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Newsmax‘s Ronald Kessler On White House Construction: They’re Building A Top Secret Underground Bunker

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» 68 comments

A new construction project underway at the White House has some wondering what, exactly, is going on over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. While the official word is that America’s most famous address is having new water pipes and other such utilities installed or upgraded, Newsmax chief Washington correspondent Ronald Kessler says that just isn’t the case.

Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect, appeared on Fox News this afternoon to share that, actually, the White House is building a “top secret” underground bunker so that government may continue to function “in the event of an attack, be it nuclear, biological, or radiological.”

But if the project is indeed so top secret, why is it being built so openly and in plain sight?

Well, you know, they do have to excavate dirt; they can’t hide that. But what they’re doing is they’re putting out this cover story that it’s just moving utilities around and that sort of thing. They had the same cover story when they did a similar bunker at the Vice President’s residence, the Naval Observatory. They said it was just utilities. In fact, it was a top secret bunker to shield the Vice President in the event of a major attack.

Remember, Biden let the secret out at a Gridiron dinner, and then he tried to cover it up by saying, no, he was talking about something else.

To clarify that last point: At the 2009 Gridiron Club dinner, Biden described a room in his residence that was located “behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment.” At the time, much was made about Biden having accidentally “blurted out,” as it were, a secret, secure hiding place in the vice presidential residence. But this turns out to have been misreported.

Biden’s spokesperson came out and explained that Biden had actually been describing an “upstairs workspace in the residence,” which was “converted into an upstairs guestroom when the Bidens moved into the residence.” Moreover, there had been “no disclosure of classified information” during the dinner.

For what it’s worth, former vice president Dick Cheney also made mention of a room within the residence — along with other “hiding places” — in his recently published memoir, In My Time.

But back to Kessler. Later on, he added that “there will be relocation of utilities, so they’re not totally lying,” but that the White House’s reports about needing walls, concrete pilings and the like to house utilities is simply not the full truth. But, he continued, don’t expect them to come clean about it.

We asked our own resident White House correspondent, Tommy Christopher, to weigh in. “In three years of covering this White House,” he said, “I’ve seen lots of reporters get jacked up by the Secret Service (myself included) for photographing things on the grounds, but nobody has hassled us about photographing this construction project. This has been going on for well over a year now, so I think this story is another case of the Slow News Day Flu.”

Have a look at Kessler’s explanation, via Fox News:

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  • Anonymous

    Just more office space for Czars and campaign staff.

  • Just some Blow Hard…

    Um, they have always had one…  Since the Fifties…

  • Anonymous

    Fox News: We Make Shit Up, You Agree Without Question

  • Henry Wood

    I think Mr. Kessler is mistaken. 

    I think there are three possibilities as to what this might be.

    It might be a giant store room in which to place all the GUNS that Mr Obama has personally and ILLEGALLY CONFISCATED FROM CONSERVATIVES.

    The second possibility is that Obama is building GAS CHAMBERS under the white house in order to murder chris-chin conservatives who love duhr cawnstitooshun.

    and the third possibilty is uhm…the FDA?  No, that’s the other one.  Uhm…I forget.oops!

    Be afraid.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BXMHNHKZZKCORYEGCVIZ5OB6M4 Emmet

    Isn’t it a little unpatriotic to report a top-secret White House bunker?  I thought Fox News was against leaks when it was the NYTimes, WaPo, Time Magazine, or AP doing  the leaking.  

    Fox is either doing more National Enquirer thinly sourced BS reporting, or giving away a national secret.  Thanks

  • Anonymous

    Don’t forget about FEMA and all the death camps they’re creating…..oh, and the secret North American Union!!!

    Dun-dun-DUNNNNN!!!!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_45S32GWGDRUJIL6E2U4HOZW4BM Bob

    or a place to lock up race-baiting hillbillies.

  • Anonymous

    Kessler is not a Fox News employee. Moron.

  • Anonymous

    It’s going to be an underground WalMart.

  • Anonymous

    Kessler is the one who reported it. Moron.

  • Anonymous

    First off, congrats on spelling moron correctly, most Conservatives can’t.

    Secondly, Fox gave this nonsense airtime, so they are just as guilty as that birther garbage rag Newsmax.

  • OSTL

    That’s really dumb, patsy.

  • OSTL

    How do you breathe with your head poked in the sand?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TWK2YYJTTIDLZIVV7NKZM23Z6Q Tyler

    Now it’s not all made up, but I agree most of it is.  

  • Anonymous

    Um..nice one bro.

  • Anonymous

    Kessler is not a moron!

  • Anonymous

    Hey, Gloves.

    Maybe Obama is planning to have the DNC buy up and store all the copies of this book::

    “If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you’re not a racist, you’ll have to vote for someone else in 2012 to prove you’re not an idiot.”

