As hard as democrats try and tamp down the events surrounding the
Benghazi tragedy, it is impossible to deny culpability on the part of then
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the shaping of the failures prior to,
likely during and most certainly after that attack occurred. The question is, to what level of culpability
should rest on her shoulders.
No better example as to the importance to recover every single email that ever
passed through Hillary Clintons personal email server she used to conduct the
people’s business on than what has been revealed in the numerous congressional
investigations. Democrats have attempted
time and again to convince “we the people” that these investigations have failed
to discovery any wrong doing however, quite the contrary is true, they know it
and it scares them to death!
Most of the investigations that transpired as a result of the Benghazi tragedy were
aimed at determining the particular role a certain agency played before, during
and after the attack. Of course,
conducting oversight on one department whose actions are influence by other
departments, there will be some overlap in the oversight process as was very
much the case in each of the committees investigating the Benghazi tragedy. And it was in this overlap where each
committee experiences the same fundamental problem, a complete lack of
cooperation and in some cases even defiance by the State Department.
While most of the committees were successful in achieve their particular oversight
goals, several very important questions were raised in regards to the actions
of the State Department in the process.
Answers to these questions were, in most cases, not pursued as they were
outside the purview of the particular committee’s scope. None the less, the troubling issues
encountered with the State Department were noted in their final reports.
Following are some of the concerns raised by the various committees. Read them through then you be the judge as to
how important you think the people’s emails that Hillary Clinton is holding
hostage are:
From the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Benghazi
The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) conducted an
extensive investigation which concentrated on the intelligence community’s role
in the events surrounding the time before, during and after the attack on the
US Consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi.
While the committee firmly stated that they found no fault in the actions of
the intelligence community (IC) in the months leading up to, during and after
the attacks, the committee was very critical of the failures of the State
Department over the entire period. For
example, in response to intelligence of increased threats of attack, appropriate
measures were taken to increase the security of the CIA Annex in Benghazi
while, provided with the same threat reports, the State Department failed to
respond to the increased threats leaving its staff at the US Consulate unable
to protect itself from such an attack that was experienced on the evening of
September 11, 2012. Two separate
agencies/departments responsible for two separate facilities, both provided
with the same intelligence and threat information but only one department
failed miserably to protect its assets and people.
Again, while the focus of the HPSIC was on investigating the role the IC played
in the events surrounding the Benghazi attacks, through the process they turned
up some very troubling actions of the State Department which they included in
their final report.
An excerpt from the Executive Summary:
Fifth,
the Committee finds that the process used to generate the talking points HPSCI
asked for – and which were used for Ambassador Rice’s public appearances – was
flawed. HPSCI asked for the talking
points solely to aid Member’ ability to communicate publicly using the best
available intelligence at the time, and mistake were made in the process of how
those talking points were developed.
The talking points have been a major point of contention with the IC as, for
lack of better terms, the White House threw them under the bus. From the backlash that ensued after Susan
Rice made her highly misleading Sunday talk show appearances where she made
some very inaccurate statements about the cause of the Benghazi attack, in
their attempt to appear not to be the ones responsible for spreading the false
narrative, the White House stated time and again that the talking points were
produced by the IC.
A large part of the committee’s effort went in to understanding how the talking
points were develop and how it was first concluded that the attacks spurred
from a protest over an internet video.
On page 24 of their report the committee writes:
Various
witnesses and senior military officials serving in the Obama Administration
testified to this Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and the Senate
Armed Services Committee that they knew from the moment the attacks began that
the attacks were deliberate terrorist acts against U.S. interests. No witness has reported believing at any
point that the attacks were anything but terrorist acts.
This follows the early reports made public, that members on the ground reported
almost immediately that what was being experienced at the Consulate was an
organized attack. Included in these
direct reports was a phone call made directly to Secretary Clinton by Deputy Chief of
Mission in Libya Gregory Hicks, who confirmed to the Secretary that unequivocally what
was taking place at the Consulate and CIA Annex were terrorist attacks. It needs to be added that this phone call to
the Secretary was made while the attacks were still underway and a full two
hours prior to the Secretary’s release of the public brief in which she blamed
the attacks on an internet video. It
also must be noted that the public brief was released just moments after ending
a short phone conversation with the president, a phone call which was kept from
public record until an unfortunate slip of the tongue by Press Secretary Jay
Carney months later.
