Were Benghazi talking points given to AP on night of attack?

We now know five things unequivocally. First, Hillary Clinton issued a statement about the Benghazi attack prior to 10:42pm EST on 9/11/12. We know this because an AP report published at that time made reference to it. We also know that Hillary and Barack Obama had a phone conversation at approximately 10:00pm EST on 9/11/12 (unless Jay Carney lied again). Third, Clinton's statement made a general reference to the anti-Muhammad video. Fourth, the AP took that general reference and made the leap that UN Ambassador Susan Rice attempted to bolster on 9/16/12.

The 10:42pm AP Headline read, American killed in Libya protest over film and opened thusly:

Protesters angered over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad fired gunshots and burned down the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, killing one American diplomat, witnesses and the State Department said. In Egypt, protesters scaled the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo and replaced an American flag with an Islamic banner.

It was the first such assaults on U.S. diplomatic facilities in either country, at a time when both Libya and Egypt are struggling to overcome the turmoil following the ouster of their longtime leaders, Moammar Gadhafi and Hosni Mubarak in uprisings last year.

The protests in both countries were sparked by outrage over a film ridiculing Muhammad produced by an American in California and being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United States. Excerpts from the film dubbed into Arabic were posted on YouTube.

Fifth, we now know that four months prior to the 9/11/12 attack, Eric Holder's Justice Department was intimately involved with what was going on at the AP, seizing all kinds of phone records from them:

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown, but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

For some reason, the Justice Department was very close to what a supposedly independent news agency was doing long before the Benghazi attack. This begs a question: To what extent did the Obama administration influence the AP's reporting on the night of 9/11/12? If Hillary was willing to issue a statement that referred to the video in broad terms, the AP was certainly willing to report on the video as being the cause of the attacks before Doherty and Woods (the two Navy SEALs) were even murdered.

It would seem that Hillary provided the canvas, brush, and paint via the statement (between 5:30pm EST - 10:42pm EST) and the AP provided the finished painting.

What inspired the AP to take the anti-Muhammad ball and run with it?

Something - or someone - clearly did.

On May 28th, Charles Krauthammer was on the O'Reilly Factor and discussed Benghazi. Pay attention to this particular line in the video below:

...five hours in he calls the Secretary of State. And after the phone call she releases a statement essentially about the video and how we denounce any intolerance.

Via GWP:



Below is a screen shot of the statement Krauthammer appears to be referring to. Terrence Jeffrey of CNS News, reported on January 24th that this statement was released some time before 11pm EST / 5am Benghazi time and after the recovery of Sean Smith's body at approximately 5:30pm (reference made in first paragraph of statement).

That leads us to the words of White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, who said the following to CNS News in February:

“He (Obama) was in regular communication with his national security team directly, through them, and spoke with the secretary of state at approximately 10 p.m. He called her to get an update on the situation.”

That would have been 42 minutes before the AP - the same AP that was being very closely monitored by Eric Holder's Justice Department - report was released. 

Incidentally, the AP report in question - published less than one hour after Obama's call with Hillary - went into extensive detail about the men behind the film. That's awfully quick reporting, especially in light of the fact that we now know this report is completely fallacious and based on a false premise that was pushed by the administration for two weeks.

Why was the AP so quick to push such a narrative that is demonstrably false? The 10:42 report should drop the AP below the National Enquirer on the list of credible media sources.

If the AP is truly outraged about the Justice Department's intrusion, perhaps we could get some answers from the authors of the 10:42pm EST article - Maggie Michael and Sara El Deeb.

Where was Hillary's Muslim Deputy when Benghazi talking points were being altered?

At the time of the 9/11/12 attacks in Benghazi, one of Hillary Clinton's deputies was a woman named Huma Abedin. To this point, Abedin's name has not been introduced into the scandal publicly. However, at the May 8th Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy referred to an email sent by Beth Jones, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. As Gowdy listed the names of people Jones sent that email to, he ended with:

"...near as I can tell, to almost everyone in the State Department."

In that email - sent one day after the attacks - Jones made it clear to everyone on her distribution list that Ansar al-Sharia had been responsible. Was Abedin - Hillary's Deputy Chief of Staff at the time - included in that e-mail? Based on Gowdy's claim, coupled with Abedin's high position at State, it's certainly possible and it would be relevant as Ansar al-Sharia and al-Qaeda are both offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group to which Abedin is linked extensively through her family.

Shouts of 'guilt by association' do not apply in this case. As has been reported previously, relationships and associations very much matter when it comes to the security clearance that came with the position Abedin held.

As the details of the Benghazi cover-up have been unfolding, it's become widely accepted that the CIA talking points were altered because the truth about Ansar al-Sharia / al-Qaeda being behind the attacks disrupted the pre-election narrative of the Obama administration. However, as is often the case with political agendas, shared ends do not necessarily equate to shared motives.

If anyone had a stake in making sure that the talking points did not identify Ansar al-Sharia, al-Qaeda, or even Islamic extremists, Abedin's mother and brother may very well have been candidates. Had Brotherhood offshoot groups been implicated in the murders of four Americans - one an Ambassador - on American soil, it likely would have been a little too close for the comfort of Brotherhood operatives.

Saleha (Mahmood) Abedin is a very prominent figure in the Muslim Brotherhood and is one of 63 leaders in the Muslim Sisterhood. Brother Hassan Abedin has a rather interesting history with the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood - Yusuf al-Qaradawi - and al-Qaeda financier Abdullah Omar Naseef.

As the purveyor of the Brotherhood tactic known as Muruna, Qaradawi is very much concerned about not blowing the Brotherhood's cover. While terror groups like al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia share his Sunni strain of Islam as well as his objectives, they certainly don't share his tactics. In fact, the tactics of these groups actually serve to undermine the Brotherhood's more stealthy, political agenda.

Access is the mother's milk of politics and let there be no doubt that Huma's mother had access - through her daughter - to Hillary. As the Vice Dean at Dar Al-Hekma College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Saleha hosted Hillary in 2010 with the help of her daughter, Huma.

In recent days, several individuals have been implicated in removing references to Ansar al-Sharia, al-Qaeda, and Islamic extremists from the CIA's version of the talking points before UN Ambassador Susan Rice lied on five separate Sunday talk shows on September 16th.

Let's take a look at the names of those who have been revealed as being involved to varying degrees. To illustrate how high-ranking Abedin's position at State was, consider the name Jake Sullivan. Not only did he hold the same title - Deputy Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton - but he appears to have been the point man for the State Department who worked with Deputy CIA Director at the time - Mike Morell - and White House adviser - Ben Rhodes - on that high stakes Saturday, September 15th meeting. It was during that meeting that the now infamous talking points took their final form.

