Documents reveal that as President Obama was bucking the advice of his top generals on Afghanistan, the White House was granting unprecedented access and availability to two Hollywood filmmakers who are making a film about the military operation that killed Osama bin Laden, according to an activist group of lawyers.
The filmmakers were given "special access to government officials involved in the commando operation that killed Osama bin Laden," Reuters reported.
Among the disclosures were that the filmmakers had access to top White House officials, were given the identity of a SEAL team member involved in the raid and taken to the top-secret "vault" where the raid was planned.
The group said the documents lay out contacts between White House, CIA and Pentagon officials and Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the director and screenwriter of "The Hurt Locker," a 2008 film about the Iraq war that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.), slammed the White House for risking that country’s national security by providing such high-level access to a duo of Hollywood bigwigs.
The e-mails portray "a damning story of extremely close, unprecedented, and potentially dangerous collaboration with top officials at the CIA, the [Department of Defense] and the White House and a top Democratic lobbying firm," Rep. King said, according to the Daily Caller.
"Is it CIA practice to meet with registered lobbyists in order to facilitate access to National Clandestine Service personnel?" King asked. "Were [CIA spies] introduced to Boal and Bigelow over the objections of the Director of the [CIA counterterrorism center], who apparently declined to meet with the filmmakers?"
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times reported in August of 2011 the movie was scheduled for release on October 12, 2012, "just as Obamaland was hoping… perfectly timed to give a home-stretch boost to a campaign that has grown tougher." According to Dowd, the administration "is counting on" the Hollywood version of the raid to "reflect the president’s cool, gutsy decision against shaky odds."
NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski reported today that the movie is now not expected to open until December, but "politics is politics, and this probably is not going to go away anytime soon."