Video: Darrell Issa previews Benghazi hearings on Face the Nation

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) appeared on Face the Nation to preview the May 8th Benghazi hearings. Gregory Hicks will be one of those witnesses and the quotes attributed to him that were read by host Bob Schieffer were indeed shocking. Without question, UN Ambassador Susan Rice's five Sunday show appearances on 9/16/12 - five days after the attacks - will come under renewed and even more intense scrutiny.

May 8th is likely going to be very significant.



During an appearance on Fox News one day earlier, former UN Ambassador John Bolton expressed shock at how high up the chain of command the whistleblowers go. Hicks - next in line after Stevens - is certainly an example of what Bolton was talking about.

Via Freedom's Lighthouse:

State Department accountability over Benghazi worse than thought

Upon release of the Accountability Review Board's (ARB) report on what happened in Benghazi, it was learned that the group singled out no individuals for discipline - the bureaucracy itself was identified as the party most responsible. There were, however, four State Department employees who reportedly resigned in the wake of the report.

Aside from the fact that none of the four individuals who allegedly 'resigned' were individuals who claimed to accept responsibility (Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), it appears they haven't really resigned at all.

Via the New York Post:

The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll — and will all be back to work soon, The Post has learned.

The highest-ranking official caught up in the scandal, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell, has not “resigned” from government service, as officials said last week. He is just switching desks. And the other three are simply on administrative leave and are expected back.

The four were made out to be sacrificial lambs in the wake of a scathing report issued last week that found that the US compound in Benghazi, Libya, was left vulnerable to attack because of “grossly inadequate” security.

State Department leaders “didn’t come clean about Benghazi and now they’re not coming clean about these staff changes,” a source close to the situation told The Post., adding, the “public would be outraged over this.”

Some might remember an exchange between Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) and Deputy Assistant Secretary Charlene Lamb at a House Oversight Committee in October. At the time, Adams pressed Lamb for the names of those who had the authority to deny requests for security in Benghazi. Lamb named both Eric Boswell and a man named Scott Bultrowicz. For some reason, all of the video excerpts from that hearing - once posted to the Oversight committee's YouTube channel, now get re-directed to an unrelated Darrell Issa speech but here is the exchange from another source (the relevant portion occurs within the first minute):



Ok, so Lamb admitted to Adams that the former didn't have sole authority to deny security. She pointed up the ladder to Boswell and Bultrowicz. The next logical question is: Did they have sole authority? If yes, then the ARB report would have erred by not naming either man as being responsible for security being withheld. If no, then someone above them had that sole authority.

The Post article only names three of the four individuals that were singled out for non-disciplinary discipline / resignation / re-assignments. They are:

1. Eric Boswell
2. Charlene Lamb
3. Raymond Maxwell

Via the Post:

The other officials — Deputy Assistant Secretaries Charlene Lamb and Raymond Maxwell, and a third who has not been identified — were found to have shown “performance inadequacies” but not “willful misconduct,” Pickering said, so they would not face discipline.

So who is the fourth individual? Could it be Scott Bultrowicz? The State Department website currently lists the two positions, held by Boswell and Bultrowicz respectively, as vacant:

Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security -- VACANT
The Assistant Secretary oversees Department of State security programs to protect U.S. Government employees and facilities under chief of mission authority overseas from terrorist, criminal, or technical attack, and ensures the integrity of classified national security information produced and stored in these facilities.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security and Director of the Diplomatic Security Service -- VACANT The Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security/Director of Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) is the most senior Diplomatic Security Service special agent and is responsible for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security's international and domestic operations and training programs.

If Bultrowicz's job at the time of the Benghazi attack is now listed as vacant, it prompts at least two questions:

1. Why does he no longer hold that position?
2. If he is one of the four who resigned is getting re-assigned, why is he the only one of the four who hasn't been identified yet?

Earlier this month, Jay Carney took a question from Ed Henry - shortly after the release of the ARB report - about the four individuals "taking the fall". Four Americans dead as a direct result of decisions made by some of these individuals and the only discipline is reassignment?!

Perhaps a better case of 'thou doth protest too much' one would be hard-pressed to find. In reality, it doesn't appear that anyone has either taken the fall or been held accountable, at least not in any way proportional to the consequences of their actions / inaction.

Via Freedom's Lighthouse:

Second of three Oversight Committee reports on Fast and Furious released

The first of three reports released by the House Oversight Committee back on July 31st, honed in on ATF culpability with regard to operation Fast and Furious. The second report, released on October 29th, exposes the degree to which senior Department of Justice (DOJ) leadership not only looked the other way but had a hand in implementation.

The report begins with a prologue consisting of some intimate detail surrounding the ultimate decision of then Acting ATF Director Kenneth Melson to testify in front of Oversight Committee staffers. It does serve to garner at least a modicum of empathy for Melson while more outrage at the actions of senior DOJ leadership, about whom Melson asserted was "running the show".

Check out the opening stanza from the Executive Summary:

Operation Fast and Furious was not a strictly local operation conceived by a rogue ATF office in Phoenix, but rather the product of a deliberate strategy created at the highest levels of the Justice Department aimed at identifying the leaders of a major gun trafficking ring. This strategy, along with institutional inertia, led to the genesis, implementation, and year-long duration of Fast and Furious.

Like mad scientists concocting a toxic brew, a new strategy - that came down from on high at DOJ - to stop prosecuting straw purchasers and focus on cartels, coupled with the resurrection of the failed Operation Wide Receiver, gave birth to Fast and Furious in Phoenix.

Check out page 27 for another interesting distinction between Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious. It's revealed that in 2009, DOJ's Criminal Division assigned a prosecutor to review Wide Receiver (Laura Gwinn). In an email to that prosecutor by James Trusty (DOJ Main and liaison with prosecutors in Arizona), it was relayed that the Criminal Division's Assistant Attorney General, Lanny Breuer was "VERY interested in the Arizona gun trafficking case..." This was Wide Receiver and the report notes that no evidence was produced which showed Breuer's predecessor had ever been exposed to that operation; it appeared to have been shut down before that reality ever manifested itself.

This would mean that even with the gift of hindsight about how failed Wide Receiver had been and why it was shut down, Breuer was interested in playing with fire.

In a September 22, 2009 email that appears on page 29 of the report, Trusty tells Gwinn that "we're in good shape" if gun-walking is the only concern.

On page 39, the report has the following to say about how wiretap applications were able to get approved at the Criminal Division level of DOJ and, in so doing, makes it quite clear why Attorney General Eric Holder should be held accountable:

Put bluntly, the Department of Justice rubber stamped the most important documents in Fast and Furious. These applications authorized federal agents to continue using the very reckless tactics that Attorney General Holder and many others have condemned in recent months. Rubber stamping these applications allowed the Department plausible deniability about the evidence of gunwalking tactics contained in the applications. The senior Department officials legally obligated to sign the applications did not actually read the documents they were signing. 

Congress demanded heightened scrutiny of these applications by senior officials because they are such an invasive law enforcement technique. Congress vested the power to authorize such applications in the Attorney General or certain of his subordinates, and not in a lower level Justice Department employee. To “authorize” in any meaningful sense must include a review of the document being authorized. By failing to properly read or review these applications before authorizing them, senior Department officials are undermining the law.

Holder's defense in countless appearance before various Senate and House committees was that because so much crosses his desk, he couldn't possibly have been able to read them all. This defense is torpedoed in the above paragraphs. Holder knew or should have known. As such, he has no business being the Attorney General.

Another bombshell is dropped on page 49 as it is revealed that in March of 2010, the Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, who was the position's placeholder between David Ogden and James Cole - who assumed office two weeks after Brian Terry's murder - was briefed on the details of Fast and Furious. This would mean that detailed information about Fast and Furious was known by Eric Holder's immediate subordinate approximately nine months before the death of Brian Terry.

According to the report, the multiple red flags that would have been raised in any detailed briefing about Fast and Furious, at minimum, were not seen by Grindler.

On page 61, email correspondence between Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein and Lanny Breuer clearly demonstrated that both men knew that guns were walking but were more concerned about how such a reality would play in the media than with the bloody consequences that should have been of an even greater concern.

This paragraph on page 73 says quite a bit:

Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler took a management approach of delegating tasks and responsibilities to his subordinates and then remaining uninvolved until problems were brought to his attention. This management style insulated him from problems occurring beneath him. Instead of accepting responsibility for his leadership shortcomings, Grindler instead passed the buck to his underlings.

Considering that Grindler held the number two position at DOJ - right below Holder - at the time, he is precariously close to being the highest ranking DOJ official with direct culpability in Fast and Furious, if one is inclined to believe Holder's testimony. The decision not to manage subordinates is a decision to allow their activities to continue. The subsequent interview transcript excerpts involving testimony from Grindler is mind-numbing. His professed ignorance on multiple fronts is simply not the least bit plausible.

This particular sentence from the report says quite a bit:

Senior Justice Department officials were not eager to find out what was going on at ATF during Fast and Furious. After its failure, they were even less inclined to do so.

Investigators concluded that the approach of Holder's Deputy Chief of Staff, Monty Wilkinson, was similar to that of Grindler. When it came to Fast and Furious, they were quite hands-off.

