking the tree down, we tune back into the news. Or more specifically, the lack of news in the case of the Iranian uprising. Aside from a leaked memo to Fox News indicating panic within the Iranian regime no news source in the U.S. seems to find this much of a newsworthy story.Why Can’t the American Media Cover the Protests in Iran you ask? Question asked and answered, by Lee Smith (h/t Instapundit) -highlights added: As widespread...

(Foreign Affairs know-it-alls)Several key advisers to former President Barack Obama have poured scorn on President Donald Trump’s support for the protests sweeping Iran in recent days. In 2009, when the “Green Revolution” threatened the Iranian regime, Obama and his administration refrained from supporting the protests. Obama said that “we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran.” That weak response, and the administration’s general lack of support for the demonstrators, allowed the regime to consolidate power. Obama was more concerned with preserving the possibility of an eventual deal on Iran’s nuclear program...

Earlier this week Politico Magazine published a story by Josh Meyer headlined "The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook." This copiously sourced piece relates how, "in its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as Hezbollah was funneling cocaine into the United States." The law enforcement program in question is called Project Cassandra, which for eight years "used wiretaps, undercover operations, and informants to map Hezbollah's illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign...

For years, a clandestine U.S. intelligence team had tracked a man they knew was high in the leadership of al Qaeda — an operative some believed had a hand in plotting the gruesome 2009 suicide attack in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers. Their pursuit was personal, and by early 2014 the agency had the target under tight drone surveillance. “We literally had a bead on this guy’s head and just needed authorization from Washington to pull the trigger,” said the source. Then something unexpected happened. While agents waited for the green light, the al Qaeda operative’s name, as well...

The former Obama officials who manufactured a media “echo chamber” to sell the Iran deal are now working to undermine a bombshell report that revealed how former President Barack Obama’s administration derailed its own Drug Enforcement Agency’s efforts to stop Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah from developing a global narcotics syndicate. The Obama administration gave Hezbollah a pass, according to a bombshell Politico piece, in order to protect the Iran deal — one of the few remaining pillars of Barack Obama’s legacy. Two Republicans on the House oversight committee, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan announced a congressional...

Former Obama deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes mused about the deaths of top Republicans on Twitter Thursday before being scolded by GOP Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who was severely injured in the June Congressional baseball practice shooting. Rhodes issued the inflammatory tweet in response to fellow Obama White House advisor Dan Pfeiffer, who joked that he hopes President Donald Trump’s Instagram photo celebrating the passage of the GOP tax reform bill appears on the front page of The New York Times when Trump is indicted. Pfeiffer didn’t specify what Trump would be indicted for.

Former Obama deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes mused about the deaths of top Republicans on Twitter Thursday before being scolded by GOP Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, who was severely injured in the June Congressional baseball practice shooting.

Yet another member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigative team is facing questions over potential bias after it emerged that she used to represent ex-Obama aide Ben Rhodes and the Clinton Foundation.Jeannie Rhee is a former partner at WilmerHale—the high-profile law firm where Mueller worked prior to taking on the special counsel role. She is one of at least three attorneys who followed Mueller from WilmerHale.At the firm, Rhee focused on representing people in government investigations, including white-collar criminal probes and criminal and civil fraud matters.But this week, details of Rhee’s client relationships emerged, revealing that she represented Obama...

On Fox News Tuesday night, Laura Ingraham reported that yet another one of Robert Mueller's deputies in his Russia investigation is compromised due to her track record as a blatant partisan. Jeannie Rhee, who was hired by Mueller last summer to work on the probe, was the personal attorney of Ben Rhodes and also represented the Clinton Foundation, Ingraham revealed. "This information will put further pressure on Special Prosecutor Bob Mueller to resign." Rhee is the third member of the Mueller team this week who has been shown to be brazenly partisan. Two other members of the team have been...

Laura Ingraham reported...Jeannie Rhee was hired by Mueller this past summer...formerly worked in the Obama Justice Department as a deputy assistant attorney general...was also the personal attorney for Ben Rhodes...represented the Clinton Foundation and donated $9,000 to Hillary and other Democrats...Rhee worked in private practice with...another Mueller deputy...

Michael Flynn, former National Security Adviser to President Trump, pleaded guilty Friday to making false statements to the FBI about contacting Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition. Flynn’s decision to make false statements to the FBI is leaving many wondering, if the phone calls were sanctioned by the Obama administration and cleared of wrongdoing by Comey’s FBI, why didn’t the former military man just tell the truth? snip Political operative and Trump insider Roger Stone says special counsel Robert Mueller was fed false intelligence by ex-CIA Director Chuck Wolsey, which was obtained during a meeting with former Vice-President Joe Biden, and...

The media’s real business is ‘story laundering’. "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns," Ben Rhodes gloated. "That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.” Rhodes, the White House’s “Obama whisperer”, was explaining how he had pulled the wool over the media’s eyes on the Iran Deal to a journalist. The media responded to the story by attacking the journalist who reported it, not Rhodes for viewing them as easily manipulated useful idiots. The media knew that it knew nothing. And it didn’t care. It just...

WASHINGTON — President Trump falsely asserted on Monday that his predecessor, Barack Obama, and other presidents did not contact the families of American troops killed in duty, drawing a swift, angry rebuke from several of Mr. Obama’s former aides. Mr. Trump was responding to a question about why he had not spoken publicly about the killing of four Green Berets in an ambush in Niger two weeks ago when he made the assertion. Rather than answering the question, Mr. Trump said he had written personal letters to their families and planned to call them in the coming week. Then he...

The Obama administration signed a law-enforcement agreement with Cuba Monday that doesn’t call for the return of U.S. fugitives, including former Black Panther Joanne Chesimard, who is wanted for killing a New Jersey police officer. The pact was signed by Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the de facto U.S. ambassador in Havana, and the Cuban Interior minister Julio César Gandarilla. It covers a broad range of law-enforcement topics, such as counternarcotics operations. Also present at the signing was White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, who played a key role in forging Mr. Obama’s policy of restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba in...

A former foreign policy adviser to President Obama is warning there could be trouble if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un chides President Trump over the fact that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. "God save us if Kim Jong Un makes a comment about Hillary's popular vote victory," Ben Rhodes wrote on Twitter Friday. Trump and North Korea's leader have been locked for months in a war of words and threats that has prompted concern among foreign leaders who fear Washington and Pyongyang may be hurtling toward a confrontation. Trump said last month...

A major United States Holocaust Memorial Museum study of the Obama Administration’s Syria policy was put on hold last night after portions of the study given to Tablet were greeted with shock and harsh criticism by prominent Jewish communal leaders and thinkers. According to a publicity email sent by the Museum, the study was set to be launched at an event at the US Institute for Peace in Washington, D.C., on September 11 and was overseen by a former US intelligence and national security official under Obama, Cameron Hudson, now director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide....