Benghazi: Will Hillary be charged with obstruction of justice?

Benghazi: Will Hillary be charged with obstruction of justice?

By Marinka Peschmann (Bio and Archives)  Monday, May 6, 2013 Comments at bottom of page | Print friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

“This singular event,” Benghazi, the terrorist attack in Libya that killed four Americans, Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who worked under contract with the CIA, and Sean Smith, on September 11, 2012, “will be repeated unless the United States recognizes and responds to the threats we face around the world.” So says the 46-page Republican interim Benghazi report that was made public on April 23. In it, as is arguably always the case with the Clintons, we learn that the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apparently has obstructed justice—again.
On page 2 of the Benghazi report under Findings: “This progress report reveals a fundamental lack of understanding at the highest levels of The State Department as to the dangers presented in Benghazi, Libya, as well as a concerted attempt to insulate the Department of State from blame following the terrorist attacks.”
Let’s be more specific. There was a concerted attempt to protect Hillary Clinton over the death of her friend Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Hillary is the top Democrat contender for President in 2016 and she must be protected at all costs but there is much more to this than even Hillary’s political viability at stake here.
Remarkably, the Congressional leaders are missing the bigger picture. This “concerted attempt” to insulate the State Department is not just about protecting Hillary, it’s also about protecting the Obama-Clinton regime’s policy, their agenda that continues today. It’s about concealing from public view what Ambassador Christopher Stevens was really doing in Benghazi meeting with the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin because it threads through the policy that John Kerry as Hillary’s replacement as Secretary of State has seamlessly continued—Syria.
Recall how after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi Hillary was one of the first top Obama administration officials to falsely blame a YouTube video for the deadly attack. President Barack Obama, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and White House Press Secretary James Carney repeated the same falsehood. We now know that within two hours of the attack that the Islamist militia group Ansar al-Sharia took credit and the administration knew it all along.
And because altering the talking points to blame a fake villain and mislead Americans was not just about protecting Hillary but protecting their policy that is continuing in Syria, “The President and Secretary Clinton also appeared in a $70,000 advertisement campaign in Pakistan to disavow the video (page 18).”
Oddly, the Republican Benghazi report contradicts itself when it states that the State Department did not have a fundamental lack of understanding of the dangers in Benghazi because that’s not true. Hillary knew about the dangers and ignored them. She is not the person to call at 3:00 am or at any time for help despite her stage-craft theatrics when she ran for President claiming otherwise as Ambassador Stevens and the others can confirm.
Hillary withdrew security despite receiving requests from the ground for more (page 2). Days before the attack, the State Department also knew that the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, the so-called local protection force linked to extremists and al-Qaeda “would no longer support U.S. movements in the city, including the Ambassador’s visit (page 7).”
The truth is everybody knew about the dangers, which is why the British Embassy, United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross withdrew their personnel from Benghazi (page 6) while Hillary left Americans, including her friend Ambassador Stevens there to complete the job they were sent to do completely, utterly exposed and vulnerable. Why are the Republicans making excuses for Hillary? The questions that need to be answered is what was Ambassador Stevens really doing in Benghazi, what did the Ambassador discuss with Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and how does it affect Syria?

History Repeats Itself

First, will Hillary get away with obstructing justice again? Yes, she will, if Congress does not charge her with obstruction of justice or perjury like they also could have done during the Clinton era as documented in The Whistleblower. Remember when Hillary’s closest confidante and best friend, Vince Foster, was suddenly found dead in Fort Marcy Park, Virginia? Hillary was protected then. Her files were also protected. Why? Because Foster’s job as deputy counsel to the president did not include serving the American people. As the Senate Whitewater Committee in 1996 concluded there was “a concerted effort by senior White House officials to block career law enforcement investigators from conducting a thorough investigation.” The Senate Committee recommended “that steps be taken to insure that such misuse of the White House counsel’s office does not recur in this, or any future administrations (bold mine).”
How many more times will Hillary be allowed to get away with obstructing justice?
Tragically Congress did not heed their own warnings or enforce the rule of law which could have ended Hillary’s “public service” in the 1990s and prevented her from misusing another government entity (State) or the White House again like occurred in Benghazi. Holding Hillary accountable in the 1990s could have also ended the special justice system in America that doesn’t apply to every day Americans but only to the likes of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton and Jon Corzine (MF Global) for example. Hillary, as co-president with Bill Clinton, ran the presidential counsel’s office where Foster was officially last seen alive. Like at the State Department with Benghazi, it was Hillary’s senior staff at the White House who engaged in a “concerted” effort to protect her and to prevent Americans from finding out what Foster was really working on. In Benghazi, the Obama-Clinton regime denied FBI investigators access to Benghazi for nearly a month (page 23), after the crime scene had been contaminated and compromised just like Vince Foster’s office was contaminated and comprised as documented in Following Orders.
Indeed we have seen how this movie has ended before. The question is will Congress re-write the ending by holding Hillary accountable? If they do not, Congress is officially irrelevant, the rule of law in America is a joke, and the false left, right paradigm of politics will no longer be open for debate.
Congress must not back down to find out what Ambassador Stevens was really doing in Benghazi.
But Congress must ask the right questions. So far, they have not been doing that. The Congressional investigators must find out what the State Department was doing with the CIA in Benghazi working in what could be described as some type of a hybrid State/CIA agency on the “interagency” weapons recovery program called “buy-back” in the press—that the State Department prefers to call the MANPAD (Man-portable air-defense systems, like shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles) weapons recovery program. Unbelievably, the Republican Benghazi interim report does not even mention this program or the missing weapons.
Recall it was after Col. Muammar Qaddafi was overthrown in late 2011 when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in Tripoli that the U.S. was committing $40 million to help Libya “secure and recover its weapons stockpiles.” Where are these weapons? Who has the weapons inventory now? Who is responsible for the program’s oversight? Thus far CIA and FBI have declined my FOIA requests. State has responded to my first inquiry. I’m awaiting an additional response now.
Remember technically Ambassador Stevens served under State but he, along with Woods and Doherty were CIA assets. Woods and Doherty were also GRSs, the elite of the elite, of the elite forces—Global Response Staff, who called for help when they learned the Ambassador was in danger—rushed to help him themselves and were never provided with any assistance from the Obama-Clinton regime or as reported here—they were not provided with any options either.

