California Senator Dianne Feinstein is admitting that the White House has kept her at a distance after she criticized the Obama Administration for ignoring Congress when the Bowe Bergdahl deal was made.
Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, acknowledged on Monday that Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken called her on June 2. Since that time, she has had no warmth shown to her from either Barack Obama or anyone else at the White House. Blinken had reportedly apologized for the administration’s “oversight” in not notifying her before the deal to release Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in return for five senior Taliban fighters was made.
Feinstein asserted that she spoke with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough during last week’s Democratic caucus, but no effort has been made to assuage her hurt feelings over the lack of notification by the White House. Speaking with Politico, Feinstein said she doubts Obama will call, saying, “I probably don’t expect it.”
Feinstein has been outspoken in her denunciation of the Obama Administration’s end-run around Congress, and was clear that the administration’s claims that notifying Congress about the swap would have endangered Bergdahl were nonsense. She said, “We’ve been notified before when lives are at stake, and that’s why we don’t leak. When we found out it had already happened, that was the shock, of not being notified.”
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