Corruption: Barack Obama promised that his would be the most transparent administration in history. Turns out that it is likely the most furtive White House the country has ever seen.
(Article by Investors.com, republished from http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-secretive-underground-obama-administration/)
The Obama administration has tried to operate in the dark as much as possible, outside of the light of day and in the shadows of deceit. One of the first whiffs that this was an administration of secrets was the revelation that Obama’s first EPA Director Lisa Jackson used the alias “Richard Windsor” for official government communication.
Later we learned that Hillary Clinton, Obama’s first secretary of State, and her top aide HumaAbedin — who also worked for the private firm Teneo and the Clinton Foundation while she was on the State Department staff — used personal email accounts handled by a private server in the Clinton’s New York house rather than use official government channels. Another Clinton aide, Cheryl Mills, essentially told a federal judge to drop dead when he ordered her to produce “all responsive information that was or is in (her) possession as a result of (her) employment at the State Department.”
The IRS has also tried to hide its inner operations. Emails among IRS officials that should have been archived under federal law to comply with open government policy have either been blocked from release or destroyed.
And now it’s being reported that Eric Holder, the first Obama attorney general, used the email alias “Lew Alcindor” while he ran the Justice Department.
Those who weren’t convinced before have to be convinced now that the Obama White House has tried to run the government behind closed doors. Those offenses mentioned above are but a part of a larger effort to shroud federal affairs.
Consider that this administration has set a record for withholding Freedom of Information Act requests, “censoring government files or outright denying access to them,” the Associated Press reported a year ago.
“Its backlog of unanswered requests at year’s end grew remarkably by 55% to more than 200,000,” the AP said. “It also cut by 375, or about 9%, the number of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years.”
The Obama White House has also covered up problems with ObamaCare, the truth about the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and the Fast and Furious scandal, as well as other issues that reflect poorly on the administration.
This is not some vast right-wing conspiracy attacking the administration with a made-up accusation. Even some in the media, a predominantly left-wing institution, have said this is the most insulated administration they’ve ever seen. David Sanger of the New York Times believes it’s the “most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered,” while Bob Schieffer, one-time CBS News anchor and the network’s chief Washington correspondent, said that the Obama White House has “become more secretive and put tighter clamps on information” than any administration before it.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says that in order to “prevent unauthorized disclosures of information,” “watchers” inside the administration are “monitoring the behavior of their colleagues.” Sounds a lot like East German neighbors spying on each other. Mr. President, this is not who we are.
Read more at: http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/the-secretive-underground-obama-administration/
