Susan Crabtree

News organizations break ranks on ‘secret’ Obama trip

President Obama's trip to Afghanistan Tuesday was kept secret, sort of, by White House officials and media organizations traveling with him.

May 1, 2012

Obama makes surprise trip to Afghanistan

President Obama made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Tuesday on the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, adding drama to what was already a politicized military mission.

May 1, 2012

Obama gives Treasury new sanctions tool against Syria, Iran

President Obama Tuesday beefed up his sanctions policy against Syria and Iran, giving the U.S. Treasury the ability to crack down harder on foreign firms and individuals who violate existing measures.

May 1, 2012

Obama pays a few women big bucks

President Obama's top female White House aides earn more on average than their male counterparts, a reversal from the pattern in the George W. Bush administration, The Washington Times found in an analysis of 2011 pay records.

April 30, 2012

Obama insists he’s not trumpeting bin Laden’s death for votes

Under fire for playing politics with Osama bin Laden's killing, President Obama defended himself Monday and repeated questions in a campaign ad about whether Mitt Romney would have ordered the raid that killed the 9/11 mastermind.

April 30, 2012

Obama denies celebrating bin Laden raid

President Obama on Monday said he and his team are not guilty of "excessive celebration" when it comes to the killing of Osama bin Laden and repeated questions in one of his political ads about whether Mitt Romney would have ordered the raid that killed the mastermind of 9/11.

April 30, 2012

Obama woos unions for election drive

Striking a conciliatory election-year tone, President Obama told an audience of labor union officials that he hasn't been "a perfect president" but had always stayed true to his pledge to work on their behalf.

April 30, 2012

Team Obama announces formal start of campaign

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will formally kick off his re-election campaign on May 5 with rallies in the swing states of Ohio and Virginia, Obama campaign officials announced Wednesday night.

April 25, 2012

Grassley: Were White House staff involved in prostitution scandal?

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is questioning the U.S. Secret Service about possible involvement of White House staff in the Colombian prostitution scandal.

April 21, 2012

White House accuses Palin, Sessions of ‘politicizing’ Secret Service incident

White House spokesman Jay Carney bristled Friday at suggestions from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions that a series of recent incidents — including Secret Service misbehavior in Colombia, the General Service Agency spending scandal and soldiers posing with dead Afghan insurgents — symbolized a breakdown in President Obama's leadership.

April 20, 2012

Obama: Prosperity comes from bottom, not top

Two days after Senate Republicans blocked consideration of the White House's "Buffett rule," a proposed tax increase on millionaires, President Obama used the rejection to rally supporters in swing-state Ohio and paint himself as a champion of the middle class.

April 18, 2012

White House ‘disappointed’ by publication of photos of soldiers with corpses

White House spokesman Jay Carney took the Los Angeles Times to task for publishing 2-year-old photos of U.S. soldiers posing with corpses in Afghanistan.

April 18, 2012

White House denies ‘deal’ on Panetta’s commute

Contradicting an account by a Pentagon official, the White House is denying that President Obama struck a "deal" with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to allow him to commute home to California most weekends on a military aircraft at a cost of $32,000 per round-trip flight and a total of $860,000 as of early April.

April 18, 2012

Obama wants $52 million to crack down on oil speculation

Feeling election-year heat from consumer pain at the pump, President Obama on Tuesday called for a new regulatory crackdown on oil speculators, including stiffer penalties for market manipulation and more resources and tools for enforcement.

April 17, 2012

Panetta defends $860,000 for weekly trips home

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday defended his use of military aircraft for trips home to California, after admitting last week that he has paid only about 2 percent of the costs of that personal travel.

April 16, 2012

Who foots bill when Obama travels?

When President Obama traveled to Florida this week, he sandwiched a partisan speech at Florida Atlantic University between two multimillion-dollar fundraisers for his 2012 campaign, allowing him to label at least part of the trip to a critical battleground state as official business.

April 12, 2012

GSA officials spent week in Hawaii for one-hour ribbon-cutting

Pointing to more evidence of the General Services Administration's misuse of taxpayers dollars, a top House Republican said GSA officials flew to Hawaii on other taxpayer-funded junkets — in one instance spending a week or more on the islands for a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony for a federal building.

April 12, 2012

Obama delivers Easter message free from politics

President Obama devoted his weekly address to extolling the message of God's redemption found in the Christian celebration of Easter and the Jewish Passover holiday.

April 7, 2012

Panetta paid $17K for $860K commute to California

Amid fallout over a lavish General Services Administration conference that cost top officials at the agency their jobs, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta late Thursday admitted to paying just $17,000 for his commuting costs for 27 trips back to his Monterey, Calif., home on a military aircraft.

April 6, 2012

Jobs Act signing a show of bipartisan support

President Obama gathered Democrats and Republicans at the White House Rose Garden on Thursday to sign a bill designed to encourage investment in startup businesses and take a break from election-year partisan sniping.

April 5, 2012