Every cover up needs a fall guy, and according to Rep. Buck Mckeon’s comments after last night’s Congressional briefing on the Bergdahl deal, the Obama administration seems to be floating the name of their patsy. The Weekly Standard reports:

The last question asked at Monday night's closed-door briefing of members of the House of Representatives was a simple one: Who made the decision to transfer five top Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay to Qatar in exchange for the return of the Taliban's lone American POW, Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl?

According to Buck McKeon, the chairman of the House Armed Services committee, the Obama administration's briefers told he gathered House members that the person responsible for the decision to make the deal was not President Obama but Chuck Hagel, the secretary of defense.

"Now wait a minute, are you saying it was Secretary Hagel that made this decision, or was this the president of the United States?" McKeon, a California Republican, said to reporters. "It was the president of the United States that came out with the Bergdahls and took all the credit. And now that there's been a little pushback, he's moving away from it?"

The administration's claim that Hagel, not Obama, made the decision is at odds with what Hagel himself said on Meet the Press on June 1. "I signed off on the decision," Hagel said. "The president made the ultimate decision."

Very interesting, indeed. Will Hagel, a nominal Republican, be a stand-up guy and take the fall? Given his on-the-record statement about the president, and given the declining trust the American people place in the current occupant of the White House, this might be a difficult story to sell.

If Hagel refuses to take the fall, and if he decides to spill his guts, what then?

It’s always tricky coming up with a patsy. My all-time favorite treatment of the subject comes from Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Maltese Falcon. The brilliant film rendering of the scene where the gang (all of whom have dirty hands) come up with a fall guy is instructive.