Barack Obama openly boasted of his scandal-free, eight-year tenure as president.
I beg to differ.
Here is my list of the top ten scandals of the Obama administration.
1. Assassination of LaVoy Finicum scandal
LaVoy Finicum was gunned down by Oregon State Police along a snowy highway in January, 2016. Finicim was shot three times in the back. Five FBI agents were placed under federal investigation after the shooting.
Finicum’s encounter with officers concluded a days-long standoff with federal agents at a wildlife refuge facility in Harney County, Oregon. Authorities laid in wait to ambush Finicum and fellow protesters as they traveled away from the refuge. The death of Finicum was captured on video and made public. The group had occupied the refuge to protest federal land grabs in Oregon.
2. Land grabs in Nevada and Utah scandal
Obama learned nothing from the tragic death of LaVoy Finicum. In the final days of his administration, Obama recklessly federalized more than 1.5 million acres in Utah and Nevada by designating the areas national monuments. Donald Trump announced his plans to reverse Obama’s land grab and return the land to the citizens of the respective states.
3. “The Real Housewives of D.C.” scandal
On November 24, 2009 Michaele and Tareq Salahi casually crashed a state dinner at the White House. The breach of security was unprecedented and gave the couple direct access to the president, Vice President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and other dignitaries. Mrs. Salahi was even photographed chatting with the president. Fortunately, the couple’s intent wasn’t violent in nature. Rather, their attendance was a publicity stunt to advance their chances of being featured on the reality TV television show, “The Real Housewives of D.C.”
4. Colombian prostitutes scandal
Secret Service agents and military personnel assigned to protect the president were disciplined after partying with prostitutes in Cartegena, Columbia. The scandal occurred in April, 2012.
5. GSA scandal
A federal grand jury indicted a former General Services Administration (GSA) senior executive on five counts of fraud. Jeffrey E. Neely had organized a junket in Las Vegas, Nevada for 300 employees. The scandal costs taxpayers about $800,000. Videos of apparently intoxicated GSA employees were widely distributed on national newscasts and became emblematic of government waste.
6. Iran ransom scandal
Forbes called it “scarier” than the Iran-Contra deal of the 1980s. The Obama administration paid the Iranian government $400 million in foreign currency. The cash was transferred on the same day four Americans were freed after being held against their will in Tehran. On August 3, 2016, Donald Trump posted the following on Twitter: “Our incompetent Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was the one who started talks to give 400 million dollars, in cash, to Iran. Scandal!”
7. Bowe Bergdahl scandal
Barack Obama swapped five dangerous Taliban members for Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. serviceman who is currently being tried for desertion. Time magazine reported that six servicemen lost their lives searching for Bergdahl after he went missing while on duty in Afghanistan. Bergdahl remained with the enemy from June 2009 until his release in May 2014.
8. Pigford scandal
The late Andrew Breitbart described it as a multibillion-dollar redistribution scheme. 400 black farmers claimed discrimination by the United States Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) in 1997. The grievance was filed by Timothy Pigford. Obama expanded the settlement to include 90,000 other claimants that included women and Hispanics. The cost to taxpayers reportedly exceeded $4.4 billion. The New York Times reported that in some southern zip codes “the number of successful claimants exceeded the total number of farms operated by people of any race in 1997, the year the original lawsuit was filed.”
9. IRS scandal
The Washington Times reported that the IRS targeted over 400 tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny. RedState.com called it “a wide net” that was “cast by the IRS to harass and intimidate people seeking tax exempt status if they had the wrong politics. This attitude seems to be baked into the IRS.”
10. Fast and furious scandal
According to Judicial Watch, “Justice Department documents [show] that weapons sent from the U.S. into Mexico as part of the Obama administration’s Operation Fast and Furious gunrunning program have been widely used by major Mexican drug cartels.”
Called “gunwalking,” the intent was to supply drug runners with weapons in hopes of implicating the criminals after the guns were recovered from crime scenes.
Fallout from the scandal included 94 Fast and Furious firearms recovered in Mexico. The weapons were likely tied to as many as 200 murders. Most casualties were Mexicans. At least two were American law enforcement officers.
One report claimed, “Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State at the time of the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry (Homeland Security Special Agent Jaime Zapata was also murdered with a gun from Fast & Furious and his partner, George Avila was wounded during the same incident in Mexico).”
Other scandals include Obamacare, Obama’s failed stimulus efforts, and, of course, the Benghazi tragedies.
photo credit: Gage Skidmore Barack Obama via photopin (license)