As an aside, since his involvement in altering the talking points, Sullivan has since become Vice President Joe Biden's National Security Adviser. TIME had this to say about Sullivan:

Sullivan was the reliable point of contact between the White House and Clinton’s 7th floor even when other White House and State staffers were at each others’ throats. Losing him to Biden’s office closes one line of influence to the White House for Kerry.

It's also been widely reported that when Susan Rice lied on those five Sunday talk shows, she undermined what Libyan president Mohammed al-Magariaf, who had appeared on one of those shows (CBS' Face the Nation) shortly before her and said the attacks were 'pre-planned'.

Consider that when the Benghazi attacks occurred, al-Magariaf had only been in office for about one month. While reports suggest that relations between the newly elected Libyan president and the Muslim Brotherhood were friendly, he was not the group's choice. In fact, the Brotherhood appears to have been quite disappointed at the time because its main interest was in who took the Prime Minister slot. The Brotherhood apparently very much wanted Awad Barasi as the PM.

Via the Libya Herald in an article from last August:

…it would not be wrong to interpret Magarief’s victory as a another significant setback for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Justice and Construction party (J and C).

Quite apart from misleading headlines that Magarief is ‘pro-Islamist’ (of which more later), the simple fact is that the main prize desired by the Islamists in this contest was always the prime minister, not the speaker, and they contemplated significant compromises over who should be selected for the latter post in order to maximize the chances of getting their choice for the former.

As a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the choice of the J and C and their allies for prime minister was, and remains, Barasi.

While Barasi did not become the PM of Libya, he is currently the Second Deputy Prime Minister there. Interestingly, at the time of the Benghazi attacks, the matter of who would be Libya's PM was very much in a state of flux and up for grabs.

Currently, the PM of Libya is a guy named Ali Zeidan who defeated the Muslim Brotherhood's preferred candidate about one month following the Benghazi attacks.

Again, let's get back to the desire for shared outcomes if not shared motives. As a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood and a Muslim Sisterhood leader, didn't Huma's mother represent an entity that would have wanted to undermine the Libyan president?

The following is a list of names of former / current State Department employees that are implicated to varying degrees in what happened in Benghazi, both before and after the 9/11/12 attacks:

Hillary Clinton: Secretary of State
Victoria Nuland: State Department spokesman
Elizabeth (Beth) Jones: Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs
Cheryl Mills: Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton
Jake Sullivan: Deputy Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton
Bill Burns: Deputy Secretary of State
Patrick Kennedy: Under Secretary of State for Management
Eric Boswell: Asst Secretary of State for Diplomatic security
Charlene Lamb: Deputy Asst Secretary for Embassy security

So far, this list does not include the name Huma Abedin.

Should it?

Videos: Benghazi Whistleblower names names at Oversight Hearing

Here are three videos from the House Oversight Committee hearing in which three whistleblowers testified. First up, committee member Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) questioned the senior most whistleblower and second in command in Libya behind Ambassador Christopher Stevens - Gregory Hicks. In this line of questioning, Gowdy begins by showing how absurd it was for Ambassador Susan Rice to go on five Sunday talk shows on 9/16/12 and point to a demonstration and a video.

Gowdy also introduces a new name into the Benghazi scandal - Beth Jones. Jones is the Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs. He reads an excerpt from an email sent by Jones to several high ranking members of the State Department on September 12th in which Jones relayed a conversation she had with the Libyan Ambassador. That conversation included an urging by Jones to the ambassador to 'continue to make strong statements'. Jones also said on September 12th that 'Islamic extremists' and 'Ansar al-Sharia' was behind the attacks.

The Libyan president flew to Benghazi and appear on Face the Nation on 9/16/12 right before Rice did. Unfortunately for Libya's president, while he did make a strong statement on the CBS Sunday show, Rice's appearance followed and she totally contradicted him with the 'protest' / 'video' narrative. It is this appearance by Rice that chilled relations with Libya and is largely looked to as the reason the FBI was not permitted into Libya.



A related video comes from Rep. Jim Jordan's exchange with Hicks. An increasingly common occurrence these days seems to be bureaucrats who express dissent often end up being targets. In this exchange, the topic of Beth Jones came up again. After Rice's appearance on the Sunday talk shows, Hicks had received a call from Jones. During that conversation, he asked her why Rice said what she did on those shows (why did she lie). According to Hicks, ever since having the gall to ask that question, he has been a target.

Another individual's name is introduced in this exchange. Her name is Cheryl Mills and she was Hillary Clinton's Chief of Staff. According to Hicks, he received a phone call from a very angry Mills during a visit to Libya by Oversight Committee member, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT).

Listen to him explain during this exchange with Jordan:



Here is Gowdy at the end of the hearing:

Video: Rep. Trey Gowdy promises 'explosive' hearings on Benghazi

During an appearance on Fox News, House Oversight Committee member, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) promised that there will be 'explosive' hearings into the Benghazi attacks and that they will be coming quickly. Unfortunately for the American people, the House of Representatives is led by people like John Boehner and not by people like Gowdy.

Perhaps the best line during this interview:

"...there's a reason we don't let kids grade their own papers in school and there's a reason we don't let defendants sentence themselves in court and the State Department should not be the ones investigating whether or not the State Department did a good job; it should be Congress, and it's going to be Congress very shortly."

Giddy up.

House Republicans on Benghazi Attacks: Hillary's signature on document calling for reduced Security, conflicts with her testimony

Folks, this may just be bigger than previously thought. Yesterday, the news was that a conference of House Republicans found Hillary Clinton accountable for the lack of security in Benghazi prior to the attacks on 9/11/12 but the evidence presented in its report backs up the charge because it includes a document with her signature; that document conflicts with her January testimony.

The report released by a House Republican Conference, made up of five separate Chairmen from five separate Committees is definitely a positive step in that direction.

Those five are:

• Buck McKeon - Armed Services
• Ed Royce - Foreign Affairs
• Bob Goodlatte - Judiciary
• Darrell Issa - Oversight
• Mike Rogers - Intelligence

The conference has just released its report on Benghazi and rests accountability right at the feet of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The report is available through Speaker Boehner's office.

One doesn't have to read past the second paragraph in the Executive Summary to find where the conference has found culpability:

Reductions of security levels prior to the attacks in Benghazi were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, up to and including Secretary Clinton. This fact contradicts her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on January 23, 2013.

On the same day that Clinton testified in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, she also testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. During that testimony, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said that if he'd have been president when the Benghazi attacks happened, he would have fired Hillary. It would seem that the report backs up that position.

