Why? That Is the Only Answer Obama Must Give to America about the Bergdahl Exchange

The White House has 'apologized' to some members of Congress for not giving advance notice of the release of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl last Saturday - but at least one person not on that list is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who was notified before the release. Reid said, "It must have been either the day before or the day of. I don’t remember for sure." An aide to the other top Democrat in Congress, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, declined to tell Politico when she was briefed on the release by the administration. Senator Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, received an after-the-fact telephone call Tuesday afternoon from Homeland Security Adviser Lisa Monaco apologizing for not giving a heads-up about the release of five senior Taliban militants from the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, a spokeswoman told Newsmax. The Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, told reporters that she received a call late Monday from Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken apologizing for what he called an "oversight" regarding the matter. "I had a call from the White House last night, from Tony Blinken, apologizing for it," the California Democrat told reporters on Tuesday. Feinstein said : "He apologized and said it was an oversight. It’s very disappointing that there was not a level of trust sufficient to justify alerting us," she added, according to Politico. "The White House is pretty unilateral about what they want to do and when they want to do it. But I think the notification to us is important." Bergdahl was released on Saturday in Afghanistan in exchange for five senior Taliban militants in a deal brokered by the government of Qatar. They include Afghanistan’s deputy defense minister under Taliban rule and others who played major roles in the regime that helped shield those behind the September 11, 2001, Trade Center terrorist attacks. Sergeant Bergdahl, who was a private at the time of his disappearance and promoted while in Taliban hands, has since come under fire as a deserter who should be held accountable for his actions. A team member repeated to CNN on Wednesday what the team leader who supervised Bergdahl said on Newsmax TV on Monday - that Bergdahl left his post and so was in a sense responsible for the deaths of six fellow soldiers who searched for him. Other platoon members have also charged that the sergeant's actions cost the lives of soldiers sent to search for him. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that Bergdahl may still be disciplined if the Army finds evidence of misconduct. Meanwhile President Obama defended his decision, saying at a news conference in Poland on Tuesday that his administration had consulted with Congress about that possibility "for some time," a statement that Congress members deny. In addition, the President brushed aside questions about the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl's capture, saying the United States has an obligation to not leave its military personnel behind. Senator Feinstein, a Democrat, and many other members of Congress have accused the White House of violating the National Defense Authorization Act, under which the administration must give Congress 30 days' advance notice of any pending release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. "The notification to us is important and I think that it would have been a much better thing to do because you do try to work together," Feinstein said. House Speaker John Boehner said that the White House kept the release from Congress because legislators would have opposed it based on the concerns raised when the administration last raised the issue in 2011. "There was every expectation that the administration would re-engage with Congress, as it did before, and the only reason it did not is because the administration knew it faced serious and sober bipartisan concern and opposition," Boehner said in a statement, adding : "The administration has invited serious questions into how this exchange went down and the calculations the White House and relevant agencies made in moving forward without consulting Congress despite assurances it would re-engage with members on both sides of the aisle." Boehner said the Obama administration briefed members of Congress about a possible Bergdahl exchange in late 2011 and January 2012. The chairmen at the time and I raised serious questions to the administration. Unfortunately, the questions and concerns we had were never satisfactorily answered and they remain today." He noted that the White House had assured Congress publicly as recently as last June that it would raise the issue with legislators again, addressing their concerns and working to "ensure the safety of Sergeant Bergdahl and to preserve space for diplomatic negotiations." In addition, Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also said that the White House did not notify him of the exchange in advance. He learned of it after Bergdahl was in American hands. And spokesmen for two other top congressional Republicans - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Florida Representative Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee - told Newsmax on Tuesday that they also learned of Bergdahl's release after it was completed. ~~~~~ Dear readers, the Washington rumor mill, apparently supported by White House leaks, offers the conclusion that President Obama and his senior advisors were expecting the public to object to the release of the five Taliban for a few days and thought that protests would quickly fade. They were blindsided by tbe firestorm over Bergdahl's history of leaving his post and the consequent deaths of six of his comrades in the search for him. This, I suppose, is to be expected from a White House so completely out of touch with America and Americans, who are outraged for several reasons -- *Bergdahl was treated as a returning hero by the President, who had to know of the five-year-old accusations that Bergdahl deserted. *No effort was made by the President to contact or express regret to the families of the six soldiers killed looking for Bergdahl, and one family says they were simply told their son died in enemy action and learned the truth through soldiers present at Bergdahl's outpost. *There has been no acknowledgment by Obama that his initial conduct in announcing the release in the Rose Garden demeaned the valiant service of all American soldiers in Afghanistan. *The President has admitted that the five Taliban exchanged for Bergdahl will surely return to the war against America and the West, and this in the dubious exchange for a soldier of questionable loyalty to America. *America judges desertion as treason against the United States and cannot accept its being glossed over by the President. *The senior Senate and House intelligence leadership warned, as early as 2011, that these five detainees are the core of the hard core Taliban and pose a real security threat to the US if released. As Speaker Boehner put it succinctly, Congress was not consulted because the White House knew the answer would be "no." The liberal media, CNN in particular, is beginning to raise a new mantra to excuse Obama - "Wait until all the facts are in to judge." But it doesn't take a long analysis to understand the facts of the Bergdahl exchange - five Taliban who pose a serious security threat to America were released in exchange for a soldier of questionable loyalty to America. Do not be fooled by people who ask you to wait to judge. There is only one question we all should ask. Why did President Obama and his advisors persist, even to the point of ignoring the law, in order to release five dangerous Taliban for a soldier who left his post? We have no answer to this question - yet.