BY
Barack Obama, who himself once bragged to the mainstream media about having a so-called “scandal-free” presidency, has now been accused of enabling Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah to smuggle drugs through used cars in order to finance their militant activities in the Middle East.
Barack Obama, who himself once bragged to the mainstream media about having a so-called “scandal-free” presidency, has now been accused of enabling Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah to smuggle drugs through used cars in order to finance their militant activities in the Middle East.
Politico reports that the Obama administration quietly inhibited the Drug Enforcement Administration’s operations targeting Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle drugs, launder money and deal in weapons. The DEA launched “Project Cassandra” in 2008 in an effort to inhibit Hezbollah’s various illegal dealings, which would in turn hamper their abilities to carry out operations in the Middle East that would harm America and her allies.
They [the DEA] tracked the river of dirty cash as it was laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran. They followed cocaine shipments, tracked a river of dirty cash, and traced what they believed to be the innermost circle of Hezbollah and its state sponsors in Iran.
Politico’s report details how the DEA operation reached into the upper levels of Hezbollah’s illegal activities, but when it came to gaining the approval for prosecutions and arrests from the Justice Department of the Obama Administration, their requests were repeatedly denied, inhibited and hindered.
“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” Defense Department illicit finance analyst David Asher said. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”Project Cassandra members said Obama officials blocked or undermined their efforts to chase down top Hezbollah operatives, including one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers who was also a top supplier of conventional and chemical weapons used by Syrian President Bashar Assad against his own citizens.
Why would Barack Obama, one the president of the United States who was sworn to not only uphold the law but to protect American citizens, allow a foreign militant group to freely smuggle drugs into the United States? According to the report, the primary reason was to secure the nuclear deal.
In practice, the administration’s willingness to envision a new role for Hezbollah in the Middle East, combined with its desire for a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program, translated into a reluctance to move aggressively against the top Hezbollah operatives, according to Project Cassandra members and others.
So in addition to the $1.7 billion dollars in raw cash unloaded from American planes to the Iranians in order to secure the release of four American hostages they held, Iran’s militant group Hezbollah was also granted free rein to smuggle drugs, weapons and cash around the world, including into America.
According to Politico, Katherine Bauer, who worked in Obama’s Treasury Department, acknowledged in written testimony last year that the Obama administration hampered investigations into Hezbollah’s illegal drug and weapons smuggling for “fear of rocking the boat” with the Iran nuclear deal.
One Obama-era Treasury official, Katherine Bauer, in little-noticed written testimony presented last February to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that “under the Obama administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”
If the mainstream media is looking for collusion on the part of an American president with a malicious foreign power, then it seems they can look no farther than the Obama administration.
It appears Obama’s coveted “scandal-free” presidency is turning out to be anything but that, and these scandalous revelations are coming to light for one reason only: Donald Trump. If Hillary Clinton had won the election over Trump, you can bet that she, as a fellow Democrat, would have gone to special lengths to protect Obama’s prized legacy. In addition, the media would still remain reverent of Obama’s memory, quickly squashing stories of his reported scandals.
As a quick reminder, this latest scandal to rock Obama’s legacy is in no way the first, as the Obama administration was involved in many nefarious and unprecedented levels of corruption including Fast and Furious gun running, the NSA’s spying on Americans, the failures of Veterans Affairs and politicizing the IRS in order to target conservative groups.
Operation Fast and Furious: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed the sale of thousands of guns to suspected Mexican smugglers and then lost track of them. The guns have been used to murder American law-enforcement officers.Tea Party Targeted: The IRS under Obama targeted the Tea Party and conservative political opponents. IRS chief Lois Lerner, who pleaded the Fifth Amendment on self-incrimination rather answer questions before congress, was issued a contempt citation. Obama’s Justice Department refused to enforce it.Benghazi: In the Benghazi fiasco, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed during an attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. This happened during a politically dangerous time, President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, and the White House peddled the narrative that the attack was not terrorism but a reaction to an anti-Muslim film. Documents show the State Department knew that claim to be false.Veterans Affairs: Some 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at a VA facility in Arizona. An internal VA audit found more than 57,000 veterans had to wait 90 days for medical care and more than 60,000 were never seen. Even President Obama called it “scandalous.”Hacking: Under Obama, the federal government suffered the biggest data theft from hacking in U.S government history. The personnel files of millions of federal employees were exposed.
If allowing Hezbollah’s drug smuggling (which reached into the United States) operations and the many other scandals of the Obama administration are the ones that have since been made public, it begs the question as to how many more have yet to be revealed? How many more tax-payer funded government departments have been corrupted and used to target Obama’s enemies? How much in tax payer money has been sent around the world or made its way into the pockets of Obama’s allies? Are there even worse scandals whose effects are still being felt in America’s government to this very day?
The answer to those question will likely turn out to be resounding “yes” and with President Trump’s new administration in command of the White House, it’s only a matter of time until more corruption on the part of Obama is revealed to the American public, much to the disdain of the fawning mainstream media who worships the ground that Obama walked on.