There are two more bullet points in the Executive Summary, one having to do with the administration altering the talking points in order to blame the anti-Muhammad video for the attacks, the other regarding claims that this one done to protect classified information.

On page two (referenced again on page seven), the conference points to a document with Clinton's signature on it:

Repeated requests for additional security were denied at the highest levels of the State Department. For example, an April 2012 State Department cable bearing Secretary Hillary Clinton’s signature acknowledged then-Ambassador Cretz’s formal request for additional security assets but ordered the withdrawal of security elements to proceed as planned.

It was also good to see the report include reference to a 'quick reaction force' that was relied upon to help defend the Consulate (Special Mission Compound) actually had sympathies with terrorists:

...the Benghazi Mission used local, unarmed guards, who were responsible for activating the alarm in the event of an attack, as well as four armed members of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, who were to serve as a quick reaction force. The February 17 Martyrs Brigade was one of the militias that fought for Gadhafi’s overthrow. Numerous reports have indicated that the Brigade had extremist connections, and it had been implicated in the kidnapping of American citizens as well as in the threats against U.S. military assets.

Let's take a look at what very well could be perjury on the part of Clinton during her testimony this past January. On page 10 of the report, the conference cites the April 19, 2012 document that Clinton signed, which discusses pulling back on security despite acknowledgment that a request for more security had been made, and juxtaposes it with her January 23, 2013 testimony:

“I have made it very clear that the security cables did not come to my attention or above the assistant secretary level where the ARB [Accountability Review Board] placed responsibility. Where, as I think Ambassador Pickering said, ‘the rubber hit the road.’”

And...

"...I was not aware of that going on, it was not brought to my attention…"

When it comes to the issue of perjury, the closest Hillary seemed to come was during her exchange with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), in which she claimed she had no idea - one way or the other - if there was any arms shipments to Turkey from American outposts in Benghazi. It would seem she should have at least known the answer to the question - yes or no.

These new revelations courtesy of the House Republican conference seem to not only point to perjury with respect to Clinton not knowing about the requests for additional security but also a smoking gun in the form of a document bearing her signature that put the lives of the four Americans who were murdered on 9/11/12 in more danger.

For some reason, this :35 second exchange Hillary had with Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) is taking on increasingly added significance, very much in the spirit of 'thou doth protest too much':



There is a reason the Conference felt confident in resting accountability at Hillary's feet. That reason is far more newsworthy than the report that they did so.

Please read.

Video: Greta interviews Hillary Clinton about Middle East / Benghazi

Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren sat down with outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discuss - among other things - Egypt and Benghazi. Those expecting Greta to be a bit tougher on Clinton than was the stable of gelded Republican Senators and Congressmen last week were disappointed but there were some revealing moments.

Commentary after the video:



After exchanging niceties, Clinton refers to the post-Arab Spring in general - Egypt in particular - as a "period of adjustment" and that it's important "not to see these revolutions hijacked by extremists". What she didn't say was that countries like Egypt are adjusting to Sharia law and that the hijacking of those revolutions is a foregone conclusion and was predictable to so many with much less information than Clinton had at her disposal during the early stages of the Arab Spring.

Shortly thereafter, Greta brings up Morsi's 2010 comments, which included him saying the Jews were descendants of "apes and pigs", and that Egypt must "nurse its children on hatred of the Jews". A few hours before Greta's interview, reports came out that a close Morsi aid said the Holocaust never happened and that the Jews secretly moved to the U.S.

Hillary's response?

At the 1:58 mark, she says "We were quite concerned about those statements" and that "the Egyptian presidency has repudiated" the comments.

What more proof does one need that the Democratic Party has more contempt for Christians and conservatives than for the Muslim Brotherhood? Virtually the entire Barack Obama administration, for more than four years, has been engaged in class warfare that involves much more critical and relentless criticism of conservatives who haven't even come close to talking like Morsi.

At the 3:30 mark, when asked about Morsi personally, Hillary said:

"I think he has a lot of the right intentions".

Wait a minute. A leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who also happens to be the President of Egypt has pure intentions?! The intentions of the Brotherhood include the annihilation of Israel and establishing a global caliphate.

Shortly after the 4:00 mark, while mildly defending Morsi, said:

"It's not what somebody says. It's what they do."

You mean like saying Al-Qaeda has been decimated while actually fueling the group's resurgence by siding with the Muslim Brotherhood all over the Middle East?

At the 4:40 mark, the conversation shift's to Morsi's welcoming of Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, who is responsible for mass genocide in his country. Clinton doesn't just excuse Morsi for doing so by saying such meetings take place all over the Middle East but check out this quote, delivered by her at about the 5:20 mark:

"He (Bashir) does need to be held accountable for what happened on his watch as President."

Interesting to hear such language coming from Clinton, which makes a nice segue to the question about Benghazi, which is asked shortly after the 12:00 mark. It was a two-part question and just as open-ended as many of the questions asked by Republican Senators and Congressmen at last week's hearings.

1.) Can Americans feel confident that security at embassies and consulates will be sufficient, moving forward?

2.) Should we go back to Benghazi?

Clinton's answer ultimately led to a sales pitch for more money to help keep these installations more secure. Again, like what happened at the Senate and House Committee hearings, that pitch went unanswered by Greta, despite earlier testimony from Charlene Lamb, a State Department bureaucrat, who testified that a lack of funds was not the reason for a lack of security in Benghazi.

In that hearing, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) asked Lamb if lack of security due to budget concerns. Her answer (at about the 1:45 mark) was "no sir":



Breitbart was not too happy with Van Susteren's failure to ask any follow-up questions of Hillary about Benghazi.

Rubio v. Paul in 2016? Rand wins Round 1 BIG

Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Rand Paul (R-KY) are both considered to be frontrunners for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in 2016. They are also both members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As such, both men had the opportunity to ask Secretary of State Hillary Clinton some tough questions today about the State Department's handling of the attacks in Benghazi on 9/11/12.

Contrasting these two exchanges becomes even more important if Hillary is the Democratic nominee in 2016. Assuming that reality comes to fruition, either Rubio or Paul could be the face of the Republican Party debating Clinton in four years. How did each Senator do while having the upper hand in today's Senate hearing?

Though Rubio asked relevant questions, he came across as rather dispassionate and gave Hillary plenty of room to give long, meandering answers. He did not stop her when she got off track. Rubio looked rather weak today. No presidential timber shown today.



How about Rand Paul? Arguably the best exchange of the day, though an argument could be made that Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) deserves that distinction. Two things stand out in Paul's exchange with Hillary.