  • Anonymous

    That’s what they count on, infuriate until violence seems justified.  That should be the Right Wing media’s mantra.

  • http://profiles.google.com/fatlibertarianinokc Fat Libertarian

    Oh Crap.  Does government HAVE to continue to function?

  • musa qala

    Leave it to Obama the nitwit to built a bunker and tell the world where it is.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Clark/100002772247574 Michael Clark

    the white house already has a secure underground bunker.

  • http://www.facebook.com/andrew.sappington Andrew Sappington

    Newsmax is the publication for those who think World Nut Daily is too progressive.  You have to be a serious paranoid loon to read either one of those right wing rags.  Fox News has no problem giving these crazies a platform to promote their psychotic musings.  Fox News has no shame.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bee-Ruled/100001985815996 Bee Ruled

    Is it really a surprise that the WORST PRESIDENT EVER would need this level of protection?

    -0bama – Worst-

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NYXJPXDGHAQQS57OJSFSTZ2U6A Clara

    @readers:disqus  my roomate’s mom made $184486 so far just working on the laptop for a few hours. Read more on this web site http://y.ahoo.it/OjyKK

  • Anonymous

    The navel observatory? I thought that was Obama’s residence.

  • http://www.facebook.com/andrew.sappington Andrew Sappington

    Fox News provided the platform to this paranoid loon.  Fox News loves to promote partisan bullshit, even if their is little or no evidence provided, as long as it attacks Obama or the Dems.  Their viewers are as gullible as they are ignorant. 

  • Rex derWunderGott

    “If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you’re not a racist, you’ll have to vote for someone else in 2012 to prove you’re not an idiot.”
    Since we use a secret ballot system in this country, you would have been an idiot for thinking your 2008 vote “proved” anything, you would have to be an idiot to think your 2012 vote will “prove” anything in relation to your 2008 vote or at all, OR, alternatively, you would have to be G-D in self-colloquy self-abusing the concept of unattributed quotations.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JC25VZ7V3BAAPNJ5C3R3YIP3WI j

    Libs are ignorant.  Truly very ignorant.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_45S32GWGDRUJIL6E2U4HOZW4BM Bob

    The GOP posters here are getting more and more blatantly racist, FOX is resorting to online tabloid conspiracy rags for ‘news’ stories.
    It appears the right is getting hysterical as they see 2012 slipping away and have to accept the fact that none of the GOP clown car candidates stand a chance.

  • Anonymous

    Only Fox would let spew unconfirmed lies WHEN THE OFFICIAL WORD IS:

    the official word is that America’s most famous address is having new water pipes and other such utilities installed or upgraded

  • Anonymous

    There’s a lot of teabagging racists out there…

  • Rex derWunderGott

    Correct, but he is a long-time crazy winger. The guy is an endless font of conspiracy theories. He started out writing for the Boston Herald – gosh, as anyone from Boston could tell you, I could stop right there – that pretty much says it all.

    Anyway, for completeness: He’s actually been able to parlay his ‘wingnut welfare’ status into a number of wingnut versions of affirmative action – with the WSJ, with AP, with WaPo, none of which he actually managed to stay on with very long (Those little jobs where you supposed get hired by a big name media org but you’re actually paid for by your sponsor such as the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute or one of the other big wingnut wank tanks in the Beltway, are called ‘resume hires’. Check him out on Wikipedia – legendary WaPo editor Ben Bradlee actually REFUSED to submit any Kessler stories for any journalism contests.). 

    He’s written almost 2 dozen supposedly non-fiction books, but in some weird voice combining ‘Boys’ World’ childishness with World Net Daily breathlessness, particularly his “history” of the CIA. The thing is, he’s such a relentless quote-for influence pedlar, he manages to get supposedly positive-sounding reviews, and even supposedly legit journalism prizes, which tells me this guy pretty much is the personal custodian of Richard Nixon’s personality disorder. That is, like with Nixon, you get these fascinating moments of borderline inspiration, like his trip to China to conflab with Mao, but then alongside that you get these massively disturbing events of which Watergate was pretty much the tip of the iceberg. Telltale sign: the guy tried to frame Obama on being present for a Jeremiah Wright speech that Obama in fact was provably out of town on and could not have see, whereupon Kessler tried to MANIPULATE HIS WIKIPEDIA entry to ‘fix’ the hit to his reputation.

    It’s like this guy everyday walks a fake tightrope in his psyche and manages to rope in the odd legitimate Beltway figure just barely enough to once again bump up that resume. I think it’s sufficiently strange it should be written up in some psychiatric or psychology journal. Maybe after he dies someone will make a movie about this guy as effectively the Ed Wood of Beltway journalism.

  • Anonymous

    I know FOX news is liez cuz I readz it on tuh onternit….

  • Anonymous

    It’s a bigger cesspool to hold more libturds.

