Hillary’s Faux Benghazi Anger

It looks like Hillary’s email scandal is finally getting the best of her and her campaign.  While she has tried to laugh the matter off in the past, it seems as though Hillary’s email situation has become serious enough that her advisors have recommended she shift course and play the Four Dead Americans anger card in an effort to save her run for the White House.

Taking advantage of the gaffe House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy made last week, Hillary supporters and her campaign staff have moved the discussion as far away from the email scandal that surrounds the former Secretary of State as possible.  Instead of the email scandal, they have turned the focus to Benghazi, a topic of which they have vehemently avoided, for the past three years.  The poorly worded comment, made by Representative McCarthy, created an opportunity for Democrats and they pounced on it.  McCarthy’s comment, which was intended to stress the point that it was the result of, not the reason for, the investigative work of the Select Committee on Benghazi that Hillary’s email indiscretions have surfaced.

Democrats assuredly are aware that how McCarthy’s comment came out was little more than a wording gaffe but in a desperate effort to save their golden girl from a second loss at a run for the presidency, they have twisted the gaffe into what they are pushing in the media as an admission of guilt.  Democrats claim that McCarthy’s statement makes it clear that the sole purpose of Select Committee was to dethrone Queen Hillary.  There is one problem with this accusation however, it does not fit the most fundamental interpretation of facts.

Unless Democrats wish to go on record and claim that the Benghazi tragedy was some kind of sick and twisted Republican conspiracy crafted for the sole purpose of taking down Hillary, the attack can be attributed to nothing more than a failure of US foreign policy.  Stemming from the attack however, was a single event that raised a simple question by those whose task it is to conduct oversight on all such incidents.  A press brief, released by Secretary Clinton, which blamed the attack on an internet video set the wheels in motion which eventually led to the unexpected discovery of a private Clinton email address and server.

The attack on US assets in Benghazi could not have come at a worst time politically for President Obama, whose foreign policy was coming under heavy attack by Republicans and specifically Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney.  And so, it is fair to speculate that when no viable explanation could be provided as to why Secretary Clinton blamed that attack on an internet video, an account that contradicted reports coming directly from the ground, the claim could be viewed as being politically motivated. 

Speculation of political motivation only increased after Hillary Clinton’s surrogate, U.N. Ambassador for the United States Susan Rice, was sent out the following Sunday to five times repeat a prepared set of talking points in an attempt to sell the narrative that the attack was spurred by a group of angry protestors said to be fueled by an internet video.  But now, several days after the incident, we knew a little more about the situation on the ground including the fact that just prior to the attack there were no protestors outside the US Consulate, as reported by Ambassador Stevens himself.


It’s Time To Put the Oversight Investigations Lie to Bed

Maybe the most misunderstood activity performed by the US Congress is congressional oversight.  There are a number of House and Senate committees and subcommittees, each with their own oversight responsibilities.  And as was the case with the Benghazi attack, several oversight committee responsibilities were involved therefor, by default, prompting a large number of targeted investigations.  It must be understood that each oversight committee has a well defined scope of responsibilities and while there may be some overlap in the investigative process, each committee reports only on its specific area of responsibility such as the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, the State Department etc.

In regards to Benghazi, three of the four completed congressional oversight investigations noted in their final report that while it was not in their purview to investigate the State Department, their investigation did require that they request documents from the State Department.  Each of these committees clearly stated in their final report that they received little or no cooperation from the State Department in fulfilling their requests.  A forth congressional oversight committee closed its investigation without conclusion, reporting that due to a complete lack of cooperation from the State Department, to turn over requested documents, became impossible to achieve its oversight goals.

So the narrative repeatedly put forth by Democrats that numerous oversight investigations have found no wrong doing is completely false.  Congressional Democrats, and senior members of the Obama Administration are willfully misleading the American people with their false narrative of the various investigations.  You can find a more detailed explanation to the purpose and findings of each of the Benghazi oversight investigations in my blog titled Congressional Oversight DoesNot Give State Department a Free Pass on Benghazi.


How Did This Become About Hillary?

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was the fifth and most aggressive of all the investigative committees in trying to get to the who, what, why, where and when answers in a broader scope of the Benghazi attack.  It was this committee that came up against the greatest amount of stonewalling, pushback and obstruction, not just from the State Department but from committee Democrats as well.  Public hearings were a sham and the State Department absolutely refused to comply with countless document requests.  It was clear that there was no way that requested information was ever going to be obtained from the State Department using the very limited number of tools available to the oversight committee.  The State Department was simply going to stonewall the committee into submission and the Department of Justice and Executive Branch were not going to intervene.

