Emmy-winning television journalist Sharyl Attkisson told
Newsmax TV on Wednesday that her sources say that President Barack Obama does not read intelligence reports from his staff on jihadist groups that he does not consider terrorists.
"I have talked to people who have worked in the Obama administration who firmly believe he has made up his mind — closed his mind, they say — to their intelligence that they've tried to bring him about various groups that he does not consider terrorists, even if they are on the U.S. list of designated terrorists," Attkisson told "The Steve Malzberg Show" in an interview.
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"He has his own ideas, and there are those who've known him a long time who say this dates back to law school," she said. "He does not necessarily listen to the people with whom he disagrees."
"He seems to dig in — and why I would suppose is because he thinks he's right. He is facing formidable opposition on this particular point."
Attkisson said the sources could not explain Obama's reasoning for his approach to terrorism intelligence.
"I've only been told by those who have allegedly attempted to present him, or have been in the circle that has attempted to present him, with certain intelligence that they said he doesn't want it," she told Malzberg. "He said he doesn't want it or he won't read it, in some instances."
Attkisson is the former CBS News investigative reporter who now hosts the syndicated news-magazine program,
"Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson."
This week's show features a report on the fifth anniversary of the Arab Spring and the widespread surveillance failures that have given rise to the Islamic State and "this horrible terrorism winter and how many people saw this coming."
Her crew was filming in Beirut when the twin blasts occurred that killed 43 people and injured 239 others the day before the Paris assaults.
"There were intelligence folks on the ground at the time who were warning of this, but the administration I guess was on a different path," Attkisson told Malzberg. "We were working on that story — and we thought Lebanon was a good place to be and the Beirut attacks happened."
"Two suicide bombers killed a lot of people. That was the day before the president said ISIS was contained and these are ISIS attacks."
"People said, 'Oh, he said that ISIS was contained' just before the Paris bombings, but also just after the Beirut attacks, which ISIS also claimed credit for," she said.