1. Paul stated clearly that if he were president during the Benghazi attack, he would have fired his Secretary of State.
2. When Paul asked the Senator if the CIA Annex was being used as a hub for shipping weapons to Turkey "or any other country", Hillary told him to check with the CIA. Are we to believe that she didn't know the answer? Hardly. If the answer was no, there wouldn't be any harm in answering it. Not answering it at all only raises the legitimacy of the question.

If all of this was round 1 between Paul and Rubio, Paul won going away.

Hillary on 9/11/12: 'Some' have blamed the anti-Muhammad video

Susan Rice has got to have steam shooting out of her ears... We now know that Hillary Clinton issued a statement on 9/11/12 that pointed to the anti-Muhammad video as being involved in the Benghazi attack:

"Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet." - Hillary Clinton, 9/11/12

Question: What individuals made up the "some" to which Hillary was referring?

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is not getting Hillary Clinton's job for one primary reason. She appeared on five Sunday talk shows five days after the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi and lied; she said the attack on our consulate was in response to the anti-Muhammad video. Despite not having any responsibility over the State Department, Rice is the one who was punished politically.

Secretary of State Clinton said she was ultimately responsible for the security of State Department personnel and commissioned the Accountability Review Board (ARB) to investigate. The ARB found no one accountable.

Now we have a great find, courtesy of Terrence Jeffrey at CNS News, who has pointed out that five days prior to Susan Rice blaming the video, Hillary did the same thing... on the day of the attacks and before the death of the two former Navy SEALs.

According to Jeffrey's research, this statement released by Hillary Clinton was published at 10:58pm EST on September 11th. Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed by mortar fire sometime between 11:16pm EST - 11:26pm EST.

Here is a screenshot of the statement posted to the State Department website before the deaths of Doherty and Woods (click on image to enlarge):

What has been Susan Rice's defense in the face of warranted criticism about her lies on September 16th? She said the following in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams that aired on December 13th:

When I went on the Sunday shows on September 16th, I was doing just as I have always done, providing the best information available to me and available to our government at the time. I was very careful to explain that the information was preliminary, and it could change. And yet I think it was misconstrued and contorted into something much more nefarious, it was never indeed the case nor my intention.

This begs a very important question: If Susan Rice conceded to Brian Williams on December 13th that the information she provided on September 16th was wrong, though based on "the best information available", what does Hillary have to say about her statement, released before two of the four dead Americans were murdered?

This means that Hillary went public with a lie five days before Rice told the same one and became persona non-grata as a result.

Clinton's comments in that September 11th statement are also relevant based on what she said in the days before Rice echoed them.

Here is Clinton on September 13th. Note how close she comes to blaming the video directly. Though she doesn't, the implication is absolutely there. When you couple that implication with what she said in the aforementioned 9/11/12 statement, it means Clinton was clearly on the same page Rice was on 9/16/12. Take note at the :37, the 3:09, and the 3:42 marks as Hillary's comments about the video are like three puzzle pieces that beg for the one found by Jeffrey to complete a four-piece jigsaw patch:



One day later, Clinton was on-hand at Andrews Air Force Base when the caskets holding four dead Americans arrived home. During her speech, she said the following:

This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.

Here is the video of Clinton at Andrews on 9/14/12 (13:15 mark):



It's also worth remembering that the father of one of those Navy SEALs told radio talk show host Lars Larson that upon meeting Hillary at the Andrews Air Force ceremony, was told by the Secretary of State that the maker of the anti-Muhammad film would be arrested and prosecuted.

Let's take a look at that one sentence from Hillary's 9/11/12 statement in particular:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the internet.

Based on the fact that she made that statement before Doherty and Woods had been killed, are we not left to conclude that Hillary is part of the "some" to which she refers?

Perhaps she might be available to testify "some" day.

Documents: FBI knew mentor for Fort Hood jihadist purchased tickets for 9/11 hijackers

Thanks to State Department documents obtained by Judicial Watch, it has been learned that the FBI was quite likely aware - as early as September 27, 2001 - that Anwar Al Aulaqi - the man who inspired Fort Hood jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan - had purchased plane tickets for at least three of the 9/11 hijackers before the attack.

Via JW:

According to a September 27, 2001, FBI transcription, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State and Federal Bureau of Investigations (No. 1:12-cv-00893)), al-Aulaqi purchased airline tickets for the following 9/11 hijackers:

Mohammed Atta, America West Airlines, 08/13/2001, for a flight from Washington, DC, to Las Vegas, Nevada, to Miami, Florida. 

S. Suqami, Southwest Airlines, 07/10/2001, for a flight from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Orlando, Florida. 

Al-Sheri, National Airlines, 08/01/2001, for a flight from San Francisco, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, to Miami, Florida. 

The documents also include material showing that al-Aulaqi was uncooperative with FBI agents investigating the 9/11 attacks and was seemingly a central focus of the FBI investigation and monitoring related to 9/11.

That last part, about al-Aulaqi being uncooperative would seem to suggest that the Feds may have decided to rely more on the carrot than the stick when dealing with him. The thinking also could have been that by giving him such access could bring others out of the shadows.

For example, in February of 2002, al-Aulaqi gave a speech on moderate Islam at a Department of Defense luncheon and was given red carpet treatment. Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) was also invited. These newly released (and heavily redacted) documents, acquired by Judicial Watch, provide yet another in an increasing number of examples that the U.S. Government in general and the FBI in particular, knew a lot more about al-Aulaqi than they've been willing to admit.

Later that year, al-Aulaqi was detained at JFK airport and then released, despite there being an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

Whatever the reasons were behind the actions / inaction of the Feds, it's quite possible that the disastrous consequences for the 14 who were murdered and the 32 who were injured at Fort Hood on December 5, 2009 could have been prevented.

More than three years later, justice has not been served and a judge who ruled that Hasan's beard had to be shaved, was replaced by another judge who ruled the jihadist could keep it.

In testimony before a congressional committee early last year, FBI Director Robert Mueller, who was appointed to his position one week prior to the 9/11 attacks, said he was "painfully aware" of what took place prior to the Fort Hood attack with regard to warning signs.

What's more disturbing is the refusal of those in positions like Mueller to admit the truth about the attack and the politically correct culture that helped to facilitate it.

Until that happens, we've learned nothing.

Firefighter Shooter beneficiary of 'Straw Purchasing' (think Fast and Furious)

In the days after the fatal shootings of firefighters Mike Chiapperini and Thomasz Kaczowka in Webster, NY on Christmas Eve, it was learned that the shooter did not have legal access to guns; he had already been convicted of murdering his grandmother with a hammer. So how did he get them?

