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White House threatened Bob Woodward for Obama expose


  • White House threatened Bob Woodward
  • February 28, 2013
  • By: Marv Dumon



On Wednesday, the White House sent a threatening email to Washington Post editor Bob Woodward who later appeared on CNN's "Situation Room".

On Wednesday, the White House sent a threatening email to veteran journalist Bob Woodward after he said that President Barack Obama and cabinet official Jack Lew lied about the sequestration cuts. In a Feb. 27 appearance on CNN's "Situation Room," Woodward declined to identify the senior administration official who had threatened him.

"They're not happy at all," said Woodward, who serves as editor of the Washington Post. "It was said very clearly, you will regret doing this. He added that he was "very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters you're going to regret doing something. Let's hope it's not the strategy."

Last week, Woodward posted an op-ed piece on the Washington Post. He wrote that the March 1 sequester cuts was originally the White House's idea, and not congress. Since 2011, Obama has appeared in several campaign-style events stating that cuts to the federal budget was proposed by congress. The president has also been blaming House Republicans for looming furloughs to tens of thousands of government employees.



Woodward: Obama White House sent threats

In his article, Woodward wrote:
That statement was not accurate . . . . the president and Lew had been wrong . . . . So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.
During the final presidential debates on Oct. 22 last year, Barack Obama told Republican challenger Mitt Romney as well as a live television audience that sequestration was a proposal advanced by congress. (Video) After conducting an analysis, PolitiFact.com concluded right after the debates that the president's claim was false. Last week, Obama also claimed in a speech that if the sequester hits, federal prosecutors will have to "let criminals go." On Feb. 19, PolitiFact said that claim is mostly false.

In 2011, Obama gave a press conference at the White House in which the president stated that he would veto any sequester legislation. (Video) However, on Aug. 2, 2011, the president signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 which mandated automatic sequester cuts.

In Wednesday's appearance on MSNBC, Bob Woodard blamed Obama's sequestration strategy as "a kind of madness". Appearing on "Morning Joe," he said:
Under the Constitution, the president is commander-in-chief and employs the force. And so we now have the president going out because of this piece of paper and this agreement. ‘I can’t do what I need to do to protect the country.’ That’s a kind of madness that I haven’t seen in a long time.


Woodward cited his 2012 best-selling book The Price of Politics in which several insiders within the Obama administration served as sources. Those sources provided insights into how the White House (and not congress) originally proposed the March 1 budget cuts. Earlier this week, Jack Lew was confirmed by the U.S. senate as the next treasury secretary.

In his book, Woodward also blasts Obama's legion of advisers for opposing U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war. According to Woodward's sources, the president overruled his entire national security staff - including Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta, and Gen. Martin Dempsey - who recommended to the commander-in-chief that the United States arm the Syrian rebels.

Obama disapproved such plans in order to increase his chances for re-election in 2012, according to White House insiders. So far, Syria's three-year unrest has resulted in the deaths of over 70,000 civilians.

According to a Feb. 27 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 52 percent of Americans disapprove of how Barack Obama is handling the sequestration cuts. The president also has a 43 percent approval rating on federal spending.

Lanny Davis: White House Threatened Me, Too

Thursday, 28 Feb 2013 04:03 PM
By Lisa Barron



Newsmax blogger Lanny Davis on Thursday claimed that he too has been on the receiving end of threats from the White House as a result of columns he has written about President Barack Obama.

Davis, former special counsel to President Bill Clinton, said that his Washington Times editor, John Solomon, “received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn’t like some of my columns, even though I’m a supporter of Obama.”

“I couldn’t imagine why this call was made,” Davis told Washington radio station WMAL. “And he did threaten that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose, their White House credentials.”

Urgent: Spending Cuts – Obama to Blame? Vote in Urgent Poll

Davis was speaking before Gene Sperling, economic adviser to the president, was identified as the White House official who last week told Washington Post editor Bob Woodward he would “regret” writing a column criticizing Obama’s stance on the sequester. Davis did not name the official involved in his case.

Politico on Thursday released the text of the email exchange between Sperling and Woodward. On February 22, Sperling wrote, “I do truly believe you should think your comment about saying that Potus asking for revenues is moving the goal post. I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

The emails show that what Woodward referred to as a threat by the White House on CNN Wednesday night may not have been as menacing as he said.

Still, said Davis, “I don’t care what the intent was, and I’ll assume people are saying there is no intent, it doesn’t matter. The words ‘you’re going to regret it’ are threatening.”

As for his situation, Davis said Solomon “didn’t take it seriously, because he didn’t think that could ever happen.”

“I called three senior people at the White House, and I said, ‘I want this person to be told this can never happen again and it’s inappropriate,’” Davis revealed. “I got a call back from someone who was in the White House saying it will never happen again.”

He added that the person who called his editor is still in the White House.

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Team Obama Calls Female Reporter “B*tch, C*nt, A$$hole” For Asking Tough Questions

Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, March 4, 2013, 7:24 PM

The Obama Administration wrote an email to a female reporter calling her a “C*nt, A$$hole, and B*tch.”
But, it’s cool. Barack can sing Al Green.

The New York Post reported, via JWF:

Finally, this week, reporters are pushing back. Even Jonathan Alter — who frequently appears on the Obama-friendly MSNBC — came forward to say he, too, had been treated horribly by the administration for writing something they didn’t like.

“There is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time — not all the time — comes out of these guys,” Alter said this week. During the 2008 campaign swing through Berlin, Alter said that future White House press secretary Robert Gibbs disinvited him from a dinner between Obama and the press corps over it.

“I was told ‘Don’t come,’ in a fairly abusive e-mail,” he said. “[It] made what Gene Sperling wrote [to Woodward] look like patty-cake.”

“I had a young reporter asking tough, important questions of an Obama Cabinet secretary,” says one DC veteran. “She was doing her job, and they were trying to bully her. In an e-mail, they called her the vilest names — bitch, c–t, a–hole.” He complained and was told the matter would be investigated: “They were hemming and hawing, saying, ‘We’ll look into it.’ Nothing happened.”