Conservative media figures are floating a baseless conspiracy theory that President Obama's televised statement on a CIA drone strike was scheduled in order to distract from news stories about Peter Schweizer's upcoming anti-Clinton book, Clinton Cash.
On April 23, President Obama announced that a CIA drone strike in Pakistan targeting Al Qaeda terrorists had also killed two of the hostages they were holding. Conservatives are suggesting Obama's announcement was timed to divert media attention away from stories prompted by Schweizer's book, but the administration was reportedly in the process of revealing the CIA operation before the latest round of Clinton Cash stories came out. Politico reported that “Senior U.S. officials” approached Wall Street Journal national security correspondent Adam Entous with details of the operation the night of April 22, since the “White House was planning to make the disclosure and decided to give Entous a heads up, with the request that he agree to an embargo.”
Entous reported that “Typically, it can take the CIA weeks or longer to determine who was killed in a drone strike” and that the determination by U.S. intelligence agencies that the hostages had been killed in the strike had been made only “a few days ago.” Entous further reported that after making that determination, the administration “then began the process of notifying relatives of the deceased as well as the Italian government and key congressional committees.”
Opening his April 23 show, Rush Limbaugh said that while cable news was “devoted” to covering the Clinton Cash story, “all of a sudden, we were treated to a news story” about the drone strike, adding that the story was announced “right in the middle of the heat on the reporting of the fraud going on at the Clinton family foundation.” Limbaugh added, “the conspiracy theories are alive and they're on fire.”
Internet gossip Matt Drudge tweeted “Obama rushes to podium and breaks 4 month old terror op... just as media saturating with Clinton scandal news?”
On Fox News after Obama's statement, America's Newsroom anchor Bill Hemmer asked National Review senior editor Jonah Goldberg that since Al Qaeda terrorist Adam Gadahn has “been dead for four months, why did we not know that?” Goldberg said the release of information about the strike “does lend itself to the sort of convenient political timing accusation, but we don't know that that's true either,” noting that he was originally booked on the program to discuss the book but was now discussing the operation.