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
3rd 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 2nd 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 3rd 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 2nd through 4th
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.
