Rubio: Pentagon ‘Wrong’ to Give Bin Laden Filmmaker Access
Senator Marco Rubio criticized the Obama administration for cooperating with a Hollywood moviemaker on a film about the top-secret Navy unit that killed Osama bin Laden, warning such actions could “impact the ability to carry out similar operations in the future.”
It was “wrong” and “part of a troubling trend of chest- thumping” on the part of the administration, Rubio said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend. The 40-year-old Florida Republican sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The Pentagon’s top intelligence official, Michael Vickers, met with Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow and divulged the name of the typically secret Navy commando unit known as SEAL Team Six, according to a transcript of the July 15 meeting released May 22 by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based legal organization. The meeting, sanctioned by the White House, came after then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates and then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen urged military officials to stop talking about the May 2, 2011 raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.
‘Most Divisive’
In the interview, Rubio chastised Barack Obama on a number of issues and reiterated a charge that the president is more divisive than former Republican President Richard Nixon, who resigned under the threat of impeachment for his administration’s involvement in the Watergate break-in scandal.
On immigration, Rubio is crafting an alternative to a bill known as the DREAM Act that would grant a pathway to citizenship for military veterans and allow some students to stay and work legally on non-immigrant visas. A DREAM Act measure backed by Obama and most Democrats that would have given some students brought to the U.S. as children a path to citizenship was blocked by Republican congressional leaders.
