The prisoner swap that helped secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) thinking about Benghazi.
National Security Adviser Susan Rice made the Sunday show rounds to defend the swap, arguing that the Bergdahl’s health demanded immediate action, but Sununu wasn’t buying it on Monday.
Sununu, the former chief of staff to George H.W. Bush and an attack dog for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, strongly criticized the prisoner exchange during an appearance on Fox News, and he drew parallels to the Obama administration’s response to the 2012 attack in Benghazi.
Anchor Martha MacCallum teed him up by highlighting what she saw as two contradictory explanations for his release.
“And we’re kind of getting two different lines of thinking on this,” she said. “One is that the negotiations sort of became viable again over the last several weeks. That is the reporting coming out of the White House that, you know, the ground started to move a little bit for the negotiation we saw. But what we heard over the weekend was that his medical situation deteriorated to the point where they had to move instantly. Which one do you think it is?”
Sununu said the “health issue” is similar to the Obama administration’s characterization of the Benghazi attack.
“Well, look, they resorted to a YouTube video as an excuse for the failures of what they did at Benghazi,” he said. “Now they’re resorting to the health issue as an excuse for having done a bad thing here.”
“Hm, wow,” MacCallum said.
Sununu said it’s “typical of this White House,” but complained that “so much of the public thinks this President is still cool” and so Obama will “probably get away with it again.”
Rice’s appearances on the Sunday shows days after the Benghazi attack have been nothing short of a right-wing obsession. During those interviews, Rice said the administration’s “best assessment” at the time was that the attack was initially “a spontaneous reaction” to an anti-Islam video titled “Innocence of Muslims.”
The right has been similarly critical of Bergdahl’s release, with some expressing misgivings about the release of the five Taliban leaders and the administration’s decision to take action without consulting Congress.