But that all changed in May of 2014, when the House of Representatives approved the formation of the Select Committee on Benghazi.  The reason for this new committee was to untie the hands of those investigating the events surrounding the Benghazi attack. The Select committee has significantly more investigative tools at its disposal and far fewer restrictions than congressional oversight.  It was through the use of these enhanced capabilities that the Select Committee hoped it could break the investigative stalemate between the State Department and the investigative body, and it worked!

For the first time the State Department was made to answer as to why they were not cooperating with document request and as the investigation pressed on, more was learned about how obstructive the State Department had been and continues to be.  It was not without the help of watchdog groups, such as Judicial Watch, that progress was finally being made in obtaining massive amounts of missing documents pertaining to Benghazi, documents which had repeatedly been requested over the prior two years.  And as a result of the persistence of the Select Committee, and the added legal pressure created by these watch dog groups that the Clinton email scandal surfaced.  The State Department was ultimately forced to release long awaited documents which lead to the Clinton private email account and email server discovery.  Now it was clear as to why the State Department had been withholding the release of documents pertaining to Benghazi.


So What’s With the Faux Anger Hillary?

A full two years after the Benghazi attack and a year and a half after Hillary Clinton left the State Department was it first learned by the Select Committee that the former Secretary held full possession of her email record as Secretary of State.  And shortly after this discovery it was learned the she housed those personal emails on a private home brewed server.  Since these discoveries, Hillary Clinton has been under constant scrutiny as her email scandal grows larger almost daily. 

Clearly the discovery of Hillary Clinton’s private email and server was not the result of a partisan witch hunt intended to take the former Secretary down as Democrats are wanting us all to believe.  The focus of the Select Committee has been to obtain the facts and answer the long pending list of unanswered questions, the objective has never changed.  And the Select Committee has made major headway in doing so, having recovered some 50,000 formerly unreleased documents pertaining to Benghazi, only a fraction of which have any ties to Hillary Clinton.  As well, the Chairman just advised that his committee has interviewed more than 40 new witnesses all of which had never before been interviewed by any of the past Benghazi committees.

Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, the Select Committee, nor any of the other oversight committees related to Benghazi for that matter, was formulated to target and destroy Hillary’s political aspirations.  Hillary Clinton’s name is rarely even mentioned by the likes of Trey Gowdy, other than when Hillary or Democrats running cover for her happen to bring her name up.  

Hillary is in trouble at her on accord.  She can direct her anger at anyone or anything she wishes but at the end of the day it has been her actions and her actions alone which have put her in the situation she is in, a situation that is not only killing her political aspiration of being the first woman to serve as President of the United State but also may help her find her way in front of a Federal Judge or worse.

And to think, this all stemmed from a single lie Hillary told about an internet video!

We Have Lost Sight as to the True Importance of Hillary’s Emails

This whole “classified email” mess that Hillary has gotten herself in to is entertaining enough and of course quite serious but it has for some time now monopolized the news cycle and taken our sights away from what got us here in the first place.

This all started back on September 11, 2012 at 10:07pm EST when, just after getting off of the phone with President Obama, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released a press brief stating that the attack on the US Consulate was spurred by an internet video.  The attack was still underway at the time of this press brief release and intelligence was still being gathered however, word on the ground that the Secretary had received indicated that it was an organized attack.   It is also important to note the phone call exchange between the President and the Secretary was originally buried but later revealed, on accident, through a slip of the tongue by then White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.  The Secretary had previously been questioned as to if she had spoken with the President during that attack and her answer was no.

The story as to what happened that night in Benghazi has spiraled out of control from that point forward.  Hillary’s blaming the attack on an internet video came under immediate attack and rightly so.  Nobody could provide anyone with an explanation as to what lead the State Dept. to believe the video was the case and nobody was talking. The circumstances surrounding the press brief (the secret phone call shared with the president moments before) would not be learned until sometime later and again, only because of a slip of the tongue by Jay Carney.

The Sunday following the Benghazi tragedy was the definitive moment/day as Susan Rice made the rounds on all the Sunday morning news shows repeating a highly scripted set of talking points that backed the internet video claim.  The story simply did not add up and left many scratching their heads and wondering what really happened.

As is always is the case with any such tragedy, congressional oversight automatically kicks in and does its part by investigating the actions and activities of the various agencies to which they are responsible for.  Congressional oversight had their hands full on the Benghazi investigations however, as pieces were not fitting right from the beginning.  There were conflicts in reporting, conflicts in statements and most of all the blaming of the internet video and subsequent Sunday morning news show rounds by Susan Rice doing so just did not fit.


