Obama's Role in the Zazi Case: White House Spin?

The story suggests that after President Obama became aware of the homegrown threat the suspected terrorist posed, he was briefed three to four times a day on the details of the investigation. In the piece, administration officials seek to differentiate Mr. Obama from his processor on counterterrorism policy -- noting that while Mr. Obama was highly involved in the case he did not move to increase the national terror alert level.

Zarate told moderator Nancy Cordes that the White House cannot really take credit for keeping the investigation quiet -- because national intelligence agencies wanted the investigation to stay below the radar.

"The reality of the FBI, the Department of Justice and others wanted to keep this very low key in part because the Zazi case was taken down prematurely," Zarate said. "Admittedly now, the FBI would have wanted to watch Zazi and perhaps his co-conspirators much longer."

The CBS analyst said the investigation is still not wrapped up and that investigations continue into the scope of Zazi's organization.

Cordes asked if a sitting president being briefed several times a day on any issue, national security or otherwise, is common.

"Not really," Zarate said, "unless you are getting to a point of fruition or a crisis mode."

"It's not uncommon for the president to get at least daily briefings on the status of the investigation. I would not over play the term 'briefing' because, I think, what likely happened was an update, a phone call or maybe an update from the chief of staff or John Brennan the counterterrorism adviser simply to let the president know that things were in hand," he said.

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