Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday he was "shocked" and "baffled" by reports the Israeli government had spied on sensitive U.S.-Iran nuclear talks and passed information to members of Congress to whip up opposition to a potential deal.
The report in The Wall Street Journal comes amid increasing tensions between the U.S. and Israel, and just weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to Congress — at Boehner's invitation — warning against an emerging deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Before the speech, the Speaker privately huddled with Netanyahu in the Capitol, but Boehner said Israeli officials had not shared intelligence about the Iran talks with him.
"I read that story this morning, and frankly, I was a bit shocked," Boehner told reporters. "There was no information revealed to me whatsoever."
Asked to clarify his reaction to the story, Boehner replied: "I'm shocked by the fact that there were reports in this press article that information was being passed on by the Israelis to members of Congress. I'm not aware of that at all.
"I'm baffled by it," he added.
The spying on the closed-door nuclear negotiations didn't anger the White House as much as revelations that Israel was sharing the information with U.S. lawmakers in an effort to derail the agreement, according to the Journal.
“It is one thing for the U.S. and Israel to spy on each other," a senior U.S. official told the newspaper. "It is another thing for Israel to steal U.S. secrets and play them back to U.S. legislators to undermine U.S. diplomacy."
this has all the trimmings of a duplicitous effort by a foreign nation and a republican led congress to have a coup against Pres. in the congress against the Obama admin, and i'm not the only one who thinks so.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2015/03/03/chris-matthews-freaks-out-netanyahu-attempted-coup-congress
he's bahhled huh, as he giggles in his hand nobody believes he wasn't doing exactly what the article says he was, this is a joint effort by Netanyahu and the republican right wing to start another war giving both what they want. the clandestine way in which they are doing it is what is unforgivable and shows Pres. right again to be leery of what Netanyahu, is the correct thing to do. republicans running around talking about our commitment to Israel is unshakable well Bibi is shaken and bakin pretty good.
Pres. was also right to say we need to rethink our obligation and position to those colluding with the deceptive side of our gov't who's stated desire is to see Pres. fail so are birds of a feather flocking together to usurp the power of our gov't in favor of a war with an apparently overzealous Israeli war mongerer????