After including relevant testimony from Grindler, Wilkinson and Ed Siskel (Associate Deputy Attorney General at the time) the following conclusion appears on page 82 of the report:

The Office of the Attorney General thought that the Office of the Deputy Attorney General exercised supervision over ATF. The Deputy Attorney General thought his staff, Ed Siskel in particular, exercised supervision over ATF. Ed Siskel did not see it as his responsibility to supervise ATF—even though ATF believed that it needed to report to Ed Siskel. In other words, the management structure at Department headquarters allowed for zero oversight of ATF, with no single person believing it was their responsibility to supervise the agency.

The report then focuses on Attorney General Eric Holder, who stated in an October, 2011 letter that he doesn't read all of the memos and weekly reports, that he relies on...

"Attorneys in my office and in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General to review these weekly reports..."

This poses an obvious problem because the people Holder said would bring any issues to his attention operated under similar guidelines; they would only pay attention if something was brought to their attention.

How about plans for Eric Holder to participate in a press conference touting the success of the Operation Fast and Furious investigation? On page 16 of the report, it's revealed that Holder's Deputy Chief of Staff was making attempts to get his boss to appear at a press conference to speak about Fast and Furious but that the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry led to Dennis Burke, U.S. Attorney for Arizona, recommending against it.

Then, on page 91 of the report, we get specifics:

On December 14, 2010, before Brian Terry was killed, Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff Monty Wilkinson e-mailed Dennis Burke. The subject of the e-mail was “You available for a call today?”

At 12:28pm that day, Burke sent an email saying that Holder was interested in attending the press conference about Fast and Furious. Obviously, shortly after the midnight, hours later, Brian Terry was murdered and guns from Fast and Furious were recovered at the scene.

Emails show that it was known by late in the day on December 15th about the Fast and Furious connection to Terry's murder.

On page 100 of the report is a screen shot of an email from Burke to Wilkinson dated December 21st, 2010 - five days after Terry's death - advising that Holder not attend the Fast and Furious press conference.

A striking fact in all of this is that Wilkinson testified that he didn't remember much about the communications via email with Burke in the hours and days surrounding Terry's death, which is difficult to believe after such a tragedy being tied back to an ATF operation. Terry's murder should have been a "do you remember where you were when" moments.

The investigators seemed to reach that conclusion as well, on page 102:

Although both Wilkinson and Burke testified they had no memory of phone calls or communications about Fast and Furious and Agent Terry’s death, documents suggest that there was an immediate and obvious instinct to protect the Attorney General from being associated with an obviously controversial operation.

Essentially, the "collective memory loss" on the part of Holder's immediate subordinate is not the least bit believable.

The report's conclusion on page 104 is a must-read. Here is a link to the accompanying exhibits.

Issa points finger directly at Obama in letter over Benghazi-gate

There was quite an interesting mass e-mail waiting for me this morning from Darrell Issa's press secretary. In a letter sent to Barack Obama by Oversight Committee chairman Issa and Committee member, Jason Chaffetz, the two Republicans are asking some very hard questions and demanding answers about Benghazi-gate. The implied charge is made fairly early on in the letter that the poor security which existed in Libya was the result of a policy of "normalization" in that country. If true, that would make the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya along with three other Americans, the likely result of political decisions.

From the very first paragraph of the letter, via Oversight:

Information supplied to the committee by senior officials demonstrates that not only did the administration repeatedly reject requests for increased security despite escalating violence, but it also systematically decreased existing security to dangerous and ineffective levels. We have been told repeatedly that the administration did this to effectuate a policy of "normalization" in Libya after the conclusion of its civil war. These actions not only resulted in extreme vulnerability, but also undermined Ambassador Stevens and the diplomatic mission.

Issa also called Obama on the fact that several members of his administration - to include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and White House press secretary Jay Carney - repeatedly blamed the attack on Innocence of Muslims, an anti-Muhammad video. After factoring in the matter of the video, one can easily connect the dots of plausibility:

...if administration officials indeed reviewed security reports on a daily basis, they would have seen the overwhelming evidence prior to the 9/11 attack that terrorists were actively targeting westerners in Benghazi.

This introduces three variables into the investigation.

1. Normalization: The administration wanted to 'normalize' Libya after Gadhafi was overthrown, a noble goal to be sure but not one that should be wished into existence for political reasons, especially if an opposite reality is the one that exists. 'Normalization' may just be the key to unlocking much of what happened.
2. Implausible Deniability: Between the number of catalogued security incidents and the repeated requests for beefed up security, there were far too many red flags for decision-makers in the administration to be able to claim plausible deniability if something happened. Something did happen; four Americans were murdered (not reading reports and memos was an excuse given by Eric Holder in the Fast and Furious investigation).
3. The Video: If normalization was the goal and denial of security was the means, we're talking major scandal in the wake of four dead Americans. It would point to a political agenda trumping human life (Fast and Furious was about furthering the gun control agenda by putting guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels that resulted in ending many human lives). That's before we get to any sort of cover-up. A consequence (unintended or otherwise) of blaming the video, was that Obama administration actually aligned itself with the Islamists, who pointed to the video as a reason to criminalize any speech critical of Islam. In blaming the video, the Obama administration was facilitating attacks on the first amendment.

