Top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett thinks that President Barack Obama has lead a scandal-free administration.
“The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself,” Jarrett told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview Sunday.
“That’s because that’s who he is – that’s who they are – and I think that’s what really resonates with the American people,” Jarrett concluded.
Jarrett is a top White House aide and close friend of Obama and his wife, Michelle.
Jarrett’s comments drew immediate ire from watchdogs and conservatives, with some accusing her of rewriting history.
“This is delusional,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told the New York Post.
“The Obama administration has a scandal rap sheet longer than my arm. Between just the IRS abuses, Benghazi, and the Hillary Clinton scandals, this administration was even more corrupt than Nixon’s,” Fitton said.
Fox and Friends issued a scathing response Monday morning to Jarrett’s comments.
“When we heard that, we did intense seven seconds of research on the back of a napkin, and were able to cobble together these non-scandals of the past eight years,” said one of the co-hosts as a list of nine Obama scandals flashed on the screen.
Valerie Jarrett congratulates President Obama on a scandal-free administration pic.twitter.com/cCE8oqIOkW
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) January 2, 2017
Included in the list of scandals was “Operation Fast & Furious,” a program designed to help dismantle drug cartels operating inside the United States that ended up backfiring on the Obama administration. Instead, an estimated 2,000 weapons were put in the hands of criminals across the border, one of which was used to kill U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
Also included was when Edward Snowden leaked in 2013 that the National Security Agency was engaging in mass surveillance of tens of millions of Americans.
Two scandals that had a significant impact on the presidential election, Benghazi and Hillary Clinton’s private email server, also made the list.