By Debbie Schlussel

*** bumped up from 3:20 a.m. ***

Did you know that several top Republican Members of Congress secretly helped Obama push the absurd Iran deal, while they publicly vehemently opposed it? Here’s who they are and what they did.

As you may know, yesterday’s much hyped, front page Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the Obama Administration extensively spied on Israel and stepped up the spying for the express purpose of successfully pimping the Iran deal. None of that should have been the big news it has become. As I’ve noted on this site several times over the years, America spies on its allies, and its allies spy on America. George W. Bush not only spied heavily on Israel, but his Justice Department set up an operation to entrap two lobbyists from the allegedly pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, in a phony espionage prosecution, which was eventually dropped. That some of the Obama spying on Israel included Israeli officials’ conversations with Members of Congress is also not news. We know that the Bush Administration surveilled conversations between Israeli officials and Members of Congress, including in connection with the trumped up espionage charges. That included the leaked contents of conversations with then-Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA), who was very pro-Israel while in Congress. The Bush Administration’s NSA spied on Harman and Israeli representatives and intermediaries in 2005 or 2006, and the surveillance was made public in 2009. I always expected that Barack Obama would use whatever he could to hurt Israel, including spying efforts, but he isn’t the first to do so. And he definitely won’t be the last.

To me, there was little in the story that was surprising or new, except for a money quote that seems to have been missed by almost everyone who read the article:

Convinced Mr. Netanyahu would attack Iran without warning the White House, U.S. spy agencies ramped up their surveillance, with the assent of Democratic and Republican lawmakers serving on congressional intelligence committees.

The story goes on to elaborate on how such “ramped up” surveillance was used to stop and block Netanyahu’s attempts to foil the Iran deal, all with the knowledge of these Congressmen and Senators.

This was at the time when Israel and these Members of Congress knew that Barack Obama was working a deal with the Iranians that would be a loser for America and basically enable Iranian nukes, as all of the details leaked. This was at the time when all of the Republicans on the intelligence committees in both the House and the Senate strongly voiced their opposition to the Iran deal and spoke of its danger to Israel. This was at the time that these Republican members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were grandstanding all over FOX News and anywhere that would give them face time, in opposition of the Iran deal. And this was at the time that the Republicans in Congress invited Netanyahu to speak before Congress against the Iran deal and pretended they were bucking Barack Obama by doing so.

But while they were pretending to cheerlead Netanyahu and preened for the cameras in on-air denunciations of the Iran deal, they were–behind the scenes–helping Barack Obama not only foil any Netanyahu lobbying against the Iran deal but also any possible Israeli attack on Iran which might destroy the nuclear warheads and silos.

One of those people is radio political commentator and Congressman Mike Rogers, who, at the time, was Chairman, er . . . “Chair” (“inclusiveness” requires that we call the position a piece of furniture) of the House Intelligence Committee. Rogers was all over the broadcast and cable news TV airwaves denouncing the Iran deal. But, secretly, he signed off on the stepped up surveillance of Israel and Netanyahu. He knew what that meant. I’ve noted before on this site what a complete phony Rogers was (and continues to be) on national security issues and that he has never done a thing to make us safer after 9/11. On the contrary, as Intelligence Committee Chair, he made us less safe, by ignoring gaping holes in our security. Rogers headed the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 2011 until his term in Congress ended at the end of 2014. Devin Nunes took over the position in 2015 and currently heads the committee.

Then, there are the other Republicans, who also secretly enabled Barack Obama to push through the Iran deal. I’m not mentioning the Democrats because almost all of them openly supported the Iran deal, so at least they were consistent. And they’re liberal Democrats. We expected them to support the Iran deal and step up efforts to stop Israel from foiling it. I have more respect for them for privately and publicly supporting the same thing. Sadly, we can’t say the same for the GOP.

I wish I could compile for you a complete list of the Republicans who served on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees when Obama was negotiating and pimping America on the Iran deal–and signed off on Obama’s efforts to stop Israel from stopping Iran. But I can’t find a complete list of those who served on the House Intelligence Committee in the 113th Congress, which spanned 2013 and 2014, when negotiations with Iran were going on. (If you find that list, please post the link.) The negotiations went on through the first half of 2015, as did Israel’s campaign opposing the deal. The list, as you’ll note, features New York Congressman Peter King, another hypocrite grandstander who loves the cameras as much as Mike Rogers and did as much as Rogers to make us safe: nothing. Like Rogers, he served on the Intelligence Committee for the entire time the Iran deal was being negotiated and pimped. So did Nunes. Here is the rest of the list of Republicans on the committee:

Devin Nunes, CA, Chairman
Jeff Miller, FL
K. Michael Conaway, TX
Peter T. King, NY
Frank A. LoBiondo, NJ
Lynn A. Westmoreland, GA
Thomas J. Rooney, FL
Joseph J. Heck, NV
Mike Pompeo, KS
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, FL
Michael R. Turner, OH
Brad R. Wenstrup, OH
Chris Stewart, UT

Here is the list of Senators on the current Senate Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:

Richard Burr, North Carolina, Chair
Jim Risch, Idaho
Dan Coats, Indiana
Marco Rubio, Florida
Susan Collins, Maine
Roy Blunt, Missouri
James Lankford, Oklahoma
Tom Cotton, Arkansas

The article says “assent,” but doesn’t say what the assent consisted of. Was it all of the members of these committees or was it only most or a majority?

So, which of these Republicans agreed to the stepped up Obama surveillance of Israel to stop it from both blocking the Iran deal and a possible Israeli attack on Iran?

And why did they do it while pretending publicly to oppose the Iran deal?

How do you spell hypocrisy? G-O-P.

If there was no “Republican asset,” Israel might’ve been able to attack Iran’s nukes or at least been able to nuke the Iran deal.