Anything to rip President Donald Trump, right?
President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice, the woman who blamed Benghazi on a YouTube video, claimed Trump should have told the former president about the ISIS raid beforehand.
On Face the Nation, Rice told host Margaret Brennan about an unwritten rule when it comes to raids like this (emphasis mine):
MARGARET BRENNAN: What is your reaction to the death of al-Baghdadi?SUSAN RICE: Obviously, it’s a major milestone and it’s one we all should be welcoming quite plainly, but it doesn’t mean that the fight against ISIS is over. And it doesn’t mean that we can declare mission accomplished and just walk away. What we’ve seen time and time again in this part of the world is that when the pressure is relieved on terrorist organizations, whether al-Qaeda or ISIS, they are able to reconstitute. So we need to be vigilant. We need to maintain a minimal presence in order to ensure that the pressure stays on ISIS and they don’t come back roaring.MARGARET BRENNAN: Was President Obama informed of the death of al-Baghdadi by the administration? Did you know before the news today?RICE: No, there’s no reason why I should know. There is a tradition of common courtesy of presidents informing their predecessors of things of significance like this. Since the White House seemingly didn’t feel it necessary to inform the leadership of the intelligence committees on a bipartisan basis, I’m quite confident that they didn’t do the normal protocol with respect to predecessors either.
Brennan asked Rice if Obama called President George W. Bush before the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Rice skirted around the question:
Brennan then pressed Rice on whether or not the Obama administration notified former President George W. Bush about the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. The former national security adviser said they “tried to do that as a matter of courtesy,” but she did not explicitly say if the message was communicated in time.
From what I could find on Google Obama phoned Bush after a raid killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
In fact, the administration kept the raid so secret that Obama did not tell his wife Michelle. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not tell her husband former President Bill Clinton.
Something tells me Obama also did not abide by this so-called “common courtesy” Rice used to criticize Trump.
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