Let the Feet Dragging and Obstructionism Began

Some of the very first documents requested by congressional oversight were the string of emails that were used to craft the talking points used by Susan Rice that Sunday morning.  Oversight got the run around and in fact it took a letter directly to the President, and signed by a number of the oversight chairpersons to finally get this string of emails released.

The final release of these emails created more questions than answers which led to the eventual request for ANY AND ALL DOCUMENTS, from the State Department pertaining to Benghazi to be released to congressional oversight.  This request took place while Hillary was still in office and was never complied with.

The failure of the State Department to release requested documents is well documented in several of the oversightcommittees final reports on Benghazi and it is this failure, on the part of the State Department, to turn over Benghazi related documents that prompted the formulation of the Select Committee on Benghazi, a committee that has more tools in its bag to force parties and departments to comply than the standard congressional oversight committees do.  But even at that, this committee is at the mercy of the DOJ if legal action that would lead to some type of enforcement or criminal investigation were needed, such actions are outside the authority of the Select Committee.   But I digress.

Hillary’s emails became an issue when, from the few documents they were able to pry from the State Department, congressional oversight discovered that there were no emails addressed to or from Hillary Clinton.  Of course members of the committee were looking for a { .gov} email address at the time but her personal email address was not surfacing either.  But eventually a few documents passed through the hands of the oversight committee and the discovery was made that Hillary was using a private email account.  Now the State Department had no choice but to compel Hillary to turn over her email record, which up until that point she had sole custody of.


So here we are Today

While the talking point of “classified emails” on Hillary’s server is consuming all the news room discussions, the real reason we are here and digging into Hillary’s emails is because of Benghazi.

Hillary and her team have done an excellent job of hiding and obstruction anyone from getting their hands on her email record.  I’m sorry, correction, “the peoples” email record.  For two years after her departure from the State Department she held her email record in secrecy and only turned it over after being compelled to do so by the State Department which was facing legal action if it did not start producing documents requested through the FOIA and subpoena.

But Hillary did not turn over her record to the State Department, she turned over some 50,000 pages of emails to which she claims to be the full record but there is no way to verify this as she, at the time, refused to turn over the email server to which they resided.  We have no way of knowing if in fact these 50,000 pages represents her full record and Hillary has given us every reason to believe they are not.  She did conceal the record from the public for two full years before being forced to turn it over right?  As well, email documents have surfaced that are clearly part of Hillary’s record yet were not provided in the 50,000 pages that were turned over to the State Department {or the State Department did not provide them to oversite}.  So there is little confidence that Hillary is being forthcoming to her claim that she has turned over her record in full.

Hillary is without a doubt hiding something and that something may not even be related to Benghazi.  Remember, the unique email arrangement she set up for herself took place right at the start of her tenure as Secretary of State.  In regards to Benghazi, her email arrangement became a convenience which potentially has allowed her to hide troublesome documents.  But the only way we will ever know this is if her email records can be recovered from the hard drive of the email server she deliberately had scrubbed of its contents, yet another action that points to an intentional cover-up.

This is why we are here people, this is why the Select Committee pushed so hard to have her email server put in the hands of an independent 3^rd party and made available for forensic analysis so that an attempt cold be made to recover any documents that may not have been included in Hillary’s interpretation of the complete record.   

As it turns out, other entities have now gotten involved and are attempting to restore the record as well, for other reasons mind you, but the end result will be the same.  If the record is able to be restored and there are more documents related to Benghazi, they will be turned over to the Select Committee.  These documents, if any, are the final step in the Benghazi investigation and will either conclude that there is no there there or that something very bad has been covered up by senior members of our government.   We as Americans should want the answer either way.

Regarding the issue of classified information on Hillary’s email server, that’s a whole other issue and looks as though it is being dealt with accordingly. 

And let us not forget, the record of all senior level government officials should be archived for a number or reasons but if for no other, so that we have a historical account of what has gone on in our government that we can always refer back to.

Congressional Oversight Does Not Give State Department a Pass on Benghazi

This past Friday’s public release of nearly 300 hand-picked selections from Hillary Clinton’s private email server set social media and the liberal press ablaze. 

The content of these emails, while new to the public, have been in the possession of the Select Committee on Benghazi for several months now making their release little more than an addition of a few pieces to a largely unfinished puzzle of which congressional democrats continue to claim is complete.  That’s right, this incomplete set of emails, first individually selected from the private Clinton email server by Hillary herself and then scrutinized by her attorney’s before finally being handed over, in hard copy form, to the State Department over two years after the fact, is old news.  However, the public release of these email has given republican pundits new fuel which has once again put the liberal media on the defensive as well as has ignited a new back and forth, over the Benghazi investigations, on social media channels.