The U.S. Backed Arab Spring

Meanwhile, because we have to take a broader look at Benghazi to see what really happened in Benghazi, let’s look at the region. We know the Saudis and other regional powers have been arming Syria’s rebel forces to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al- Assad for months. The Obama administration also wants to topple Assad. Additionally, we also know that when the U.S. intervened in Egypt, overthrowing President Hosni Mubarak, and Qaddafi in Libya, the Sunni Muslim brotherhood came into power. The Obama administration has been implementing a defacto-regime change policy in the Middle East.
Now reports of Saudi-style “morality police” have surfaced in the region. Christians are being persecuted and slaughtered. Already the Muslim Brotherhood is planning their return to Syria. Who benefits from another Muslim Brotherhood regime? Why doesn’t the Obama administration speak out against the slaughter of Christians and others? Therein the pieces of the puzzle start to make sense.
Which is why the Congressional investigators must also ask what does the Obama administration think will happen when they try to overthrow President Assad in Syria like they did in Egypt and Libya? How does a Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Syria help American interests?
And that brings us back to Benghazi and how it relates to what Ambassador Stevens was doing in Libya. Congress must quickly find out how the Libya policy affects Syria as the ongoing drumbeats for war from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. to topple President Assad beat louder. It was just reported that the Syrian rebels have used sarin gas, not Assad. Congress must find out if the weapons from the Libya MANPADS recovery program ended up in the hands of the Syrian rebels. Have American taxpayers been funding the Syrian rebels for months like they already funded the Egyptian and Libyan rebels or so-called “freedom fighters”? It certainly appears to be the case. Even the New York Times is finally now catching up and reporting how the CIA has been helping Arab governments and Turkey obtain and ship weapons to the Syrian rebels.
Did the Obama administration break international arms law? Does Iran Contra ring a bell? Don’t forget about the humanitarian aid that Hillary sent to Turkey. Has it all gone to aid for the refugees or somewhere else?

Back to the Republican Benghazi interim report.

Regarding the “talking points” Hillary’s State Department altered that were used to mislead the world by falsely blaming a YouTube video for the Benghazi terrorist attack, the Republican interim Benghazi report found on page 19 and 20:
“To protect the State Department, the Administration deliberately removed references to al -Qa’ida- linked groups and previous attacks in Benghazi in the talking points used by Ambassador Rice, thereby perpetuating the deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a demonstration caused by a YouTube video…
Congressional investigators were given access to email exchanges, in which White House and senior [State] Department officials discussed and edited the talking points. Those emails clearly reveal that Administration officials intentionally removed references in the talking points to the likely participation by Islamic extremists, to the known threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya, and to other recent attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi. This process to alter the talking points can only be construed as a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the American people (bold mine).”
Yes, the talking points were altered to mislead America and protect Hillary but Benghazi is bigger than Hillary. The talking points were also edited to protect the administration’s policy and that is what needs to be exposed. They like to arm “rebels”—just don’t call them Islamic extremists—as we witnessed in Egypt and Libya.
As we saw during the Foreign Relations Committee Benghazi hearings, Hillary and John Kerry were content to blame another fake villain—Congress and the lack of funding for the Benghazi terrorist attack when the YouTube story fell apart as I warned you they would do in “The Fix is In: Benghazi Cover-up 101 for Dummies.” Incidentally, the Republican Benghazi interim report confirmed my warning, that Hillary’s latest fake villain was also fake (page 10 & 25). Perjury anyone? Still wondering why no one has been brought to justice yet?
The Obama administration will continue to blame fake villains banking on a public who remembers sound-bites to protect the bigger picture—the policy that doesn’t appear to be in America’s best interests.
Congress needs to take a step back and look at the big picture—at home and abroad. Remember when President Obama took office, his administration has been redefining “terrorism and terrorists” to man-made disasters or “Overseas Contingency Operations” for example. Military training manuals have been scrubbed; the term “jihadist” has been redefined to “extremists.” Removing references to Islamic extremists from the Benghazi talking points is standard operating procedure for this regime.
From the Benghazi interim report, page 20 and 21:

