State Department Jen Psaki must have needed a breather after trying to explain away the ridiculous decision to swap a deserter for five top Taliban fighters. Psaki said Bergdahl wasn’t a deserter. One day later, Psaki’s deputy, Marie Harf accused soldiers who served with Berdahl and said he was a deserter, are liars.

In this exchange between Megyn Kelly and Col. Ralph Peters (Ret.), check out the reaction of Peters after watching Harf say that soldiers who served with Bergdahl and watched him desert are not reliable sources (h/t GWP):

This is clearly a scandal of the Obama administration’s making, based on an absurd political calculation it thought it could get away with. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, himself a White House ventriloquist dummy, made an interesting and somewhat explosive charge while discussing the fallout from all of this. If he’s right, the administration is clearly very desperate and has chosen to double down despite the horse being out of the barn on this one.

We have to start with the premise that the Department of Defense and the White House knew the truth about Berdgahl. At this point, that truth is out and indisputable. According to Todd’s own words, the administration thought that it could craft a message and control a narrative that Bergdahl is deserving of a hero’s welcome. While Todd doesn’t say it, he’s essentially conceding that the White House thought it could lie to the American people about Berdgahl and actually manipulate events so that Bergdahl’s release could help them. At one point, Todd says the administration expected ‘euphoria’ over the release:

That revelation also says something else – a distraction from Benghazi and the VA scandal. As Shoebat.com reported, the release of the five Taliban prisoners very well could be about an international agenda involving Syria but domestically, Bergdahl’s release was clearly meant to do at least three things:

1.) Show that the Obama administration doesn’t leave men behind (Benghazi neutralizer).
2.) Show that the Obama administration does care about its veterans (VA neutralizer).
3.) Suck up all the media oxygen being taken up by VA and Benghazi.

All of that fits a pattern of convenient coincidences that were likely intentional distractions whenever scandals get too close to the administration.

Here are the soldiers Harf implied are liars, Cody Full and Gerald Sutton: