GRUBERGATE: In 2006 Barack Obama Seemed to Know Who Jonathan Gruber Was … “I Have Stolen ideas From Liberally”

Wasn’t it just the other day that Barack Obama seemingly disassociated himself from Jonathan Gruber as some adviser who never worked on his staff.

Flashback to 2006, speaking at the launch of the Brookings Institute’s Hamilton Project (Full video), then Senator Barack Obama had nothing but praise for MIT economist Jonathan Gruber saying that he was one of the “brightest minds from academia and policy circles” and someone who he had “stolen ideas from liberally”.

“You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles, many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally, people ranging from Robert Gordon to Austan Goolsbee; Jon Gruber; my dear friend, Jim Wallis here, who can inform what are sometimes dry policy debates with a prophetic voice.”