On Tuesday, Congressman Paul Gosar called out National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes during a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing to examine the “White House narratives on the Iran nuclear deal.”
According to the Washington Times, Rhodes refused to testify to Congress on Tuesday “about whether he misled the public in pushing the Iran nuclear deal, claiming executive privilege…. Rhodes, a speechwriter who has become a top foreign policy adviser for Mr. Obama, landed in hot water after an interview with The New York Times in which he disparaged reporters as ignorant and easily manipulated and seemed to suggest that the administration relied on a false narrative to help sell the Iran deal.”
“White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested I show up to today’s Oversight Committee hearing,” said Gosar in a statment released after the hearing. “While I gladly obliged and participated in examining the facts of Obama’s disastrous Iran nuclear deal, I can only assume Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes failed to show up because he was too busy writing more fiction to further deceive the American people. Mr. Rhodes joins a long line of corrupt Obama underlings who have admitted to blatantly lying to the American people in order to force the president’s utopian agenda down our throats.”
“This ‘bad deal’ will forever be a stain on our national character. No amount of spin or manipulation by this lawless administration can change that fact. Our next president should terminate this nonsense and promote freedom and opportunity overseas, not a regime that stones women, hangs homosexuals and kills members of other religions because of their political beliefs,” concluded Gosar. “It is vital for Congress to rein in this rogue administration and block this continued executive overreach.”
According to the House Oversight Committee, on July 14, 2015, Iran and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany finalized the JCPOA, also known as the “Iran Nuclear Deal.” The JCPOA is intended to ensure Iran’s nuclear program is used for purely peaceful purposes, in exchange for a broad lifting of sanctions.
President Obama asserts the JCPOA represented the most effective means to ensure Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.
Critics of the agreement expressed concerns that the extensive sanctions relief would give Iran additional resources to extend its influence in the region. Critics also assert the lifting of a U.N. prohibition on arms sales to Iran or arms exports by Iran, and on Iran’s development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, will set the stage for Iran to emerge as a key regional actor.