If you're familiar with what happened in Operation Fast and Furious, you're likely familiar with the term 'straw purchaser'. In the case of that operation, which began in 2009 and ended shortly after the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on December 14, 2010, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) led the operation with the approval of the Department of Justice. Straw purchasing was a key component of Fast and Furious as gun store owners were instructed by the ATF to sell weapons to straw purchasers, who then walked those guns across the border into Mexico, putting them into the hands of the drug cartels. The weapons found at the scene of Terry's murder were purchased by a straw purchaser with the ATF's knowledge and approval.

Back to the firefighter shootings...

It's now being reported that the man who lured firefighters to his burning home before shooting at them - killing Chiapperini and Kaczowka - was the beneficiary of a straw purchaser, who also happened to be his neighbor.

Via the Daily Caller:

The neighbor, 24-year-old Dawn Nguyen, was arrested on Friday after police traced the serial numbers on two weapons used by William Spengler, the shooter: a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and a 12-gauge shotgun, both purchased in 2010.

In exactly the same way, the guns found at Terry's murder scene were traced back to a gun store in Arizona where they were sold to someone who was known to be a straw purchaser for the drug cartels. When you add in the fact that the ATF knowingly allowed those guns to walk across the border, it becomes a matter involving the U.S. State Department, as this exchange from October of 2011 between Rep. Connie Mack and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton illustrates:



Remember, in the case of Fast and Furious, thousands of weapons were allowed to 'walk' into Mexico by U.S. Government officials and hundreds of people were murdered as a result. Here is what Nguyen did in the case of the firefighter shootings:

Nguyen violated federal law by signing a form declaring to a gun retailer that she would be the sole owner of the firearms, U.S. Attorney William Hochul said Friday. She also faces a state charge of filing a falsified business record, a state police investigator added.

“She told the seller of these guns … that she was to be the true owner and buyer of the guns instead of William Spengler,” Hochul said. “It is absolutely against federal law to provide any materially false information related to the acquisition of firearms. … It is sometimes referred to acting as a straw purchaser, and that is exactly what today’s complaint alleges.”

When it came to the weapons sold to straw purchasers in Fast and Furious, all of the aforementioned things took place, with one difference. The ATF knowingly allowed it in advance. There's another difference when it comes to consequences. No one at the ATF has been arrested. To give one an idea of how criminal this all is, consider the charges that Nguyen is facing based on the fact that she provided her neighbor with guns used in the commission of two murders in the U.S. (which didn't included the added element of straw purchasing and then transporting them across international borders):

The federal charges alone could send Nguyen to prison for a maximum of 10 years and levy a fine of $250,000. Both Nguyen and her brother told the media after the shooting that Spengler had stolen the weapons from her, but Nguyen later called police and admitted buying the guns for Spengler, according to police.

Spengler also possessed a .38-caliber revolver during the shooting, which he reportedly used to shoot himself in the head after his rampage. That weapon has not been connected to Nguyen.

Another difference between what the ATF did and what Nguyen did very well could be motive. Did Nguyen know what Spengler was going to do with the weapons she purchased for him? That has yet to be determined but the ATF absolutely knew what was going to happen as a result of allowing straw purchasers to walk those guns into Mexico; hundreds of people were going to get killed.

So what was the motive of the U.S. Government? The answer is the same thing we're seeing today - the exploitation of a 'crisis' to push a gun control agenda.

It becomes obvious that the rule of law applies to some and not others. In another incident involving the ATF, Meet the Press anchor David Gregory was allegedly allowed to break the law by holding up a 30-clip magazine on national television during a recent interview. Subsequent to that interview, it was reported that the ATF gave him permission to do so, despite their having no jurisdiction. To this day, the ATF official who allegedly gave Gregory permission has not been named.

What was Gregory's motive for displaying the magazine during his interview with the NRA's Wayne LaPierre?

As was the case with the ATF in Fast and Furious, gun control. Yet another example of the ATF allowing laws to be broken for a similar purpose.

Ends always justify the means when you're a creature of the left.

Some might remember this powerful report from Univision earlier this year, in which the carnage that resulted from Fast and Furious was investigated. Remember, straw purchasing is what enabled all of these murders, the same kind of straw purchasing that enabled the Christmas Eve firefighter shooter:

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:

Two men at head of Benghazi Accountability Review Board saying two totally different things

At some point, it should be required to play circus and / or twilight zone music in the background whenever anyone from the Obama administration talks about Benghazi. First, the Accountability Review Board (ARB) established by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton determined that no one was accountable. Now, the two men who headed the ARB - Admiral Mike Mullen and Ambassador Thomas Pickering - appeared to say two demonstrably different things about the attack.

Terrence Jeffrey has a great find at CNS News:

The relevant duration of the event shrunk from "almost eight hours" to "only about 20 or 30 minutes" when a reporter asked this "accountability" team why the U.S. military had not been sent to Benghazi to help that night.

During his opening statement at a State Department briefing, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who chaired the ARB, said the terrorist attacks occurred over a span of almost eight hours.

“What happened on September 11th and 12th in Benghazi was a series of attacks in multiple locations by unknown assailants that ebbed and flowed over a period of almost eight hours,” Pickering volunteered.

About 20 minutes later in the same briefing, as Ambassador Pickering nodded his head in agreement, retired Admiral Michael Mullen, the vice chairman of the ARB, put the Benghazi terror event in a very different timeframe. He said it lasted only about 20 or 30 minutes.

Mullen referred to the attack only lasting for "20 or 30 minutes" in response to a question about why the military couldn't have done more. Based on the CIA timeline - which said the attack he is referring to lasted nearly two hours - it would seem that Mullen collapsed that window of opportunity for the military to act.



This one is a must-read but make sure you're playing the video below as you watch the video above.

Accountability Review Board's findings on Benghazi: No one Accountable

The 'Independent' Accountability Review Board (ARB) - established by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to investigate the attack in Benghazi on 9/11/12 - has reached at least one bizarre conclusion in its unclassified report. That conclusion appears to run counter to what Clinton herself said approximately two months earlier when asked about the State Department's role in preventing the attack.

"I take responsibility. I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. " - Hillary Clinton on Benghazi attack, 10/15/12

"...the Board did not find reasonable cause to determine that any individual U.S. government employee breached his or her duty." - Accountability Review Board on Benghazi attack, 12/18/12

"I'll take responsibility but it's not my fault" - unknown

Yes,  it's ridiculously oxymoronic and Orwellian to consider that the 'Accountability' Review Board would investigate something for two months and ultimately determine that no one person is accountable in the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi. Adding to the sick irony is the quote placed at the very top of the report:

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Based on the conclusion of the ARB - that no one is accountable - it is the ARB itself that seems not to have grokked that lesson. Perhaps a better quote to headline the report with would be:

"The buck stops here."

