WASHINGTON – Top Obama administration and White House officials partied away on the night of the anniversary of 9-11 and the Benghazi terror attack.
State Department senior communications adviser Marie Harf and White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes joined some friends Friday for a night of partying at the Blackfinn Saloon blocks from the White House. Harf, who runs point on promoting President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, and Rhodes, a graduate of the New York University creative-writing program who falsely revised the administration’s talking points to pin the Benghazi attack on a spontaneous response to a Youtube video, were in good spirits.
“Look! Trust But Verify,” Harf said excitedly to a guest wearing a pin with the slogan, clearly referring to Obama’s controversial Iran deal that allows the Islamic country to continue its nuclear program with some level of inspection.
Harf, clad in a purple dress, walked out of the establishment but returned at approximately 10 PM, spending the next forty-five minutes holding court in the saloon’s ritzy back bar. As Robin Thicke and Pitbull videos played in the darkened party space, Harf settled in the middle of a crowd of well-heeled Washingtonionans, who drank, schmoozed, and occasionally danced without an apparent care in the world.
Ben Rhodes, dressed to the nines, slipped out of the party relatively early, performing a farewell tour within his social group that involved kissing a woman on both cheeks and loudly saying “I love you.” Rhodes hurried into a cab, dropping his cigar, marked with a red tape seal, on the sidewalk as he left.
That cigar, obtained by Breitbart News, was an H. Upmann Magnum 46 cigar with a seal that read “Habana Cuba.”
The U.S. legal prohibition on expensive Cuban cigars ended earlier this year due to the Obama administration’s normalization of relations with the Castro regime.
“I think this Cuban cigars’ limited availability makes it a very desired smoke among aficionados,” according to a review on Topcubans.com. “Exploding with savoury flavours of spiced wood and exotic accents through the second and third tier, the main H.Uppman blend is present with medium to strong tobacco flavours remaining dominant.”
Another cigar found nearby was a Montecristo, which is produced in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic, but it was not the cigar that Rhodes was smoking.
Harf stayed until the end of the gathering,
“Are we all getting in cabs?” the Indiana University graduate asked as her upper-crust friends plotted their exit strategy.