The “go to” argument of the left always seems to be the claim that the numerous congressional investigations that have been conducted have all concluded that there was no wrong doing by anyone or any part of the Obama Administration in regards to their actions before, during and after the Benghazi attack.  Nothing could be further from the truth and the final reports from each of the oversight committees reach no such conclusion.  As well, most of the reports are highly critical of the State Department and its failure to cooperate in the investigations.  But sadly the liberally charged main stream media has irresponsibly repeated a highly inaccurate narrative of the findings of each of these investigations of which most who stand on the left of center have willfully embraced as the truth, doing so without question.

But we cannot just claim the liberal media has it wrong, we need to prove it.  And to do so, there is no better way than with the very reports to which the liberal media has intentionally misrepresented.  So, without further ado, let’s get started!


House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Benghazi

In regards to Benghazi, the mission of the House Permanent Select Committee was to assess the Intelligence Community’s (IC) roll in the incident and no other department or agency, as is clearly stated in the final paragraph of the report.  From the last page {page 36}, in the “Conclusion” section, the report reads:

“The report is therefore meant to serve as the definitive House statement on the Intelligence Community’s activities before, during and after the tragic events that caused the deaths of four brave Americans.”

 This report goes in depth as to its investigation and the authors report that they found no wrong doing on the part of the IC.  No place in this report does it mention it investigated any other department or agency nor does it claim any other department or agency was free of guilt or any wrong doing.  Again this committee’s focus was ONLY on the IC and no other government department or agency.

The main stream media or any so called journalistic source including this report as part of their narrative of no wrong doing being found by anyone involved in the Benghazi tragedy is irresponsible as such a portrayal is blatantly incorrect.  You can read the full report HERE.


House Committee on Foreign Affairs Report on Benghazi

In regards to Benghazi, the mission of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs was to assess the failure of accountability from with the State Department.  The State Department, then headed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, produced an internal audit of itself best known to the public as the Accountability Review Board (ARB) on Benghazi.  From this review came the ARB Report on Benghazi in which the State Department identified numerous shortcomings from within the department that led to the many failures of which were at least in part the cause of loss of American life in the Benghazi attack. 

While the State Department was critical of itself in the ARB report, in the end the State Department held no persons accountable for these failures  This failure to hold anyone accountable spurred public outrage, the reason for which was the crux of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs investigation.  Also, as part of their investigation the House Committee on Foreign Affairs desperately tried to answer the question as to who and why the attack was blamed on an internet video and why the president was absent from the situation room during the entirety of the attack.

The committee was unable to obtain answers to any of these questions due to a complete lack of cooperation from the State Department.  This is expressed in the endnote²¹ sited at the end of the second paragraph of the Introduction section of their report {page 9} which reads:

 

“The State Department has refused to provide copies of critical documents to the Committee, including emails and memoranda between key officials. For over a year, it has permitted Committee staff to review them only in camera, which means that the Committee cannot maintain possession of the documents and is not allowed to make photocopies. The Department has further insisted that one of its own employees be present during limited review periods, which constrains the ability of staff to speak openly about the information. These circumstances are unique to the Benghazi investigation, and the Department has refused to offer a legal justification for its behavior.”

 

To give a clearer picture of what the document review process looked like, picture a room filled with tables and stacks of printed documents on each table, the documents provided in no particular order.  From this, committee members had to sort through and try and make sense the document strings.  At the end of the day, the documents were collected and re-boxed only to be put out again in a new and just as random order as the previous review period.  This made it impossible for oversight to piece together any sort of paper trail.

The main stream media or any so called journalistic source including this report as part of their narrative of no wrong doing being found by anyone involved in the Benghazi tragedy is irresponsible as such a portrayal is blatantly incorrect.  You can read the full report HERE.

 

House Armed Services Subcommittee Report on Benghazi

In regards to Benghazi, the mission of the House Armed Services Subcommittee was to assess the Department of Defense’s (DoD) roll in the incident and no other department or agency, as is clearly stated in the very first line of the Executive Summary of their report which reads:
 

“Immediately after the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, the Committee on Armed Services began an ongoing extensive effort to evaluate the response of the Department of Defense (DOD).”

 
as well as the second line of the 3^rd paragraph of the Executive Summary which reads:
 

“In keeping with the committee’s jurisdiction, however, this document addresses only the activities and actions of personnel in DOD.”

 

This report goes in depth as to its investigation and the authors report that they found no wrong doing on the part of the DoD.  No place in this report does it mention it investigated any other department or agency nor does it claim any other department or agency was free of guilt or any wrong doing.  Again this committee’s focus was ONLY on the DoD and no other government department or agency.