If the ARB had any interest in being true to its moniker, it would have agreed with the person who established the ARB and concluded that Hillary was ultimately responsible, and therefore accountable. Then again, when the person who establishes the ARB is the one who wants responsibility without accountability, we have a bit of a predictable report.

As for history repeating itself, holding no one single individual in the State Department's massive bureaucracy accountable does at least one thing; it reinforces bureaucrats' belief in more bureaucracy because it protects them all from accountability. It is the friend of each individual in it.

The ARB is the entity that has not learned from history and is repeating it.

It should also be clarified that no one individual on the ARB will be held accountable for failing to learn this lesson.

Well, at least the bureaucracy was held accountable.

That's ok, it can take it.

Interesting take on Hillary's alleged fall

The American Thinker's Daren Jonescu has an interesting take on whether Hillary Clinton's reported fall and subsequent concussion is legitimate or not.

Hillary in Hiding:

For once, I am inclined to believe Hillary Clinton. The U.S. Secretary of State, suffering from a sick stomach, has reportedly fainted and bumped her head. As a result, her spokespeople have already announced that she will be unable to testify at the Benghazi hearings, although she was not due to appear until December 20, many days after the vaguely reported fainting spell.

Already, the internet is resounding with a chorus of "How convenient!" (See here and here, for example.) Many, upon hearing this news, are assuming that Clinton, who has been hedging for a month on whether to appear at the congressional hearings, has concocted yet another excuse to avoid facing the music on a scandal which, if pursued with integrity, would likely end her political career, to put it mildly.

Read it all. It's not entirely what you might think after those first two paragraphs.

Incidentally, and to Jonescu's point that Hillary should testify anyway, The New York Times reported that her fall occurred "early last week" (presumably Sunday the 9th, Monday the 10th, or Tuesday the 11th), it hadn't been diagnosed until Thursday the 13th and that it was "not severe". This report conflicted with what Foreign Policy reported, that the episode occurred on Saturday, the 15th.

If the concussion was indeed diagnosed on the 13th, that diagnosis took place on the same day that it was reported Hillary would testify on the 20th. Later in the day, on the 13th, reports began to surface that Hillary may not testify on the 20th because the Accountability Review Board (ARB) report may not be completed.

On the 15th, it is learned she will not testify.

On the 16th, it is learned that two other State Department officials will testify in her place and oh, by the way, the ARB report will be done by the 17th.

State Department not letting Rep. Chaffetz talk to Benghazi survivors; Parallel to State's handling of Fast and Furious

The parallels between Operation Fast and Furious and the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi continue to mount. The latest example comes courtesy of Kerry Picket. She is reporting that Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who serves on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, says the State Department is not allowing him to talk to any of the survivors of the Benghazi attack.

Via Bretibart:

Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R- UT) told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he has been “thwarted” by the State Department from seeing any Americans who survived the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in  Benghazi. Many people forget that there were Americans who survived the Benghazi attack, some of whom were badly injured and are still recovering.

“My understanding is that we still have some people in the hospital. I’d like to visit with them and wish them nothing but the best but the State Department has seen it unfit for me to know who those people are—or even how many there are,” Rep. Chaffetz said. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they live. I don’t know what state they’re from. I don’t even know how many there are. It doesn’t seem right to me.

So, how is this reminiscent of how the Fast and Furious investigation was handled?

Consider the names Kevin O'Reilly and William Newell. When the DOJ / ATF - led Operation Fast and Furious was at its peak, there were communications between Newell and O'Reilly, who at the time was Director of North American Affairs with the National Security Council (the White House). If one ATF employee could be placed at the center of Fast and Furious, Newell might be that guy.

Here is a very compelling exchange between Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Newell from July 26, 2011 in which Gowdy confronts the former SAC about an email between O'Reilly and Newell. Shortly after this exchange, O'Reilly was transferred to Iraq to work as a State Department employee:



Obviously, after O'Reilly's name was brought into the Fast and Furious scandal, Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) wanted to talk to him. Here is an exchange between Issa and Fox News Channel's Bret Baier a couple of months after the July 26th hearing:



More than one year later, O'Reilly returned from Iraq to work at the State Department.

Via CNS News:

Obama administration employee Kevin O’Reilly -- who congressional investigators called “the link connecting the White House to the [Fast and Furious] scandal” -- is back in the United States now after abruptly leaving his White House job to work in Iraq in 2011 after emails concerning him and Fast and Furious had surfaced.

O'Reilly left the United States in August 2011, shortly after his knowledge of the gun-walking program was publicized during a congressional hearing on July 26.

O’Reilly has so far refused to cooperate with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which recently threatened to subpoena him. He also refused to cooperate with the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which investigated the program and recently released its findings.

Both the House committee and the Inspector General's office sought to interview O'Reilly about Fast and Furious but the White House refused to grant him permission to be interviewed.

Another curious bit of timing involved the release of the DOJ's Inspector General report just weeks before O'Reilly's return from Iraq, meaning that O'Reilly left for Iraq shortly after he became a person of interest for the Oversight Committee and returned shortly after the DOJ IG issued its final report. Despite this, the White House said that was all coincidence:

In August 2011 -- after the e-mails were first discussed at a July 26 congressional hearing -- O’Reilly was named as the senior director of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Programs in Iraq, a State Department position.

The State Department official told CNSNews.com that O’Reilly’s reassignment to Iraq from the White House “was a standard foreign service career rotation that had been planned for months in advance of his detail to the NSS.” The State Department could not confirm O’Reilly’s new title at the State Department.

So, what do Kevin O'Reilly and the survivors of the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi have in common? All are State Department employees (presumptively); all were somehow connected to operations that involved the murder of American officials; and all are being prevented from speaking to Congressional committees who want and deserve answers.

Time to revisit Hillary Clinton's September 13th speech?

While the talking points recited by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on September 16th continues to be a point of interest, confusion, and conflicting accounts, looking at the words uttered by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton three days earlier might shed some light on how those talking points got altered. The conflicting stories between former CIA Director David Petraeus and DNI Director James Clapper seem to fall within that 9/13 - 9/16 window.

Again, let's look at the November 20th report from CBS, which reported that the entity responsible for taking the reference to al-Qaeda out of the talking points was the Department of National Intelligence (DNI):

An intelligence source says the talking points were passed from the CIA to the DNI, where the substantive edits were made, and then to FBI, which made more edits as part of "standard procedure."

The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He ultimately did review the points, before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 14. They were compiled the day before.

