Obama Rush to Fill Federal Jobs with Controversial Cronies

Despite the moving vans in front of the White House, President Obama is filling up federal positions just before he leaves office.

And one of the positions is for Ben Rhodes, one of the architects of the Iran deal, a controversial accord that Israel bitterly opposed.

“I see this appointment [of Rhodes] as Obama saying, ‘I really did the right thing and here is my confirmation. I stick by what I did.'”

What was Rhodes appointed to? The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

The appointment of Rhodes to the Holocaust Memorial Center has caught the attention of critics of the deal and the Islamist regime in Tehran.

Rhodes is the deputy national security adviser and was an adviser on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. The deal was particularly controversial with supporters of Israel, who said they feared a second Holocaust if Iran got nuclear weapons. High-ranking Iranian officials also have a history of Holocaust denial.

“The Iran deal is the most wretched deal in U.S. history,” said Daniel Pipes, a historian and specialist on Islamic militancy. “I see this appointment [of Rhodes] as Obama saying, ‘I really did the right thing and here is my confirmation. I stick by what I did.'”

The last-minute Obama appointments may come as a shock to taxpayers who thought the president would defer to President-Elect Donald Trump.

It may also come with some sticker shock. Rhodes will be paid $617 per diem, when the 68-member council meets.

Some appointments, like members of the Kennedy Center Board, will not be paid.

And some will make the kind of money that indicates that Obama should have deferred the decision to his successor. One position, the ambassador to the Republic of the Congo, not only requires Senate approval, but could pay between $120,000 and $165,000 annually, according to federal records.

Since Jan. 1, Obama has sent 17 nominations to the U.S. Senate and made 101 appointments to federal boards, councils, commissions, and committees, according to CBS News’ Mark Knoller.

On Tuesday morning, President Obama made even more nominations after Knoller’s tweet caught the attention of the media, including the New York Post.

Many of the nominations are to boards and commissions. While the boards and commissions likely do not pay, or do not pay much, they make policy for federal institutions.

Trump will be coming into office seeing many of these mostly Democratic officials holding power, all because they were appointed just before his inauguration.

The Obama appointees will serve after Trump enters office, and there is little Trump can do about most of them. Many of the appointments are Obama’s chums.

The Tuesday announcements included Obama’s longtime enforcer, Valerie Jarrett, to be a general trustee on the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Longtime aide Susan Rice, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was also made a trustee of the center.

Rhodes got into hot water when he admitted misleading reporters on the Iran nuclear deal by boasting he could create an “echo chamber” of pro-deal stories because most of the reporters were too young and inexperienced to comprehend the true nature of the deal.

But boards and commissions were not the only nominations that Obama made.

On Monday, Obama named Todd Phillip Haskell to be ambassador to the Republic of the Congo, and Jason E. Kearns to be a member of the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Kearns could make about $160,000 annually if he earns approval. Unlike the boards and commission appointments, both Haskell and Kearns’ nominations require the approval of the U.S. Senate.