Benghazi thread..[up-to-date-info here]

[apples]

Rep. Gowdy named to lead Benghazi select committee

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/05/benghazi-select-committee-chair-announcement-could-come-as-early-as-monday/

South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor known for his aggressive style of questioning at congressional hearings, has been tapped to lead a select committee tasked with investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

House Speaker John Boehner made the announcement Monday afternoon.

"With four of our countrymen killed at the hands of terrorists, the American people want answers, accountability, and justice," he said. "Trey Gowdy is as dogged, focused, and serious-minded as they come."

Boehner said Gowdy's courtroom background makes him the "ideal person" to lead the newly announced investigation.

Gowdy's name had been high on the short list ever since the speaker announced Friday he would call a House vote on forming a select committee. Boehner had long resisted calls for such a probe, but reversed course after newly released emails raised questions about the White House role in shaping the administration's public narrative after the attack.

[apples]

Pelosi opens door to Democrats on Benghazi committee

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/06/pelosi-opens-door-to-democrats-on-benghazi-committee/?intcmp=latestnews

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi rebuffed calls from her party for Democrats to boycott a newly announced Benghazi investigation, saying Tuesday that the so-called select committee should have bipartisan members.

"If this review is to be fair, it must be truly bipartisan," Pelosi said in a written statement.

She went a step further, calling for the committee to be "equally divided between Democrats and Republicans as is done on the House Ethics Committee."

It's unclear whether Republican leaders would agree to that request. Republicans pointed out that despite Pelosi's call for an equally divided panel, the breakdown of a prior select committee on climate change, engineered by the California Democrat, included nine Democrats and six Republicans.

[apples]

Discrepancies between Benghazi emails released to Congress, watchdog group

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/05/discrepancies-between-benghazi-emails-released-to-congress-watchdog-group/

EXCLUSIVE: Documents reviewed by Fox News show there are differences between Benghazi emails released through the federal courts to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch and emails released to the House oversight committee as part of its investigation into the attacks.

The discrepancies are fueling allegations the administration is holding back documents to Congress.

"The key question is whether Congress now has all the documents," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of the oversight committee, said. As for differences between the two sets of documents, Chaffetz alleged: "They are playing games. The classification and redactions are different. Why should Judicial Watch get more than Congress after issuing a subpoena?"

The emails published by Judicial Watch last week, which showed additional White House involvement in shaping the public explanation of what happened, helped trigger the announcement Friday by House Speaker John Boehner of a select committee to investigate.

[apples]

State Dept.: Kerry Will Not Comply with Benghazi Subpoena

http://www.mediaite.com/online/state-dept-kerry-will-not-comply-with-benghazi-subpoena/

Secretary of State John Kerry has been subpoenaed to testify on Benghazi on May 21st. However, in the daily State Department press briefing on Monday, deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said that Kerry will be out of the country on that day and won?t comply with the subpoena to testify on that particular date.

Harf said that Kerry ?has been made aware? of the subpoena, but still plans to be out of the country and in Mexico on the 21st. She said the State Department was ?surprised? that Darrell Issa skipped over offering an invitation and went straight to issuing a subpoena. She very strongly intimated the subpoena was issued for partisan political purposes and suggested Republicans are hypocrites for decrying subpoenas when they were issued against Condoleezza Rice.

[apples]

Benghazi panel will have 7 Republicans, 5 Democrats

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/06/benghazi-panel-will-have-7-republicans-5-democrats/

(CNN) ? House Republicans have decided the select committee to investigate the Benghazi terror attack will include seven Republicans and five Democrats, according to two senior House GOP leadership aides.

The House is expected to vote on the legislation establishing the panel later this week.

Earlier Tuesday, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi demanded it be evenly split between Republicans and Democrats.

Now that the committee's structure has been decided, it's unclear whether Democrats will participate.

After a meeting among Democratic leaders, several sources in the room said their biggest concern is not about having fewer members, but having an equal say in how the panel will be run - especially regarding subpoena power.