According to that report, Clapper's office made the changes between September 13th and when they were given to Rice on September 14th. As an aside, on November 15th, CBS reported that Rice was given the talking points on September 15th, not the 14th.

After Petraeus gave closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence committee on November 16th, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) told reporters that Petraeus said he didn't know who altered the talking points and that the former CIA Director testified that he knew the attack was an act of terror all along. One day prior to Petraeus' November 16th testimony, his immediate boss (Clapper) gave testimony that would ultimately be completely contradicted, which caused even more problems for both Petraeus and Clapper.

Via Catherine Herridge of Fox News:

Fox News was told by one source that Clapper, in a classified session on Thursday, was “unequivocal, and without hesitation insisted the changes were made outside the Intelligence community. He didn’t know who but was emphatic he would find out."

A day later, former CIA Director David Petraeus also stated changes were made after his agency drafted the talking points, adding no one imagined how changing the language would end up being such a big deal.

But late Monday night, Clapper spokesman Shawn Turner said in a series of briefings for reporters that the intelligence community was solely responsible for “substantive” changes to the talking points, which were finalized on Sept. 15 – four days after the attack and one day before U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s controversial appearance on five Sunday talk shows, when she described the attack as spontaneous violence that grew out of protests of an anti-Islam film.

Uh, but Petraeus said on November 16th that he didn't know who altered the talking points. If that's true, Clapper's office has got to be lying now. Either Clapper's November 15th testimony jibes with Petraeus' November 16th testimony or Petraeus' November 16th testimony doesn't jibe with what Clapper's office is saying now. If we're to believe Clapper's spokesman's November 19th comments, Petraeus may have committed perjury at a time when he should have come clean.

Now, let's go back to September 13th. This is the date given by CBS in a report published one day after Clapper's spokesman said his boss' office is where the talking points were altered. This means that Clapper's office was altering the talking points on the same day that Hillary Clinton was giving this speech.

Relevant portions transcribed below video.



At the :37 mark:

I also want to take a moment to address the video circulating on the internet that has led to these protests in a number of countries. Let me state very clearly, and I hope it is obvious, that the United States government had nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message. America's commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation and as you know, we are home to people of ALL religions, many of whom came to this country seeking the right to exercise their own religion, including, of course, millions of Muslims and we have the greatest respect for people of faith. To us, to me personally, this video is disgusting and reprehensible. It appears to have a deeply cynical purpose; to denigrate a great religion and to provoke rage.

Then, at the 3:09 mark, after ripping the video, Hillary seems to imply it was responsible for violence:

It is especially wrong for violence to be directed against diplomatic missions. These are places whose very purpose is peaceful, to promote better understanding across countries and cultures. All governments have a responsibility to protect those spaces and people.

At the 3:42 mark, Hillary seems to be laying the groundwork for the talking points that Susan Rice issued on 9/16. Remember, CBS reported that Clapper's office was compiling the final talking points at approximately the same time that Hillary was giving this speech. After what she said up to this point, it is easy to see how she is making the implication that the video is responsible for the Benghazi attack:

Now I know it is hard for some people to understand why the United States cannot or does not just prevent these kinds of reprehensible videos from ever seeing the light of day. Now I would note that in today's world with today's technologies that is impossible but even if it were possible, our country does have a long tradition of free expression which is enshrined in our constitution and our law and we do not stop individual citizens from expressing their views, no matter how distasteful they may be.

Of course, keep in mind that Charles Woods, the father of one of the four murdered Americans, told Lars Larson that Hillary told him on 9/14 (one day after the aforementioned speech and on the same day that Rice was given her talking points), that the anti-Muhammad video's filmmaker would be arrested and prosecuted.

It's also important to remember that shortly after Petraeus' testimony on November 16th, Rep. King told reporters the following about how the final talking points emerged. According to Petraeus, through King:

it went through a long process involving many agencies, to include the Department of Justice, to include the State Department.

In conclusion, if both the November 20th CBS report and King's claim that the State Department was involved in altering the talking points that were given to Susan Rice on 9/14, it means that the State Department was likely altering those talking points on the same day that Hillary Clinton gave a speech which unequivocally laid the foundation for talking points which ultimately said the video was responsible for the attack in Benghazi.

I refer you to Rule #8 from Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals:

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

The events were the attack and the video. Blaming the video instead of al-Qaeda would serve two purposes. One, it would protect the administration's narrative that al-Qaeda was on the run. Two, it would chill freedom of speech and first amendment rights through tacit intimidation that said, if you criticize Islam, there could be consequences.

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are very learned students of Saul Alinsky.

Benghazi-gate: Geraldo displays firewall protecting the common sense region of his brain... twice

To fully appreciate Geraldo Rivera's two appearances on Fox News (Fox & Friends and then the O'Reilly Factor) to discuss Benghazi-gate, consider three issues relative to the attack:

1. The lack of security for months leading up to the attack
2. The attack itself coupled with the Obama administration's failure to respond
3. The decision to point to the anti-Muhammad video for two weeks after the attack

Rivera has decided to side with the administration lock, stock, and barrel but he obviously believes that a vigorous defense of team Obama on issue number 2 is the best course. He obviously wants to talk about the other two issues as little as possible. When Eric Bolling brings up issue number 3, Geraldo shamefully doubles down on issue number 2 while also implying that Tyrone Woods' father is a liar but only because the father of the slain Navy SEAL has been misled by right-wing partisans (yes, that sounds like an insult to Charles Woods' intelligence).

Geraldo has no answers for issues number 1 and number 3 (this becomes blatantly obvious in his interview with O'Reilly, who made Rivera look like an unhinged adolescent who was growing increasingly frustrated with his inability to successfully argue with an adult).

First up, Geraldo vs. Bolling via MediaIte:

That night, Geraldo appeared on the O'Reilly Factor to discuss Benghazi-gate in general and his exchange with Bolling in particular. To call what Geraldo did filibustering would make a seasoned politician blush. O'Reilly kept pushing Rivera to talk about issue number 1 but the Fox News liberal simply couldn't go there until about three minutes in and even then, he meandered around the issue and actually said he hates to agree with O'Reilly, which could explain why he refuses to lower the self-constructed firewall he's placed in front of the common sense region of his brain.

O'Reilly makes mincemeat of Geraldo here. Actually, Geraldo does it to himself and O'Reilly seems to enjoy watching him do it.

Geraldo. Looking. Foolish.

Via MediaIte:

Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz send another letter to Hillary

On the heels of a classified cable provided to Catherine Herridge of Fox News that shows Christopher Stevens issued a cry for help to Hillary Clinton's office on August 16th that was ultimately ignored, Foreign Policy has come into possession of two damning letters for the State Department, obtained from the consulate. House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz have taken notice and are demanding answers from Clinton.

