In his new memoir Stress Test, former treasury secretary Timothy Geitner recalls at least one instance in which he was encouraged by the Obama White House to be less than truthful:
I remember during one Roosevelt Room prep session before I appeared on the Sunday shows, I objected when [White House senior advisor] Dan Pfeiffer wanted me to say Social Security didn’t contribute to the deficit. It wasn’t a main driver of our future deficits, but it did contribute. Pfeiffer said the line was a ‘dog whistle’ to the left, a phrase I had never heard before. He had to explain that the phrase was code to the Democratic base, signaling that we intended to protect Social Security.
An article about Geithner’s revelation was posted Monday morning on TheBlaze, and while it gained a decent amount of attention, it wasn’t a runaway, viral story. On radio this morning, Glenn wondered if the American people have grown so accustomed to hearing government mistruths, they hardly blink an eye at these types of revelations anymore.
When Geithner was first being considered for the treasury secretary post in 2009, Glenn specifically remembers bringing up two key problems with his credentials and both were based on the fact that Geithner was a known liar.
“When Timothy Geithner’s name was being pushed forward [for treasury secretary], I know for a fact I said, A, you are putting him in charge not only of the treasury. So in other words… he's in charge of your money and the guy has already been proven a liar,” Glenn said. “He cheated on his own taxes. He was a liar. So how are you going to put him in charge of your money? Do you believe that he's the guy that would be the steward of your money? That was point number one.”
“Point number two that I said: You are also putting him in charge of the IRS. If you can't trust him now in his own personal life, how do you trust him with the power of the IRS,” Glenn continued. “Look what's happened. And if he's already lied over and over again… in a position of real power already. Remember, he was one of the chairs of the Fed Central Bank in New York. How do you trust him? How do you trust him that when he gets into his position he's not going to lie to you? That's why I was against his nomination.”
As Glenn expected, Geithner has now admitted to be less than truthful. But as Pat and Stu explained, what Geithner was asked to do is really no different than what then-ambassador to the UN Secretary Susan Rice did in the aftermath of the 2012 Benghazi terror attacks or what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney does on a daily basis.
“Geithner's a big guy – one of the top people in the Administration,” Stu said. “How many times do people like Susan Rice, for example, get the same advice and immediately do whatever they say?”
“How often does Jay Carney get that advice every stinking day,” Pat added, “because every stinking day they lie to us.”
Glenn watched this story trend on TheBlaze.com all day yesterday, and he was struck by the lack of firepower it had compared to other articles on the site. Then again, he wasn’t entirely surprised.
“This [story] is huge. This is the treasury secretary saying the White House told me to lie. That puts everything in question. And yet… it [only] became number one for about two hours yesterday until Anderson Cooper's story about the Clippers came out and then it was bumped,” Glenn said. “I have been trying to figure out why. I think it is because people expect [it]. Of course they lied. That's not news.”
“What would be news is that something would happen to him because of those lies. What would be news is someone is going to say, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Treasury Secretary, you were told to lie. Could you come in front of Congress and tell us what other lies were told?’ If there were any ramifications, that would be news,” he concluded. “The Benghazi story is not even getting any traction – even with Trey Gowdy – because no one believes, in the end, anything will happen.”