Posted on 06/05/2014 12:49:18 PM PDT by maggief
The White House knew the decision to swap Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for five imprisoned Taliban members would be controversial and never expected it to be a good news story, communications director Jen Palmieri said Thursday.
Palmieri framed Obamas decision to exchange the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl as an obligation, and said the White House wasnt surprised it created a firestorm.
We knew that this was going to be a controversial decision, Palmieri said during an interview with MSNBC. That was why we wanted the president to speak to it. Palmieris comments follow stories in The Hill and other media that extent of the criticism of the deal, particularly that related to Bergdahl personally, had surprised the administration.
But Palmieri on Thursday said the White House knew lawmakers would object based on past conversations, she said.
The White House had floated the idea of a prisoner swap to members of Congress more than two years ago, and key lawmakers have said it was greeted with almost unanimous opposition.
Palmieri also said the administration knew the swap would draw attention to allegations that Bergdahl deliberately walked away from his camp before being seized by the Taliban.
We knew that there was information in the public domain, some people who were critical of Sergeant Bergdahl, critical, we think, unfairly and because we don't know what happened, Palmieri said.
So it is not something that we expected to be a good news story, she continued. It was something that the president as commander in chief was obliged to do, and he explained to the American people why he took those actions.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
"I knew that."
They’ve confused themselves. They can’t keep up with all their own lies.
It’s only Thursday.
There should be time for three or four iterations before the end of the week.
_resident Jimmy Cracked Corn don’t care.
He meant to do that.
There is nothing controversial from the White Hut anymore!
It’s all Total Idiocy.
I’m pretty sure these 5 will turn up in Afghan to kill more Americans! Or send surrogates back to the USA to reap violence! All five should have been chipped and the CIA on the hit trail in 72 hrs!
YEAH......right. They thought they would be HERALDED!!!! Asswipes, all of them.
their stories change daily or even hourly
Palmeiri, Psaki and Harf are the BIGGEST LIARS in history!!
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The men in Benghazi were not in uniform so I guess it was okay to leave them behind.
Every few hours we get a different story from these tyrants. They are making themselves look ridiculous in the eyes of every nation on this planet.
Maggie
Just like when he flew to get the Olympics and knew they would come to Chicago. He is an arrogant elite liberal with the common sense of a valley girl.
Crosslink
It happened last month with Carney and Obama: "He found out about the VA scandal on the news like everybody else" then "I knew all along that the VA had problems."
Usually the press doesn't follow up on these contradictions -- not even to ask, "If you knew about it why didn't you do anything about it -- why didn't it affect your actions?"
It’s like they hired Dr. Freddy Kruger to stop the bleeding.
Eventually the patient runs out of blood.
We can only hope. Unfortunately every time these Bozos open a new would, the MSM people line up to open their own veins to save them.
Eventually they will run out of blood too.
yep
.... Exactly!! I noticed that as of yesterday the Prez changed the verbage on his original statement "We leave no men behind."Now he is saying .... "We leave no men, in uniform, behind. Bet he was addressing the Benghazi incident there. However .... if I was a feminist .... I would ask .... "Hey! .... What about the Women?"
It doesn't work as well now that everybody in the administration wants to get into the act with their two cents.
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