Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News has been one of the few reporters attempting to dig deep into controversial stories. But after her work on Fast & Furious and Benghazi, she is now reporting that she’s been shut out of the information loop by the White House. She has been so far reaching in her work that she was dubbed a “persistent voice of media skepticism” by The Washington Post.
There are rumors that her boss, David Rhodes, may fire her for being too effective. Ben Rhodes, the CBS executive’s brother, also happens to be one of the operatives in the Obama administration directly involved in the Benghazi talking points.Now, in an interview with CSPAN, Attkisson says that she has been frozen out by Obama’s White House.
Attkisson told CSPAN that she looked into why the decision was made not to convene the Counter-Terrorism Security Group as the Benghazi attacks continued. She wondered why presidential directive SPD-46 was not followed. She told the cable channel that she got a cursory answer from the White House “before they quit talking to me altogether.”
The CBS reporter went on to say that Obama has turned foot dragging on releasing information to the public into an art form. She went on to say that the Freedom of Information Act, “has now been used, instead of to facilitate the release of public information, which was its intention– it’s now in my opinion been used to withhold and delay the release of public information. I get pretty much zero response. That didn’t start under the Obama administration. He seems to have perfected it, he and the federal agencies.”
Attkisson isn’t the only one saying that Obama’s record on FOIA requests is dismal. Others agree with her.When Obama came to office, he claimed he would have the “most transparent administration in history” but his record speaks otherwise.