This will be more kabuki theater in my opinion. Meanwhile the powers that be will cram immigration behind closed doors. I like Trey Gowdy, but I don't trust the rest of them. Pelosi wanting to play nice, now Kerry is. Something is up.

[apples]

John Kerry: I?ll comply with House GOP?s Benghazi request

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/benghazi-john-kerry-106405.html

Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday indicated he would comply with a House GOP subpoena to testify about Benghazi and other questions from the new select committee appointed by House Speaker John Boehner.

But in his first comments on the topic since renewed attention to it began in the last week, Kerry batted away the inquiry into the September 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi as a ?partisan? effort that won?t bring forward anything that isn?t already known.

[apples]

Holder Decision on Benghazi Case Reverberates

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/18/us/holder-decision-on-benghazi-case-reverberates.html?rref=us&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&pgtype=article

WASHINGTON ? Hours after learning that the United States ambassador to Libya and three others had been killed in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, senior American officials held a secure videoconference call to discuss how to proceed in investigating the attack.

The prosecutor on the call for the Justice Department was Zainab N. Ahmad, one of the department?s most respected national security lawyers. In less than a decade in the United States attorney?s office in Brooklyn, Ms. Ahmad had successfully overseen several high-profile prosecutions, working alongside the New York-based F.B.I. agents who were going to take the lead in investigating Benghazi.

[jafo2010]

Don't see the vantage point of talking to Kerry.  He was not involved.  Clinton, I can see, Kerry, is a waste of time.  He would not be honest any ho.

[apples]

Pentagon Benghazi Documents Expose Administration Lies

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/022315-740536-judicial-watch-documents-show-pentagon-response-to-benghazi.htm

Scandal: Heavily redacted documents show a military response had been drafted in answer to the Benghazi terrorist attack by a group supporting "an Islamic state" in Libya. It also showed the attack wasn't inflamed by a video.

It's taken Judicial Watch two years to obtain from the most transparent administration in history the 486 pages of documents pertaining to the military response to the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on our Benghazi diplomatic mission. They confirm what we have said repeatedly, that the Benghazi tale spun by President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was indeed a lie agreed upon.

Despite heavy redaction, they show that the real "JV team" ? a term applied by Obama to the deadly Islamic State ? resides in the White House. The papers reveal, for instance, that at one point the military relied on a photo from a Twitter post to determine the status of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed with Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith in the first of two attacks.

Several hours later ? hours during which a rescue or support attempt arguably could have been made ? terrorists killed CIA contractors and former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty.

[jafo2010]

Obama and Clinton lied.  Wow!  When have they ever told the truth?  If their lips are moving they are lying.

You would think the American people would get tired of this nonsense.

[apples]

You would think the American people would get tired of this nonsense.

You would think.

[apples]

Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch Reveal Top Hillary Clinton Advisers Knew Immediately that Assault on Benghazi was Armed Attack

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/documents-obtained-judicial-watch-reveal-top-hillary-clinton-advisers-knew-immediately-assault-benghazi-armed-attack/

First ?OpsAlert@State.gov? email at 4:07 PM on September 11, 2012, reports, ?? diplomatic mission is under attack ? 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well ? Stevens in the compound safe haven?
 
Email at 6:06 PM September 11, 2012, states terrorist group, ?Ansar al Sharia Claims Responsibility.?

(Washington, DC) ? Judicial Watch announced today that on February 11, 2015, it uncovered documents from the U.S. Department of State revealing that top aides for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including her then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills, knew from the outset that the Benghazi mission compound was under attack by armed assailants tied to a terrorist group.  The documents were produced as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State ((No. 1:14-cv-01511).  The documents make no reference to a spontaneous demonstration or Internet video, except in an official statement issued by Hillary Clinton.

Judicial Watch lawsuit focused on Mrs. Clinton?s involvement in the Benghazi scandal:

    Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S, Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes but is not limited to, notes, taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.