Prior to the phone call slip, it had been reported, by the White House,
that during the time of the Benghazi attack, the president and Secretary
Clinton had not spoken directly until the following day. Had the slip by Jay Carney not occurred, we
may have never learned of the phone call between the President and the
Secretary of State and in turn, the troubling timing between the phone call and
the release of the public brief. But
what still remains and unknown is the content of that short phone conversation
between the two.
Maintaining their story that the attack on Benghazi was spurred by dissent
caused from an internet video, days after the attack occurred, the White House
pressed Ambassador Susan Rice to be Secretary Clinton’s surrogate in making the
Sunday morning talk show rounds which would entail explaining to the American
people what transpired in Benghazi. A reason for replacing the Secretary with Susan Rice has never been provided, but knowing what we know now, it would have been impossible for the Secretary to recite the talking points that were prepared without incriminating herself.
In a
frantic exchange of emails between numerous departments/agencies, the CIA
originated talking points were manipulated, scrubbed, cleaned and cleansed to
suit the best interest of the State Department and the White House. To support this, in an email from Deputy
National Security Advisor, Ben Rhodes titled “PREP CALL with Susan: Saturday at
4:00 ET” it stated that one of the goals of Administration public statement
should be “To underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video,
and not a broader failure of policy.”
And so that is what she did and on September 15, 2012, despite knowing that the
narrative was false, Susan Rice made her rounds on the Sunday talk shows
reading from a page of highly flawed talking points.
But what may be more disturbing than what appears to be an attempt to protect
the president’s foreign policy are the threat warnings that the committee found
were ignored.
On page 13 of their report the committee writes:
These
reports and assessments, which were available to senior U.S. policymakers,
including those at the State Department and the White House, made it clear that
there were serious and credible threats to American interest and facilities in
the region and in Benghazi specifically.
This information was also available to U.S. personnel in Libya. Indeed, CIA’s Chief of Tripoli Station
testified that he actually had a long conversation with Ambassador Stevens the
Saturday before the Ambassador traveled to Benghazi and reviewed the security
situation.
Given the volume of threat information provided by the IC, the Committee
concludes that any U.S. official responsible for facilities or personnel in
Benghazi had sufficient warning of the deteriorating security situation on
Benghazi and the demonstrated intent and capability of anti-U.S. extremists in
the region to attack Western and specifically, U.S. targets.
In many regards, the members of the State Department’s Accountability Review
Board on Benghazi (ARB) routed out many and maybe even all of the departments
shortcoming that lead to the failed protection of State Department assets and
personnel in Benghazi however, they failed to determine the root cause behind
the failure and rightly so. By design,
members of the ARB were not tasked to discover the root cause of failure from
within the department, and here lies the problem.
The full HPSCI report on Benghazi can be read HERE:
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Review of the Terrorist Attacks on U.S. Facilities in Benghazi, Libya,
September 11-12, 2012
Similar to the HPSCI, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
(SSCI) review on the events surrounding the attack on US assets and personnel
in Benghazi, Libya focused primarily on the role of the intelligence community
however, like the HPSCI, did report troubling actions as well as inactions of
other department which were discovered through unavoidable overlaps in their
investigation. Again, much like in the
case of the HPSCI investigation, failures of the State Department were abundant
and noted in the report.
On page 16 of their report the committee writes:
Despite the clearly deteriorating
security situation in Benghazi and requests for additional security resources, few
significant improvements were made by the State Department to the security posture
of the Temporary Mission Facility.
Although the Mission facility met the
minimum personnel requirements ~or Diplomatic Security agents as accepted
by the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli at the time of the August 15 EAC meeting
(specifically, the three Diplomatic Security agents were assigned to guard the
Mission compound), the Committee found no evidence that significant actions
were taken by the State Department between August 15, 2012, and September 11, 2012, to increase security at the
Mission facility in response to the concerns raised in that meeting.
Although it was not the charter of the committee to identify the shortcomings
of the State Department, or any other department for that matter, the committee
included certain findings, such as the above in their report. Different from other oversight investigation
however, was the committee’s repeated inclusion of recommendations made by the
ARB almost as if to put each of their findings of State Department failure to
rest. Doing so seemed a bit peculiar
when the report was first released but now, with a newfound understanding of
Secretary Clinton’s emails, it makes perfect sense. Bear in mind, this committee was chaired by
Dianne Feinstein, a staunch defender of the Secretary.
