Saturday, February 07, 2015

Obama White House Told Black Caucus to Boycott Netanyahu’s Congressional Speech


Two prominent black Democrats in the House of Representatives are vowing to skip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress next month, a move that a White House insider says was put in motion by the Obama administration.
John Lewis of Georgia and G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina both said Friday that they disapproved when House Speaker John Boehner invited the Israeli leader to address a joint session of Congress on March 3 without consulting President Barack Obama first.
That disapproval apparently was orchestrated, or at least strongly encouraged, by the White House through comamunications with lawmakers connected to the Congressional Black Caucus.
‘I’m not saying the president called anyone personally,’ a current White House staffer told Daily Mail Online.
‘But yeah, the White House sent a message to some at the CBC that they should suddenly be very upset about the speech.’
The source said it was a ‘back-channel’ arrangement that did not involve the higher echelons of the West Wing.
Butterfield’s spokeswoman Kezmiché Atterbury denied it on Friday afternoon, saying he ‘was not asked by anyone at the White House or otherwise’ to skip Netanyahu’s planned address.
The North Carolinian is the CBC’s chairman. he told the Associated Press that a growing boycott ‘is not an organized effort.’