The chain of internal emails tracks the events surrounding the terrorist attack in real time beginning immediately upon its inception.

On September 11, 2012, at 4:07 PM, Maria Sand (who was then a Special Assistant to Mrs. Clinton) forwarded an email from the State Department?s Operations Center entitled ?U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi is Under Attack (SBU) [Sensitive But Unclassified]? to Cheryl Mills (then-Chief of Staff), Jacob Sullivan (then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy), Joseph McManus (then-Hillary Clinton?s Executive Assistant), and a list of other Special Assistants in the Secretary?s office:

[jafo2010]

Again, I say the bimbo does not run in 2016.  She has Benghazi, and Bill Clinton will be up to his earlobes with Teengate.  The Clintons will finally disappear in shame, as they should.

[apples]

Again, I say the bimbo does not run in 2016.  She has Benghazi, and Bill Clinton will be up to his earlobes with Teengate.  The Clintons will finally disappear in shame, as they should.

I think you are correct.

[apples]

Lying About Benghazi Sole Hillary Accomplishment

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/022715-741367-carly-fiorina-name-one-accomplishment.htm

Scandal: Documents from Judicial Watch show that Hillary Clinton's closest advisers knew from the onset, before she launched an inflammatory video lie, that Benghazi was a terrorist attack for which Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility.

'Mrs. Clinton, name an accomplishment," Carly Fiorina, former Hewlett-Packard CEO and prospective 2016 GOP presidential candidate, asked Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Last year, when ABC's Diane Sawyer asked the former secretary of state that question, Mrs. Clinton changed the subject, not even bothering to mention dodging sniper fire in Bosnia.

Nor is she likely to mention Benghazi, a place now synonymous with the failure of the foreign policy she helped orchestrate. Benghazi has become yet another example of why our friends don't trust us and our enemies don't fear us.

As we have noted, at 10:07 p.m. Washington, D.C., time on Sept. 11, 2012, Clinton's State Department issued a statement that read: "Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to an inflammatory material posted on the Internet. ... Let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind."

This was the origin of the lie that the Benghazi terrorist attack was caused by an Internet video offensive to Muslims.

It would be a lie Hillary Clinton would repeat to the parents of the Benghazi dead in front of their sons' caskets when they arrived at Andrews AFB.

It would be repeated by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on the Sunday talk show circuit and by President Obama no fewer than six times before the United Nations.

This was an all-too-quick and curious assignment of blame that flew in the face of information flowing to the State Department confirming a terrorist attack.

Last Thursday, Judicial Watch issued a press release announcing that on Feb. 11 it had "uncovered documents from the U.S. Department of State revealing that top aides for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including her then-chief of staff Cheryl Mills, knew from the onset that the Benghazi mission compound was under attack by armed assailants tied to a terrorist group."

The documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, make no mention of a reaction to an Internet video.

But they do contain references to an attack for which the al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group Ansar al-Sharia had taken credit, information available to the State Department before it released the statement implicating a video.

On Sept. 11, 2012, at 4:07 p.m. Eastern time, Maria Sand, then-special assistant to Mrs. Clinton, forwarded an email from the State Department's Operation Center entitled "U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi is Under Attack" to Mills and other State Department officials, including Joseph McManus, then Clinton's special assistant.

That email read, in part: "The Regional Security Officer reports the diplomatic mission is under attack. Tripoli reports approximately 20 armed people fired shots; explosions have been heard as well."

There was no mention of any spontaneous protest beforehand.

Another email, sent at 6:06 p.m. on Sept. 11, 2012, to Mills and McManus with the subject line "Update 2: Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility For Benghazi Attack (SBU)," said "(SBU) Embassy Tripoli reports the group claimed responsibility on Facebook and Twitter and call for attack on Embassy Tripoli."

Congressional and eyewitness testimony since has confirmed that while there was much