“After slight modifications [to the talking points] were made on Friday, September 14, a senior State Department official again responded that the edits did not “resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership,” and that the Department’s leadership was “consulting with [National Security Staff].”Several minutes later, White House officials responded by stating that the State Department’s concerns would have to be taken into account and asserted further discussion would occur the following morning at a Deputies Committee Meeting.
After the Deputies Committee Meeting on Saturday, September 15, 2012, at which any interagency disagreement would be resolved by the White House a small group of officials from both the State Department and the CIA worked to modify the talking points to their final form to reflect the decision reached in the Deputies meeting. The actual edits were made by a current high-ranking CIA official (bold mine).”

Translation: Obama’s White House, Hillary’s State Department and David Petraeus’ CIA were working together to protect the policy—what Ambassador Stevens was actually doing that affects Syria today and not just to protect Hillary.
The report continues, “Those edits struck any and all suggestions that the State Department had been previously warned of threats in the region, that there had been previous attacks in Benghazi by al -Qa’ida- linked groups in Benghazi and eastern Libya, and that extremists linked to al-Qa’ida may have participated in the attack on the Benghazi Mission. The talking points also excluded details about the wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya, an exacerbating factor that contributed to the lethality of the attacks. Administration officials have said that modification of the talking points was an attempt to protect classified information and an investigation by the FBI but the evidence refutes these assertions… Claims that the edits were made to protect the FBI investigation are not credible (bold mine).”
So yes, the lies pile up and will continue to pile up if Congress fails at their job—again.

Next stop Syria

Widen your view. By their fruits you shall know them.  Whose interests are being served by toppling regimes in the Middle East for the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood to take power because that is exactly what has happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and will also happen if the U.S. and the Saudis topple Syrian President Assad.
Remember while the Assad family are Alawites, Syria is a majority Sunni nation. Topple Assad and expect a mass slaughter or genocide of all faiths including Christians, Jews and Alawites. Topple Assad and expect an unimaginable epic bloody sectarian conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites (next door in Iran) like occurred in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was ousted but much, much worse. Topple Assad and expect leaders like Maher Assad (Bashar’s brother) and other Alawites, who believe in the Muslim Shiite Twelver ideology that advocates the end of the modern world to bring about the return of the Mahdi which they believe will bring about a period of horrific destruction for all non-believers including the cleansing of the Sunnis—in their eyes also false believers, to abandon Syria for places like Iran—also Twelvers like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
While the West will predictably play the destruction of Damascus as an extraordinary defeat for the Syrian dictatorship of the Assad family, it might be viewed as martyrdom for Islam.
If you think what Washington, the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton, have done and are doing will not affect you, think again. Topple Assad and see how fast Iran swings into action to block the passage of oil and watch what happens to the oil-backed U.S. dollar. As my Benghazi insider detailed, “Any attack on the free flow of oil is an attack on the dollar. Any attack on the dollar is an attack on our ability to project power and protect Western democracies, economies, and ideals. God have mercy on us all if that attack is successful.”
This is why the Obama-Clinton regime has told so many lies about Benghazi. This is why Hillary during her testimony before Congress in January hid behind the now discredited Advisory Review Board (ARB) report, a disgusting sham and sick joke of an investigation that her friends, including U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen wrote, like I warned you she would do. During the ARB Hillary’s friends couldn’t be bothered to interview the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, find out about the weapons recovery program or even interview Hillary for starters. Recall how the ARB also blamed Ambassador Christopher Stevens for his death.
This is also why Hillary during her testimony, hollered at Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), “What difference does it make?” she said with her arms waving, referring to the question of who had edited the administration’s talking points and removed all references to Islamist terrorism.
Are you awake yet? Ask yourself, whose interests is this administration serving? Who is happy when references to Islamic terrorism are removed, extremists are armed and the terrorists that killed Americans in Benghazi are not held accountable? Who?
What Ambassador Stevens was doing in Benghazi involves the next phase—Syria.
Syria will be different, worse, than Egypt and Libya. Syria will not implode, it will explode into a fierce fire that will keep spreading. The risk of a broader Middle East conflict is undeniable. If the Obama-Clinton regime get to finish what they started, after this epic battle that’s ignited in Syria ends, if it ends, who rises from the bloody ashes to “restore peace”?
You have been warned.
The Obama-Clinton regime was not just transforming America, but the world. That’s why Ambassador Stevens, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty and Sean Smith were not given any help or options.
The Benghazi hearings resume on Wednesday.

Marinka, the author of The Whistleblower: How the Clinton White House Stayed in Power to Reemerge in the Obama White House and on the World Stage (One Rock Ink), and Following Orders: The Death of Vince Foster, Clinton White House Lawyer (One Rock Ink), is a freelance journalist. She has collaborated, ghostwritten, and contributed to books and stories from showbiz and celebrities to true crime, politics, and the United Nations. After freelancing behind the scenes in both the mainstream press and the new media, it was time to step forward. For more info visit: marinkapeschmann.com.