  • Anonymous

    Wait a second…your English skills are a little too bad for an average Tea Partier…you might be playing with me…

  • http://www.facebook.com/andrew.sappington Andrew Sappington

    Truly very ignorant?  WTF does that even mean.  All you did was repeat what I said, without providing any proof.  That’s all you got?  The guy from Newsmax has NO evidence to prove what he is trying to claim, outside a construction crew digging a hole at the White House.  Yet rightwingers like yourself eat that shit up, because you believe everything Fox News or Newsmax tells you as long as it conforms to your narrow world view. 

  • Anonymous

    I thought you saw it on msnbicile

  • Anonymous

    First off, congrats on spelling moron correctly, most Conservatives can’t.

    Ha! (out loud)

  • Anonymous

    Not as dumb as you, Wilma.

  • Anonymous

    Can you hook me up dude?

  • Anonymous

    Next time you had better make your tongue in cheek comments more handicap friendly, especially for rex.  He seems to be able to read but not able to comprehend or draw inference.  Rex?  What is that?  A rash?

  • Anonymous

    Its like a Birther vomited all over this comment section.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YJOFCUW4S62AICSGYG562VMHZY Marje

    Thanks, gracious one, for your brilliant insight. Why are you not running for Prez? Surely no one can be more diplomatic nor more competent than you……. you would be a real asset when greeting foreign heads of state….. and negotiating with the people in congress you revile… 

  • Anonymous

    How do you breathe with your head permanently stuck in your rectum?

  • Anonymous

    Ever heard of editorial judgment & integrity? That means you don’t run with every half baked rumor and cheap shot you hear of.

  • Anonymous

    obviously blackthon has no concept of editorial standards, normal for FOX bots

  • Anonymous

    Duh, underground nuclear hardened bunkers for the President have been around since the Cold War. Typical teatarded ignorance

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NYSJOHX33TJCSMCFLQ3FN5GQZU Jacqueline

    @readers:disqus  my classmate’s aunt makes $75/hour on the laptop. She has been without a job for 2 months but last month her paycheck was $7174 just working on the laptop for a few hours. Read more on this web site http://y.ahoo.it/OjyKK

  • Anonymous

    Maybe the idiots and buffoons at Fox can bring in the psychic Megan Kelly interviewed today to tell us what this construction is all about.

  • Anonymous

    You sound like a Glenn Beck follower.  

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bee-Ruled/100001985815996 Bee Ruled

    So, 0bozo DIDN’T adequately apologize to all who might want to nuke him?

  • OSTL

    you’re a birfer? whodathunkit…

  • Anonymous

    My old friend “I know you are but what am I”…I thought I saw the last of you in elementary school!

  • Anonymous

    Dude, you didn’t hear about the asteroid?

  • Anonymous

    Typical ignorant paranoid macho right wing caveman logic. Let’s make Ann Coulter the new Secretary of State of the next knuckledragger theoteacon regime so we can have someone to insult and threaten the rest of the world for the crime of not living up to our standards.

  • jones.barry

    what flavor is the Kool-aid today?

  • jones.barry

    I’m sure you think Daily Kos and The Nation are straight down the middle news sites.

  • jones.barry

    many fudge-stirring liberals as well

  • jones.barry

    what color is the sky in your world?

  • Anonymous

    Oh god, please don’t bait the conspiracy theorists.  If it were a top-secret underground bunker, it would be more … top secret.  Please don’t kid yourselves, investigative journalists:  you’re journalists, not spies.

    The White House surely has one or more such bunkers, and that’s great, frankly!  I like my nation’s representatives safe, whether they be Congressmen, the President, or Cabinet members.  Just remember that they can think of better cover stories than this, so lay off the conspiracy theories.  Especially when the source cited is Fox News, bless their hearts.

  • doug daluga

    really, you’re just too stupid to deal with.

  • Anonymous

    That would depends on weather and time of day. I have learned over the years that the people who take the FOX world view seriously are stupid paranoid macho morons; the kind of barely literate blockheads who run on and on about “Obama’s Apology Tour” or Obama’s teleprompter.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t know about president, but if Perry or Cain won, he could be an ambassador.

  • Anonymous

    Guess what, they are not in the story.
    Meanwhile like most FOX bots, you have no comprehension of basic editorial or journalistic standards since you confuse the ignorant speculation of a crackpot with real reporting like they do.
    So lets cook up a segment for Bill O’Reilly’s Factor where he can attack personal enemies under the guise of editorial commentary

  • Anonymous

    “If you didn’t vote for Obama in 2008 because you’re a racist, you’ll
    have to vote for Cain in 2012 to prove you’re still an idiot.”

  • Anonymous

    Was that supposed to be humorous?

  • Anonymous

    I can just see your “chicken-in-the-headlights” eyes when the shit hits the fan.
    DUH!!!….Wot happen?

  • Darr247

    What is with a snorkel, alex?

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