It was however, sometimes impossible for the committee to remove completely certain facts pertaining to other departments and agencies from their report.  In some cases it was necessary to include such facts in order to give a full account of the department they were investigating and reporting on.  One such fact is found in the 2^nd bullet point of the “Findings” section of the report which reads:

 

“the Department of State, which has primary responsibility for diplomatic security, favored a reduction of Department of Defense security personnel in Libya before the attack.”

 

This is relevant when you consider that the CIA Annex, located less than a mile away, had  increased its security significantly due to the heightened threat level in Benghazi.  As well, other countries closed and evacuated their diplomatic facilities for the same reason.

The 3^rd bullet in the “Findings” section is significant as well and reads:

 

“Defense Department officials believed nearly from the outset of violence in Benghazi that it was a terrorist attack rather than a protest gone awry, and the President subsequently permitted the military to respond with minimal direction.”

 

The subcommittee faced the same difficulties as other committees had in obtaining information and answers.  Of special interest is a letter written by the subcommittee chairman, to the president, in which the chairman asks four very specific questions directly to the president.  The questions were in regard to his {the president’s} actions during the Benghazi attack.  A reply to the letter was provided not by the president but by the president’s legal counsel in which the buck was passed to other departments to answer these questions thus keeping the president “off record” for any actions or inactions taken on his part that evening. 

To date, nobody really knows who was in charge that evening nor does anyone know exactly what the president was doing most of the night and morning.  While the president was in fact in the White House, nobody can or at least is willing to explain why the president did not find it prudent to join his emergency action team in the Situation Room {Hillary remained in her State Department office the entire evening as well} and nobody inside the White House is talking.

The main stream media or any so called journalistic source including this report as part of their narrative of no wrong doing being found by anyone involved in the Benghazi tragedy is irresponsible as such a portrayal is blatantly incorrect.  You can read the full report HERE.

  

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on Benghazi

In regards to Benghazi, the mission of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was to assess the intelligence community’s (IC) roll in the incident and no others, as is stated in the opening statement of their report labeled “Purpose” which reads:

 

“The purpose of this report is to review the September 11-12, 2012, terrorist attacks against two U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. This review by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (hereinafter "SSCI" or "the Committee") focuses primarily on the analysis by and actions of the Intelligence Community (IC) leading up to, during, and immediately following the attacks.”

 

The second “Finding” in the report concluded that based on the intelligence information provided the State Department should have increased its security of the Temporary Mission Facility as it is described in the report.  On page 14 of the report it states:

 

“In the months prior to the attack, Ambassador Stevens and other State Department officials in Libya outlined concerns via cables to State Department headquarters about the security of the Mission compound in Benghazi and made several requests for additional security resources.”

 

and on page 16 the report goes on to state:

 

“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.”

 

The requests were made and ignored by senior members within the State Department for reasons unknown and why can only be left to speculation at this point.  The DoD was poised and ready to provide any level of additional security forces requested by the State Department, as was stated by ranking DoD officials in public hearings however, a request never came.

 

On page 35 of the report a very troubling discovery regarding the State Department is revealed:

 

“Based on the Committee's review, the State Department's INR disseminated no intelligence products related to the Benghazi attacks in the year following the attacks. Considering the attacks began on a State Department facility, involved the deaths of two State Department personnel, and were an important indication of escalating threats against U.S. facilities and personnel in the region, the Committee finds it unsettling that INR chose not to, or was unable to, disseminate any analysis related to the attacks or the implications of the attacks.”

 

It appears as though the State Department has gone out of its way to avoid drawing any attention to itself by not performing any post attack reviews of intelligence, or at least no post attack intelligence reviews that anyone from within the State Department has disclosed.  And while it was not the task of this committee to evaluate the actions of the State Department, this discovery was unsettling enough to the committee that they found it necessary bring it to light in their report.

This report goes in depth as to its investigation and the authors report that they found no wrong doing on the part of the IC.  No place in this report does it mention it investigated any other department or agency nor does it claim any other department or agency was free of guilt or any wrong doing.  Again this committee’s focus was ONLY on the IC and no other government department or agency.

Starting on page 66 of the pdf report file linked below, is the Additional Views of the Committee Minority.  These additional views do not change nor dispute the overall conclusions drawn by what has been touted as the most bipartisan committee and report investigation Benghazi.  These views were left out of the main report by mutual consent of the majority and minority parties and of course Chairperson Dianne Feinstein publically expressed her displeasure that they were included as a supplement to the report however, the committee Majority made no attempt to discredit or refute the content of the Additional Views provided by the committee minority. 

