Jay Carney’s credibility is now on the line, according to veteran White House correspondent Keith Koffler. He reports today, at White House Dossier, that Monday’s briefing by Carney was filled with acrimony over the ever-evolving narrative put forth by the White House Press Secretary over the Inspector General report dealing with the inappropriate targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.
Last week, Carney said that only the White House counsel’s office knew of the IG report in advance of the May 10th news reports from which the president claims he first learned of the story. Then it was revealed that several other administration officials knew about the report, some as far back as March.
As Koffler reports:
To be fair, it appears that Carney himself was on the wrong end of a deception, and that his bosses may have withheld information from him indicating that senior aides beyond the White House Counsel were aware of the IG probe before it became public.
Koffler drills down on this very issue and offers his perspective on the only logical conclusion to be reached regarding the flow of information at the White House. Either Carney is purposely being kept in the dark or he is not telling reporters the truth. Either way, his credibility is now being called into question:
If that is so, Carney ought to be threatening to resign, because his credibility is now on the line. His insistence, for example, that the president himself knew nothing of the probe would only appear to be operative until we hear the next version of events.
And he’s still stonewalling – or not being informed – about who else knew, other than Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. “I don’t have a list for you,” he blandly remarked.
Carney, a former Washington Bureau Chief for Time Magazine is put in the unfortunate position of responding to his former reporter/colleagues on this story as well as the growing issue over the Dept. of Justice characterizing Fox News’ James Rosen’s work as a reporter as criminal activity.
Every day brings us a new revelation about these growing scandals. It also brings us another White House briefing where Mr. Carney continues to face an increasingly skeptical, and sometimes even hostile press corps. No charm offensive from the press secretary will rectify the rift that appears to be growing between himself and the reporters assigned to cover him. Only the candid truth will do that.