Darrell Issa sends letter to Hillary Clinton over Benghazi Security

Fresh off a grueling, near two-year battle with the Justice Department over Operation Fast in Furious, Reps. Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz appear to be in the early stages of spearheading another investigation involving guns. This time, they want to know why there weren't any available in Benghazi. Issa and Chaffetz have fired off a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wanting to know why the State Department refused requests to secure the Benghazi consulate.

Via the Oversight website:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaders today sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking why requests for more protection were denied to the U.S. mission in Libya by Washington officials prior to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The denials came after repeated attacks and security threats to U.S. personnel.

“Based on information provided to the Committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012. It was clearly never, as Administration officials once insisted, the result of a popular protest,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and subcommittee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, write. “In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.”

The letter outlines 13 security threats over the six months prior to the attack.

Issa has become quite seasoned in the art of long investigations. In fact, in many ways, operation Fast and Furious may be playing itself out in a completely new theater - in Mexico. Issa and Grassley never really let up and don't seem to be willing to do so even now but the work of Univision may permit them to see some of the fruits of their labor as the scandal explodes in the court of public opinion.

Meanwhile, Issa and company can shift their focus to what amounts to the inverse of Fast and Furious in the Middle East. The letter to Clinton chronicles several attacks and incidents in Benghazi that warranted increased security at the consulate.

Fast and Furious was about arming bad guys who murdered innocents. The 9/11 attack in Benghazi appears to be about NOT arming good guys who ended up being the murdered innocents.

Click here to read the entire letter.