THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE

Michelle Obama’s closest confidant is the ‘gatekeeper of the White House’

There have been numerous reports that Valerie Jarrett, an accomplished lawyer, businesswoman and civic leader prior to joining the Obama team, is the most powerful person in the White House.

ED KLEIN: JARRETT IS WHITE HOUSE ‘BUZZSAW’

Newsmax
June 3, 2012

Edward Klein, the bestselling author of "Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House" told Mike Huckabee in a Fox News interview Saturday that high-level departures in the president’s Cabinet can be tied to the first lady’s close friend and confidante, Valerie Jarrett, who Klein says also advised the White House to freeze out Oprah Winfrey.

Veteran journalist Klein's book has hit the No. 1 book on the New York Times’ list of bestsellers two weeks in a row.

Klein told Huckabee that White House senior advisor Jarrett is the “gatekeeper of the White House,” and was responsible for the departures of former Chiefs of Staff Bill Daley and Rahm Emanuel.

“They ran into the buzzsaw named Valerie Jarrett,” Klein said, adding that Jarrett is close to both President Obama and the first lady Michelle Obama and wields “enormous power” in the White House.

Klein told Huckabee that Jarrett and the first lady decided to freeze out Oprah, whose endorsement of Obama was pivotal against Hillary Clinton in the primary, because Oprah wanted to become involved in White House guest lists and the handling of communications, among other things.

This seemed like an attempt to encroach upon the first lady’s agenda so Michelle Obama and Jarrett decided to freeze out the former talk show host, Klein explained.

“She’s the only person in the White House who goes upstairs and dines with the first family and goes on vacation with them,” Klein told Huckabee.

Klein’s book is buttressed by nearly 200 interviews with people close to Obama, and features explosive disclosures about one of the most secretive White Houses. Klein is the former editor-in-chief of the New York Times Magazine, former foreign editor of Newsweek, and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.

The book has come under fire from liberals contending Klein brought a bias to the table when researching and writing the book. Huckabee asked the author if he had an agenda.

Klein said, “I’ve been a reporter for 50 years and I decided that this was a phenomenon I needed to investigate. Here’s a guy that came out of nowhere, an African-American senator who had accomplished nothing, had no experience, somehow hypnotized millions of people into voting for him and then gets into the White House and it’s the first time we’ve ever seen anything like this: an amateur in the White House.

"To me it was a great story, a story that need to be told because it had a direct impact on the future of our country.”