In the committee minority additional views, they point out the incredible shortcoming and lack of cooperation, from the State Department, the committee received during their investigation.  The failure to obtain very critical information requested could in fact and likely did influence the outcome of the final report however, oversight must conclude its investigation at some point making it imperative that those reading the findings of the report understand the report was written without full disclosure from the State Department thus leaving some doubt as to what exactly took place.

In the Minority View, it was made clear that the State Department was non-cooperative in providing requested documents, access to witnesses and responding to questions as is indicated in page 7 of their Additional Views which read:

 

Disturbing Lack of Cooperation by the State Department  -  As the Committee attempted to piece together key events before, during, and after the attacks, we faced the most significant and sustained resistance from the State Department in obtaining documents, access to witnesses, and responses to questions.

The 2^nd through 4^th opening paragraphs of the Minority View also addresses the lack of cooperation received by the Obama Administration.  They read as follows:

 

While the Committee has completed its report, important questions remain unanswered as a direct result of the Obama Administration's failure to provide the Committee with access to necessary documents and witnesses. We believe the Administration's lack of cooperation is directly contrary to its statutory obligation to keep the congressional intelligence committees fully and currently informed and has effectively obstructed the Committee's efforts to get to the ground truth with respect to these remaining questions. Too often, providing timely and complete information to Congress is viewed by the Administration as optional or an accommodation, rather than compliance with a statutory requirement. It is our view that the Committee should have held a vote to exercise its subpoena power to end this obstruction, once and for all, in the early stages of the review.

As we prepared these Additional Views, the Executive branch still has not provided all relevant documents to the Committee. Other documents have been provided to the Committee on a "read only" basis, meaning that the Committee Was only permitted to view them for a limited period of time, while being supervised by the coordinating agency, and had to rely upon our notes when preparing the report.  Significantly, key Executive branch witnesses who were directly involved in decisions that affected the ability of the United States to defend or respond to these attacks have declined our invitations to be interviewed by the Committee, even after being returned to full duty by the State Department.  In other cases, the testimony provided to the Committee contradicted written documents we reviewed, or-as with some of the testimony by the Under Secretary of State for Management, Patrick Kennedy-was particularly specious.

 

We understand that mistakes can be made during the back-and-forth of oral testimony, but when that occurs, the Intelligence Community (IC) and the Executive branch have historically been quick to correct the record. Yet, we are still waiting for some of these troubling contradictions to be resolved. Further, in what is becoming a habitual refrain, the Administration has made repeated and spurious claims of the "executive" and "deliberative process" privileges, serving to deny information to the Committee that was otherwise relevant to our review.  Similarly, information has been withheld from the Committee because of the "ongoing criminal investigation" into the attacks, in an apparent effort to shield certain government agencies from congressional oversight or potential embarrassment. We have also learned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has developed significant information about the attacks and the suspected attackers that is not being shared with Congress, even where doing so would not in any way impact an ongoing investigation.

 

Additional Views of the Committee Majority are also included in the report linked below, beginning on page 61 of the pdf file.  While there is little in the additional views of the majority that would lend to this particular writing they are interesting none the less and I encourage those who have not read them to do so, just as I encourage everyone to read each of the congressional committee’s reports on Benghazi. 

There are three quick points in the majority views worthy of noting however.  First, the majority found that the attacks on the US facilities in Benghazi were likely preventable based on the security shortcomings discovered during the investigation; second, the majority’s acknowledgment of bipartisanship in conducting their oversight investigation and report; and last, their appreciation to the IC and their efforts to aid in the investigation.  No such appreciation was extended to the State Department or Executive Branch of which they called on heavily for documents and information they never received.

The main stream media or any so called journalistic source including this report as part of their narrative of no wrong doing being found by anyone involved in the Benghazi tragedy is irresponsible as such a portrayal is blatantly incorrect.  You can read the full report HERE.

In Conclusion

The above excerpts, drawn directly from the reports prepared by the various oversight committees investigating their respective areas of authority in regards to Benghazi, make it crystal clear that none of the reports have cleared all departments and government entities of any wrong doing.   Second, it is painfully clear that the State Department has failed, first in ensuring American abroad were protected to the best of our ability and second in being truthful and  honest to the American people to which the department serves.  Every committee had difficulty in obtaining requested information and documentation from the State Department and in most cases simply gave up doing so in order to keep from dragging out their investigation forever.

What is most saddening however is the media bias, in regards to Benghazi, which has existed since the day of the attack.  The liberal media has placed protective fiction over damaging fact all in an effort to protect and agenda of the Obama Administration and what was even view back then as the 2016 presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton.

