Two weeks after being hit for not sending an administration big shot to the Charlie Hebdo international anti-terror protest in Paris, where leaders from Israel and Arab nations linked arms but President Obama’s team was nowhere to be seen, the White House is fielding a big group for the symbolic 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
But not President Obama, who will be traveling in Asia and the Middle East.
Chief of Staff Denis McDonough took the heat for the Paris failure, and the White House has responded by naming a 10-person delegation to Poland led by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. It includes two Auschwitz-Birkenau survivors and the State Department’s Holocaust envoy.
The anniversary is Tuesday, Jan. 27. Associates had told Secrets they were concerned that the administration was not sending anybody to the event, which is expected to attract the leaders of France, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Malta, Norway, Poland, Slovenia and Switzerland.
In not going, Obama joins Russian President Vladimir Putin as the other world power missing at the celebration.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
