Did the New York Times expose Hillary Clinton?

At the time of her testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about Benghazi a couple of months ago, I wrote that Hillary Clinton quite possibly committed perjury during her exchange with Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). In a hearing that was disappointingly more about lobbing powder puff softballs at Clinton, Paul performed best, followed by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI).

Other than those two, Republicans failed to deliver - including Marco Rubio. Ranking member Bob Corker's performance was nauseating. Perhaps in a bit of foreshadowing, Corker said one day before the hearing that he didn't expect any "bombshells". Well, perhaps if he had done his homework and followed Paul's lead, Corker could have been responsible for dropping a few. His words before the hearing indicate he didn't want any during the hearing.

Based on what is being learned now, Corker appears to have been woefully wrong and should perhaps answer a few questions himself about why he didn't do his job at that hearing.

In fact, if the Republicans on that committee had done their jobs, the American people might be much closer to the truth about Benghazi today. Thanks to an unlikely source in the New York Times - coupled with Paul's questions - Hillary's testimony should take on renewed interest.

Via Aaron Klein at WND:

Did former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton commit perjury when she claimed in a Senate hearing that she did not know whether the U.S. mission in Libya was procuring or transferring weapons to Turkey and other Arab countries? 

The goal of the alleged weapons shipments was to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. 

Any training or arming of the Syrian rebels would be considered highly controversial. A major issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian opposition groups.

The impetus for Klein's piece is the New York Times article, which should indeed raise questions about Clinton's forthrightness at that hearing:

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.

The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.

As it evolved, the airlift correlated with shifts in the war within Syria, as rebels drove Syria’s army from territory by the middle of last year. And even as the Obama administration has publicly refused to give more than “nonlethal” aid to the rebels, the involvement of the C.I.A. in the arms shipments — albeit mostly in a consultative role, American officials say — has shown that the United States is more willing to help its Arab allies support the lethal side of the civil war.

From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive, according to American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. The C.I.A. declined to comment on the shipments or its role in them.

The most maddening part may not be Hillary potentially getting away with perjury. Instead, it may be Republican Senators taking such an obvious dive when they could have made things very difficult for Clinton. Paul could have used some help. That he didn't get it from Rubio is particularly disappointing.

Here is that exchange.

"To Turkey?!"

Democrats in 1999: It's just Sex; Democrats in 2012: It's just Dead People

In 1999, not one House Democrat voted to impeach Bill Clinton; not one Senate Democrat voted to convict him. None of them, however, could deny that Clinton committed the felony of lying under oath to a grand jury. They had to create a new argument. What did they do? They shifted the argument away from perjury and over to what the lie was about - sex.

The narrative took hold among Democratic voters and a liberal media. Suddenly, holding a president accountable for lying under oath was something to be derided if the lie was about what could be portrayed as minor. Lawlessness was acceptable if you were a Democrat and if the substance of your crime could be diminished. Democrats couldn't deny Clinton committed a felony so they decided to impugn the motives of those who prosecuted it. The problem with the liberal logic applied to Clinton's situation is that there are not degrees of perjury. When you're under oath, it doesn't matter if you lie about sex or murder; the lie itself is the offense and it is a felony.

Speaking of murder, the Democrats find themselves in another battle over Democratic leaders - in this case, Attorney General Eric Holder and his underlings - committing perjury about an operation in which hundreds of Mexican nationals and one Border Patrol agent (Brian Terry) were murdered. Holder perjured himself on May 3, 2011 when he told the House Judiciary Committee that he had only learned about Fast and Furious a 'few weeks' earlier; his Department lied in a February 4, 2011 letter to Congress and had to retract it; and just this week, Holder had to retract a statement he made to the Senate Judiciary last week.

These lies demand accountability.

If Bill Clinton was let off the hook for perjury because of the substance (sex) at the heart of the charge, why isn't Eric Holder being held accountable for perjury by the Democrats when the substance of his perjury involves murder? Are we to excuse Holder because his lies are just about an operation that led to hundreds of dead people?

Such a notion should send chills down your spine because it would make such Democrats nothing short of wicked.

It would seem that the technique used by the Democrats with Clinton would be dangerous territory today but that's only if the Republicans are willing to fight tooth and nail without worrying about political considerations. Lying about a murderous program cannot be as easily diminished as can lying about sex, can it? Nonetheless, Democrats appear to be lining up in much the same way that they did with Clinton. In the House Oversight Committee, the vote to hold Eric Holder in contempt of Congress passed but, like with Clinton's impeachment, not one Democrat voted for it, despite having in their possession the demonstrably false February 4th letter signed by then Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich.

The contempt hearing only tangentially involved perjury; it was about the Justice Department handing over documents related to that demonstrably false letter. What led to its crafting and what led to its retraction? Democrats don't want you to know what's in them. The reason is simple. They have a good idea about what they reveal - a coverup and blood on the hands of high ranking Obama administration officials.

Those documents are also quite likely to reveal multiple instances of perjury from Holder, as well as other officials who have testified in front of Congressional Committees about Fast and Furious.

The inability of the Democrats to hold the Attorney General accountable for lying to Congress about a murderous operation indicates that the reasons given for not voting to impeach and convict Clinton are rendered invalid, using liberal logic. If lying under oath is ok as long as what you lie about is trivial, aren't they necessarily saying that what Holder is lying about is trivial by not holding him in contempt?

That would make lying about murder... trivial.