It’s Getting Harder to Look Democrats in the Eye

Undeniably, politics has been marred by more than its fair share of wrong doings by participants from both sides of the isle over the years, but never has a single administration been so callous and shown such an indifference to right and wrong as has the Obama Administration.   And just when you think that they can’t possibly come up with another scandal or cover-up there they go again!

While it may seem inconsequential to most democrats, to the administration the Hillary Clinton email scandal is significant and reaches far beyond the possibility of damaging the party’s golden girl and her prospects of running for the presidency in 2016.  When put into perspective, the Hillary email controversy could prove to be a much larger scandal than Nixon’s Watergate and undeniably a much greater cover-up.  If the truth behind Emailgate, as it has been so aptly named, is ever learned, it could be the scandal that brings down the entire administration, unless of course, democrats happen to let them get away with it!

As you read the progression of events regarding Hillary Clinton’s private email account used during her time as Secretary of State, it becomes abhorrently clear to any rational thinking person that Hillary’s actions were deliberate and with premeditated purpose.  From creating the email accounts to making the choice not to turn them over to the State Department and then on to the scrubbing of her email server’s hard drive, each action was a necessary escalation driven by events occurring during her service as Secretary of State.

Here is a recap of what has gone on with Hillary and her private email she used to conduct her business as Secretary of State on:

·         Just days before being confirmed as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has a private email account set up on her in-home private email server.

 

·         During her four years as Secretary of State, Hillary uses two different private @clintonemail.com email addresses exclusively, for all State Department business, including communications with some of her aids, who had also used private email accounts, as has just recently been learned.

 

·         During her time serving as Secretary of State, the State Department failed to respond to numerous FOIA requests for documents pertaining to the Secretary, submitted by various media outlets and watchdog groups.

 

·         Just days after the 9/11 attack on the US Consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi, Libya, the first congressional oversight request for documents from the Secretary of State was made to the State Department.  The request was never fulfilled.

 

·         Upon departure from the State Department, Hillary does not turn over an electronic or a hard copy of any emails generated through her private email server and from her private email account covering her time as Secretary of State.

 

·         John Kerry takes over as Secretary of State and vows him and his Stated Department’s full cooperation in the Benghazi investigations.

 

·         Numerous congressional oversight committees, investigating various departments and their actions as they pertained to the events surrounding the Benghazi attack, stated clearly in their final reports that the State Department was non-cooperative in releasing requested information.  This in turn hampered the particular committee’s investigation and in some cases their final conclusions.

 

·         State Department agrees to allow congressional oversight to review some 25,000 documents but would not turn custody of the documents over to the committees.  Oversight had to meet in a room where the documents were made available, were allowed to review and take notes and at the end of the day the documents were boxed up and secured.  This process made it near impossible to create a time line or string documents together for proper oversight.  Also, no emails addressed to or from Secretary Clinton were amongst any of these 25,000 documents that were reviewed by oversight.

 

·         After numerous failed requests for documentation pertaining to Benghazi, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Darrell Issa, issued two subpoenas to the State Department.  Neither subpoena was ever responded to and they still remain active today.

 

·          Republicans gain full control of congress which changes the complexion of congressional oversight and their {republican’s} ability to fend off democratic stonewalling and obstruction of their duty to conduct oversight.

 

·         The State Department made its last production of materials to the House Oversight Committee on April 17, 2014.  In all the time spanning from the very first document request made by any oversight committee on the subject of the Benghazi attack, the State Department had never turned over a single email to or from Hillary.

 

·         Select Committee on Benghazi was formed, chaired by Trey Gowdy, on May 8, 2014.

 

·         A renewed demand for documents, pertaining to Benghazi, fell upon the State Department.

 

·         At some point the State Department reaches out to Hillary Clinton for emails.  Despite the countless FOIA requests, congressional oversight document requests and at least two subpoenas, the State Department has never disclosed to anyone that they did not have physical custody of Hillary’s emails from her tenure as Secretary of State.

 

·         At her sole discretion, Hillary sorts through her private emails on her private server and prints those documents that she chooses to hand over to the State Department.

 

·         August 11, 2014, State Department turns over fewer than a dozen documents to the Select Committee which, for the first time ever, included emails to/from Hillary Clinton.  It was in these documents that oversight first discovered that Hillary was using private @clintonemail.com email addresses to conduct official State Department business.

 

·         November 18, 2014 the committee sent a request to both the State Department and to Hillary Clinton demanding all her emails from her personal eclintonemail.com email addresses.

 

·         Email server is “wiped clean” sometime between Oct and Dec. 2014.

