White House mocks Cotton as ‘international man of mystery’
By Steve Benen
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) traveled to Vienna last week and, after returning home, the right-wing freshman claimed he uncovered “secret side agreements to the Iran nuclear deal,” struck by Iranian officials and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Cotton’s allegations came up during the White House press briefing yesterday, and it appears the Obama administration isn’t especially impressed with the senator’s investigatory skills. The conservative Washington Times reported:
White House spokesman Josh Earnest belittled Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas as an “international man of mystery” Thursday following the lawmaker’s claim to have uncovered a secret side deal of the Iranian nuclear accord while on a mission to Europe – information Mr. Earnest contended was readily available on the Internet.
“I hope that Senator Cotton had a pleasant trip to Vienna, but his travel was not necessary to learn the information he claims to have obtained,” said Mr. Earnest, dubbing the freshman senator “Tom Cotton, international man of mystery” – a reference to the 1997 Austin Powers movie about a goofy, hipster secret agent.
According to the transcript, Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, “The documents that Senator Cotton claims to have learned of during his trip to Vienna were actually documents that were previously discussed in material that we put forward some time earlier. So the fact is, Senator Cotton didn’t really learn of anything in Vienna that wasn’t already available to be learned, and this is information that was disclosed on the IAEA website.”
I reached out to an administration official this morning to ask about the materials, and sure enough, the source directed me to this IAEA page, which fleshes out the agency’s “road map” for future inspections of Iranian facilities.
more
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/white-house-mocks-cotton-international-man-mystery?CID=sm_fb_maddow
= new reply since forum marked as read
but you can't tell him much."
said. They were just good at "reading" the message and making the right answers on the tests. They never once changed their minds about anything. That is what I suspect that Cruz and Cotton did. They went there to get the name "Harvard man" knowing full well that they knew everything already.
Wonder what their grade point was?