Via FP:

One letter, written on Sept. 11 and addressed to Mohamed Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs' office in Benghazi, reads:

"Finally, early this morning at 0643, September 11, 2012, one of our diligent guards made a troubling report. Near our main gate, a member of the police force was seen in the upper level of a building across from our compound. It is reported that this person was photographing the inside of the U.S. special mission and furthermore that this person was part of the police unit sent to protect the mission. The police car stationed where this event occurred was number 322."

The account accords with a message written by Smith, the IT officer who was killed in the assault, on a gaming forum on Sept. 11. "Assuming we don't die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police' that guard the compound taking pictures," he wrote hours before the assault.

A potential bold red flag is raised about Obeidi a little later in the article:

Obeidi, the Libyan official named on one of the printouts, said he had not received any such letter, adding, "I did not even know that the U.S. ambassador was visiting Benghazi." However, a spokesman for the Benghazi police confirmed that the ministry had notified the police of the ambassador's visit. "We did not receive that letter from the U.S. consulate. We received a letter from Ministry of Foreign Affairs Benghazi asking for additional security measures around consulate during visit of the ambassador. And the police provided all extra security which was asked for," the spokesman said.

So Obeidi is essentially pleading total ignorance when it comes to being aware that Stevens was even in  Benghazi while a spokesman for the police says his office was made aware. Perhaps the claim that Obeidi never saw one of the documents that mentioned him by name could be believed (because they were found in the consulate) but his not knowing that Stevens was in Benghazi strains credulity. Even if he is to be believed about that, he should have known, which still points to the likely infiltration of security forces.

Here is an excerpt from the letter to Clinton from Issa and Chaffetz:

These documents paint a disturbing picture indicating that elements of the Libyan government might have been complicit in the September 11, 2012, attack on the compound and the murder of four Americans. It also reiterates the fact that the U.S. government may have had evidence indicating that the attack was not a spontaneous event but rather a preplanned terrorist attack that included prior surveillance of the compound as a target.

Given the location where they were found, these documents appear to be genuine and support a growing body of evidence indicating that the Obama Administration has tried to withhold pertinent facts about the 9/11 anniversary attack from Congress and the American people.

Issa and Chaffetz conclude the letter with a demand for answers about why the State Department said there were no indications that anything was wrong at the consulate at all on 9/11/12. Pointing to an October 9, 2012 State Department briefing in which it was alleged that "Everything was calm at 8:30 p.m." the Oversight Committee members rightfully raise concerns that the documents recovered at the scene by FP belie that claim.

They want answers by November 8th.

To view the two documents recovered by FP, click here and scroll to page 4.

Smoking RPG: Emails fire hole in Obama administration's Benghazi story

Three separate emails sent from someone at the State Department to multiple recipients at State, Department of National Intelligence (DNI), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been released by CBS' Sharyl Attkisson and others. What these e-mails unequivocally show is that very  specific details of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi were known in real time.

The attack began at approximately 3:40pm EST / 9:40pm EET (Libya Time). The first of the three emails that were released is time stamped 4:05pm EST, which was during the actual attack.

Here is what the first email said:

(SBU) The Regional Security Officer reports the diplomatic mission is under attack. Embassy Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well. Ambassador Stevens, who is currently in Benghazi, and four COM personnel are in the compound save haven. The 17th of February militia is providing security support.

The Operations Center will provide updates as available.

The second email, at 4:54pm EST / 10:54pm EET reads:

(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the firing at the U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi has stopped and the compound has been cleared. A response team is on site attempting to locate COM personnel.

The third email blows a hole through the Obama administration narrative that it pushed for at least two weeks after the attack. That narrative was that an anti-Muhammad video - Innocence of Muslims - was responsible. This email, sent slightly more than two hours after the first one above (6:07pm EST / 12:07am EET), contains a smoking RPG in the subject line:

Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack (SBU)

The body of the email contains one sentence, which reads:

(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and has called for an attack on Embassy Tripoli.

Yet, despite these real time emails, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were featured in a PSA intended for air in Pakistan that was based on the lie that the video was the cause of the attack. That PSA was produced one week after the attack at the expense of $70,000. If we want to talk about disgusting, reprehensible, and despicable videos, perhaps we should start with this one:



During an interview with Sarah Palin on 10/23, as news of these emails was breaking, Greta continued to come back to one question:

Why was the Obama administration so intent on blaming the video?

Pay attention to what Greta says, beginning at the 5:40 mark (via Sarahnet):



It's not only long past time to find out why the administration blamed the video. It's also long past time to find out who / what was really behind its production.

Where is Eiad?

Obama administration lies about Benghazi documents released by Issa

On October 19th, Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa publicly released 166 pages of documents, 45 photos, and the 10-page letter he had sent to Barack Obama. The letter included ten questions Issa wanted the president to answer. It also implicated Obama as being personally responsible in his role as chairman of the National Security Council, which Issa identified specifically as the entity that likely made the decisions that put Americans in danger.

The Obama administration quickly attempted to say that by releasing this information, Issa has put a human rights activist in danger. In a press release, Issa's team debunks this feeble attempt by the administration to shift the focus of the debate by using a female activist as a political prop (which is apparently supposed to feed the 'war on women' narrative).

Here is a portion of Issa's statement:

“The Libyan rights activist who was highlighted by the Obama administration in news accounts as having not been, ‘publicly associated with the U.S.’ until the Oversight Committee released documents had actually been brought to the U.S. in December 2011 by the State Department and her trip is highlighted on the Internet. President Obama should be ashamed of yet another example where his administration has been caught trying to mislead the American people about what happened in Libya.”

“Obama Administration officials and their surrogates are clearly reeling from revelations about how the situation in Benghazi was mishandled and are falsely politicizing the issue in a last ditch effort to save President Obama’s reelection effort.  To see such prominent officials as Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Carl Levin, Rahm Emanuel, and Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod paraded out over to weekend to make false charges about the Oversight Committee putting Libyans in danger only shows their desperation to hide the truth. As the Committee had previously indicated, the State Department has had these documents for two weeks but never contacted the committee about making specific redactions. The Libyans noted in these documents worked in positions where their interactions with westerners would not be surprising.”

The Obama administration attempted to portray this woman as someone who isn't associated with the U.S. except for the cable that mentions her, which it says puts her in danger. Issa's staff is pointing to a video that features this activist as well as a public State Department event in late 2011 for the International Visitor Program of the World Affairs Council, at which she was hosted.

Here is the video of her on the internet, speaking out against the Libyan transitional government and she is wearing a badge that clearly says, "United States Department of State".