 

·         December 2014 – boxes containing 50,000 printed pages of Hillary’s emails were delivered to the State Department.   Hillary would some time later publically claim that these 50,000 pages make up the full record of emails which resided on her private server, during her time as Secretary of State.

 

·         State Department reviews the 50,000 pages of emails and produces roughly 900 pages pertaining to Benghazi, to be turned over to the Select Committee.

 

·         After 2 1/2 years of request and subpoenas, on Feb. 11, 2015 the State Department delivers the first substantial number of Clinton documents {850 pages of Clinton emails} to the Select Committee, emails which originated from two separate private @clintonemail.com email accounts.

 

·         Select Committee discovers a hole in the emails provided by State Department.  The hole {missing emails} covered the most critical time period of the Benghazi investigation.

 

·         In early March 2015, the Select Committee first learns that Hillary’s private email account resided on a private email server owned and in the custody of the Clinton’s.

 

·         Hillary speaks publically of her private email server and email account she used during her time as Secretary of State.  She claimed she use as single email address for both personal and State Department business out of convenience of having to use only one device. Hillary also stated that she believed her emails were being archived as she communicated with others only using their government email addresses.  Hillary also discloses that all her personal emails have been deleted from the server and that the server would remain in her custody.

 

·         Select Committee Chairman attempts to compel Hillary to turn her email server over to an independent third party for review to avoid having to do so through legal channels.

 

·         Speaker Boehner suggests that they may take legal action to obtain the Clinton email server as it is the only record of her time as Secretary of State and must be preserved.

 

·         March 27, 2015 a letter from Hillary’s attorney, stating that they would not be turning over the email server as the hard drive and all backup devices and been “wiped clean” of the period that encompassed Hillary’s time served as Secretary of State and therefore contained no useful information to the committee.

 

·         Just yesterday the Associated Press reported that, contrary to Hillary’s claim of choosing to use single email and device out of convenience, she used both a Blackberry and an iPad to communicate with her staff even prior to the Benghazi attack.  Also, Hillary still remains unchallenged, by democrats, as to how she can only manage a single email account on one device.

 

After reading through Hillary’s private email chronology, two things become very apparent:

First; controlling access and custody of her emails while serving as Secretary of State was a deliberate and intentional act pre-conceived by Hillary Clinton or an advisor.  The reason for doing so most likely being that Hillary had thoughts of taking a run at the presidency again and in the position of Secretary of State, was trying to limit the chance of any of the tens of thousands of her Secretary of Stated email correspondences from ever facing public scrutiny.  Operating her own email server gave her exclusive control of her electronic correspondence “just in case”.

Second; at some point during her time as Secretary, an event took place that, if the truth were to be learned by the public, would be highly damaging to herself and/or others, making it imperative that she maintain full control and custody of her emails, as well as, deny access of them to anyone, at any cost.

And it is the “at any cost” where it grows harder and harder to look democrats in the face.

What has transpired over the past few weeks makes it beyond impossible to deny something is being covered up.  Whether one wishes to believe the cover-up extends beyond the Secretary herself is their personal choice however, Hillary’s actions to conceal the contents of emails, which belong to the people, is a clear indictment of her guilt to a crime which is defined in the very emails she is purposely concealing from the people she once served.

And yet, Hillary Clinton’s popularity amongst democrats remains virtually unwavered, the latest polls showing that she is still the top candidate to capture the democratic presidential nomination by a very large margin, if she so chooses to run.

Listening to democrats defend the indefensible has left a sour taste in the mouths of those who have simply grown tired of the party’s ease and willingness to endorse wrong over right in their “at any cost” effort to expand and protect their parties brand.  Another perfect example of the democrats “at any cost” approach came just recently from an interview with Harry Reid where, when questioned on his 2012 election cycle fabricated declaration that Mitt Romney had not paid taxes for over a decade, Reid’s undignified response to the question was nothing more than “Romney didn’t win did he?”   

And be it Hillary Clinton’s email cover-ups; Harry Reid’s blatant willingness to fabricate lies; President Obama’s national fear mongering platform of the doom and gloom that would befall all of American if the 2013 sequester were allowed to happen; or of course, the very event that led us to Emailgate, the tall tale told of an internet video being the cause for the attack on US assets in Benghazi which left four American’s dead, the democratic response is the same  ……  “There is nothing to see here”.

Clearly, the moral compass of the majority of democrats is severely broken.  With their willingness to overlook the countless wrongdoings of the leadership in their party, it makes it very difficult to engage in a civil exchange of thoughts and ideas much less trust in anything they say or do.  It’s even getting hard to look a democrat in the face without complete contempt.