More on what happened in Benghazi..., Judicial Watch Obtains New Photos of Benghazi Attack Aftermath

ake another look at the Obama crisis management plan in the story above. And take note of strategy number 3: stonewall the release of information. As the nation's leading expert in using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to force the release of government information, this is a strategy with which our investigators are intimately familiar.

And it is a strategy that has been central to the Obama administration's Benghazi-gate cover-up.

As the attack was occurring on the Benghazi consulate, which claimed the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, the evidence shows the Obama administration knew the attack was organized.  And there was little doubt that it was organized by al Qaeda terrorists.

But these facts proved inconvenient to the president, who was in the middle of a re-election campaign, and so President Obama and his underlings peddled the false story that an obscure Internet video inspired an impromptu attack on the consulate. And when that failed to pass the laugh test, the administration went into stonewall mode.

Fortunately, Judicial Watch knows how to bust through stonewalls, and we recently got hold of some additional Benghazi records previously withheld by the Obama administration. We had to sue to get them, but we got them.

Specifically, we obtained 30 pages of records from the Department of State, including 13 previously withheld photos depicting the devastating aftermath of the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. diplomatic and CIA facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

(We previously released the first seven photos of the devastation obtained in response to our FOIA lawsuit filed in February.)

And what do they show?

The new photos seem to depict portions of the so-called "Special Mission Compound" in Benghazi, including: a car on fire; what appears to be the exterior of a burned out building; ransacked rooms within the building with files and office supplies strewn across the floor; and Arabic graffiti with militant Islamist slogans.

We first learned about these documents from the Accountability Review Board (ARB) after the board released its final report on December 31, 2012.

According to ARB Chairman Ambassador Tom Pickering the Board "reviewed thousands of documents and watched hours of video" during the course of its investigation.  The Obama administration also reportedly shared Benghazi video with certain members of Congress. Until the State Department released the first seven Benghazi photos to Judicial Watch, however, the State Department had withheld all videos and photos from the American people.

And what of the videos?  A Justice Department attorney told us last week that the State Department is withholding all videos in full, citing privacy and law enforcement exemptions.

Folks, we know from experience that the more fiercely the government withholds records, the more serious the scandal. And the administration is doing everything within its power to conceal the truth from JW and from the American people, which tells me there is much to hide. Even the liberal Washington Post made fun of the fact that the Obama gang had withheld news articles from Judicial Watch. That's right, the "most transparent administration in history" forced us to sue for public news articles that it had marked "SECRET"!

But the administration's zealous secrecy notwithstanding, I want to congratulate our investigations and legal teams for obtaining these records, which provide another piece to the puzzle of what happened in Benghazi.

These new photos reveal a level of total devastation thoroughly belying Obama's original cover story that the carnage was perpetrated by a bunch of random malcontents upset over an unpleasant video.

The fact that we've had to wait nearly a year and file a federal lawsuit for basic documentary material of the attack shows that this administration is still in cover-up mode. And now the Obama administration brings the Benghazi stonewall to a whole new level by withholding video of the attack using frivolous arguments such as "privacy."

Once again, our intrepid work generated worldwide headlines and put in focus the Obama administration's scandal Benghazi stonewall. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), the leading House member for Benghazi accountability, reacted strongly to the JW revelations in the Washington Times:

"It's inexcusable that members of Congress and the press who want to learn the truth about what happened in Benghazi have had to use FOIA requests to obtain answers. Absent the creation of a House select committee that will hold public hearings and have cross-jurisdictional subpoena authority, I don't think the American people will ever learn the truth," said Mr. Wolf, who has been calling for a Watergate-style committee to investigate Benghazi.

"To date, there have been too few answers and absolutely no accountability," he said. "Just what exactly were the State Department and CIA doing in Benghazi that has led the government to go to such great lengths to obstruct requests for information?"

But we're not giving up. We will fight to get the video, of course.

Judicial Watch has four pending FOIA lawsuits against the Obama administration for documents about the Benghazi attack, 14 FOIA requests and one Mandatory Declassification Review Request.  Judicial Watch's special report about the deadly assault is available online: "The Benghazi Attack of September 11, 2012: Analysis and Further Questions from a Diplomatic Security Service Regional Security Officer and Special Agent."

Stay tuned.