You are of course completely correct in that assumption, Borillar...but what I'm amused by is the number of times Barack Obama has now used the "I didn't know about it until I read it in the Press" excuse. It seems to be his "go to" method of escaping blame.
Giving obama every benefit of the doubt, he is incompetent. He has appointed people to posts which they use to deceive him and the public. His staff routinely conceals necessary information from him or outright lies to him. obama, himself, is too distracted and/or uninterested in knowing what's going on in his admistration which is in free fall with no one's hand on the wheel.
Since there is no "hell to pay", no one is punished, dismissed or demoted, we can only conclude one of two things, he really did know and was lying to us all along, or he simply doesn't care who lies, who deceived or who they deceived, even if it's him. This would mean, of course, that he simply doesn't care what happens in his administration. A staffer could declare war on China and he wouldn't know or care.
It would be hard to tell which would be worse for the American people.