If the tie between the failures of the State Department and the inclusion of
the ARB recommendation in this report did not turn on that light in your head
or you are unfamiliar with the ARB Report, read on and it will all tie together
shortly.
The full Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Benghazi can be read
HERE:
From the House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority Staff Report on Benghazi
The House Foreign Affairs Committee was the one oversight body whose attention
was focused specifically on the actions of the State Department. While the investigation we unable to answer
the question as to exactly who made the call for Hillary Clinton to blame the
attack on an internet video and why, the investigation made clear as to the
reason why these answers could not be obtained.
The committee’s final report lambasted the State Department, pointing out the
systemic failures which were largely responsible for the attack on the US
Consulate in Benghazi. The committee was
also highly critical of the State Department’s ARB report on Benghazi,
essentially calling it a joke, pointing out that it was void of any
accountability or criticism of its senior members. Maybe now we know why as it would have been pretty
difficult for the ARB members scrutinize the actions of the State Departments senior members without any documentation from senior members to review.
Most alarming however was the complete failure in the State Department’s desire
to cooperate with the investigation, which again is all making sense now. The committee was continually stonewalled by
the department making it extremely difficult to do their job and ultimately
found the State Department so obstructive that the investigation was concluded
without answering many key questions.
Excerpts from the Executive Summary:
Both
before and after the attacks in Benghazi, President Obama promoted a flawed and
deeply misleading public narrative in which he claimed that al-Qaeda was
―decimated,‖ ―on the run,‖ and ―on the path to defeat.‖ Yet those on the ground
in Libya faced a surge in violence and increasing evidence of terrorist
activity; they appealed to Washington for added security.
This written in regards to the failure of anyone to have been disciplined from
within the State Department after findings proved gross negligence from within
the department and the constant return to the highly flawed ARB report as their
defense:
Unfortunately,
the Benghazi ARB‘s work was seriously deficient in several respects, most
notably in its failure to review or comment on the actions of the Department‘s most
senior officials.
---
the
ARB never interviewed her or her deputies
---
Committee
investigators believe that these omissions could be related to the fact that
Secretary Clinton selected four out of the ARB‘s five members
---
Indeed,
exoneration of an
organization‘s senior-most officials along with reassignment and
training for others does not constitute
sufficient accountability for the failures that led to the woefully inadequate
security posture in Benghazi.
This report released some very harsh criticisms of the ARB report, pointing out
not only its flaws but also pointing a finger as to why those flaws exist and
those fingers are pointed directly at the Secretary of State whose
orchestration of the ARB clearly and intentionally avoids investigation and
oversight that would implicated her of wrong doing or antagonize anyone who
might throw her under the bus for singling them out.
The first paragraph from the Introduction of the committee’s report:
Investigative staff of the five House
committees have conducted rigorous oversight of the events surrounding the
September 11-12, 2012 terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.
Oversight efforts have included numerous hearings, briefings, witness
interviews, and a protracted
and contentious document review by the Committees on Foreign Affairs,
Armed Services, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight and Government Reform.
These Committees have worked together to uncover the facts, hold the
Administration accountable for its failures, and advance necessary reforms.
A “protracted and contentious document review” or in other words that State
Department was obstructive and drug its feet.
Not really the actions of a department that is trying to be transparent
and forthcoming. And maybe we now know
why, they were simply unable to produce any of the requested documents
pertaining to Hillary Clintons emails as they did not have them in their
custody. Not wanting to admit so, the
State Department simply outlasted the investigation in their having to produce
such documents. The committee eventually
threw in the towel in order to move things along.
And here is a disturbing piece of information that was brought out during the
investigation. During Hillary Clinton’s
tenure as Secretary of State, there was no Inspector General (IG) appointed to
the State Department Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a critical position
in any governing agency to ensure accountability and proper oversight.
during President Obama‘s tenure the
State Department‘s OIG has been hampered in its mission. In what constituted
the longest vacancy ever for
any of the 73 Inspector General positions across the federal government,
President Obama failed to nominate a permanent Inspector General for the State
Department for an inexcusable 1,989 days – the entirety of Secretary Clinton‘s
tenure
How convenient it must have been for Hillary, and the president for that
matter, to not have someone looking over her and her department’s shoulder the entire
time she served as Secretary of State.