Back to the letter...

According to Assistant Regional Security Officer David Oliveira - who was stationed in Benghazi from June 2, 2012, to July 5, 2012 - "they (local guard force) felt that the U.S. was a target and they felt that they didn't want to work overnight... A Facebook posting also called for the assassination of Ambassador Stevens and provided details of his jogging route in Tripoli along with his picture.

Issa points to an unfathomable event in Benghazi that was met with an unfathomable non-response from Washington, smack dab in the middle of that June 2 - July 5 window:

...al Qaeda organized a rally in Benghazi. On or about June 10, 2012, fighters from Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and Mali paraded through the streets with weapons and black flags... These events were the subject of an early July country team meeting where Ambassador Stevens and others expressed their concerns about these develeopments and the need for increased security. According to one participant, this "fell like a dead fish on the table" because everyone, including Ambassador Stevens, knew that the Embassy lacked support from Washington, D.C., and could do little about it.

Also within that time frame - on June 6th, in the middle of the night - a white truck approached the compound, an Islamist got out of the truck, and placed a bomb along the consulate's perimeter wall. Check out the first 17 of these 45 photos provided by sent as attachments to the letter. The first three show the white truck approaching the front gate. Photos 4-17 show the hole that was blown through the perimeter wall.

With that as a backdrop, check out this excerpt from Issa's October 19th letter (page 6):

In August 2012, Ambassador Stevens continued to warn Main State of a "security vacuum" being exploited by independent actors. He further noted that "Islamist extremists are active." His warnings culminated with two cables in September 2012 in which he notified the State Department that Benghazi had entered a state of "maximum alert" and that Islamist influence was expanding in Derna. His last notification came on September 11, 2012, the day he was assassinated.

Ranking member of the Oversight Committee, while accusing Issa of playing election year politics with the Benghazi attack, apparently decided to engage in some politicizing of his own. Before I get into the "normalization" aspect of Issa's letter, take a look at what Cummings said at the October 10th hearing. Also take note of the, 'never let a crisis go to waste' dynamic at work here. Cummings alleges that Republicans in the House cut funding for security. Cummings likely saw a two-birds-with-one-stone opportunity.

By pointing to Republicans, he attempted to shift blame for Stevens' murder away from the administration and toward Issa's Party. He was also shamelessly attempting to lay the ground work for increased funding as a direct result of this attack.



There are a few problems for Cummings at this point. First, according to Issa's letter (page 8), the cost of the Security Support Team (SST) in question was absorbed by the Defense Department, not the State Department. Second, the State Department actually increased "danger pay" for its employees in Libya while removing security. Third, Charlene Lamb, the woman who withheld security from Benghazi, testified at the October 10th hearing that lack of funding had nothing to do with the withdrawal of security:



Also on page 8 of Issa's letter, he writes the following:

According to witnesses and documents received by the Committee, the administration made a policy decision to place Libya into a "normalized" country status as quickly as possible. The normalization process... appeared to have been aimed at conveying the impression that the situation in Libya was getting better, not worse.

Before concluding the letter, Issa points a finger directly at the White House National Security Council (NSC), which is chaired by the President of the United States. In essence, Issa is pointing the finger of culpability directly at Obama himself:

These critical foreign policy decisions are not made by low or mid-level career officials - they are typically made through a structured and well-reasoned process that includes the National Security Council at the White House. The ultimate responsibility rests with you as the President of the United States.

To underscore this point, check out this excerpt from Whitehouse.gov about who makes up the NSC and who attends the meetings:

The NSC is chaired by the President. Its regular attendees (both statutory and non-statutory) are the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the statutory military advisor to the Council, and the Director of National Intelligence is the intelligence advisor. The Chief of Staff to the President, Counsel to the President, and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy are invited to attend any NSC meeting. The Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget are invited to attend meetings pertaining to their responsibilities. The heads of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials, are invited to attend meetings of the NSC when appropriate.

I've posted this exchange between Lamb and Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) from the October 10th hearing before but it's provides a look into how the Oversight Committee might best proceed in the context of determining the level of culpability the NSC might have had in the deaths. The relevant portion comes in the first minute. Note how Adams asks Lamb if the latter had sole discretion to deny security to the consulate. After being told "no", Lamb is asked to provide names of those who did. She coughs up two names at the 1:00 mark.



If the NSC is responsible, those two men didn't have sole discretion either. Both should be placed under oath and be made to tell the committee if they acted on their own or were instructed to refuse security requests.

Elijah Cummings, member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) caucus (code for Communists) will not be happy:

Cummings: Running interference for Obama is tough business