The first line in the “Conclusion” of the committee’s report reads:
Systemic failures at the State Department during Secretary
Clinton‘s tenure resulted in a grossly inadequate security posture in Benghazi.
No different than any of the other committees investigating various aspects of
the Benghazi tragedy, The House Foreign Affairs Committee has come upon one
road block after another in their attempts to obtain documents from the State
Department. The list of correspondence
on this matter goes on and on but are probably best summarized in a letter sent
by the Chairman of the committee to Secretary of State John Kerry back in May
of last year.
This letter addressed the chairman’s concerns as to why after 19 months of unsuccessful attempts to obtain certain records and
documents from the State Department, they were released to a non-government
group through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and at about the same
time, some of the same documents were in fact provided to the committee, mixed
amongst a large number of other requested documents however, the documents
received by the committee contained a higher number of redactions than those
provided to the non-government organization through the FOIA request. You can read the full letter HERE.
The “talking points” were an obvious point of contention and clearly re-written
for political protection rather than to relay facts. The email exchanges between the many players
involved in the crafting of the talking points were numerous and no player was more
involved and outspoken as to the content and exact language to be projected in
the talking points than the State Department.
But it took a letter to the president, signed by the chairpersons from
all 5 investigating committees to finally gain access to the string of
emails. The letter was delivered to the
president’s desk on April 23, 2013. You can
read the letter HERE.
Finally some results and in a letter dated May 20, 2013, from Thomas Gibson of
the State Department, the 103 pages of emails relating to the crafting of the
Sunday show talking points were provided to the committees. Though a bit difficult to wade through, with
a little time and effort you can sort your way through the string if emails
traded amongst the various parties and in doing so it will become grossly apparent
as to the role the Stated Department played in the “cleaning” (their word not
mine) of the talking points. The letter
and entire string of emails can be viewed HERE.
This is quite a bit of bad light being shed upon Hillary Clinton’s State
Department and numerous questions remain unanswered due to the inability to
obtain requested documents from the State Department which were undoubtedly
part of or related to documents that were not in their possession but instead
in the possession of Hillary Clinton, on her private email server.
The full House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority Staff report on Benghazi can
be read HERE:
The Accountability Review Board Report on Benghazi
The Accountability
Review Board (ARB) report came under tremendous criticism as many claimed it
failed to dig deep enough nor did it hold anyone accountable. But the reality is that the members of the ARB
conducted its investigation precisely as devised and directed by Secretary of
State Clinton, and here lies the problem.
The primary objective of the ARB was to review internal procedures and
practices of the State Department as they related to Benghazi, ferret out any
shortcomings and make recommendations on fixes to prevent any future missteps.
Democrats praised the actions of the ARB and where quick to accept the findings
of the ARB as closure to the State Department involvement in what they had
deemed a witch hunt by Republicans.
Republicans on the other hand stood in dismay as they reviewed the ARB
report finding it completely void of any accountability at any senior level and
at closer review realized that senior players inside the State Department were
given a free pass, their actions never scrutinized nor where they ever
interviewed.
Those who received a free
passes pass included Secretary Clinton who played the most significant role in
Benghazi of anyone in the State Department.
But again, the ARB followed the guidelines put forth to them by the Secretary
and therefore the members that made up the ARB, as well as the report should
not be held at fault. The same cannot be
said for Secretary Clinton who intentionally excluded herself from her
department’s accountability process and maybe now we understand why.
Having included herself in the accountability process would have forced the
State Department to produce documents that, up until August of last year, Secretary
Clinton has been able to keep away from those conducting congressional oversight as
well as the American people.
The question still remains as to why Hillary Clinton has taken such extreme measures
to make her emails private and keep it so from the people she served. But what we do know is that whatever the
reason may be, the Obama Administration is on-board with her doing so as to
date, they have made zero effort, on the part of the administration to push the
State Department into comply with congressional oversight requests, FOIA
requests and subpoenas issued to the department. Obviously, the White House has a vested
interest in keeping Hillary’s emails under wraps just as she does.
So is it clear now as to why Hillary controlling custody of her emails is such
a big deal?
