Thread: BENGHAZI – BIGGEST COVER-UP SCANDAL IN U.S. HISTORY? – BENGHAZI CIA GUN-RUNNING

Is the Benghazi scandal worse than Watergate?

• No, of course not. Watergate reached the highest level of the White House. Benghazi was a mishandling by the state department
• No, Watergate was clearly a premeditated crime, and Benghazi was a combination of ineptitude and cover-up
• No, Republicans will put '-gate' at the end of any Obama issue
• No, I'm confident the Obama administration made the right call in Benghazi
• No, and at this point, what difference does it make?!
• No, this is a political witch hunt to weaken Democrats before the 2014 election
• No, this is a ridiculous attempt by nutty right-wingers to advocate for Obama's impeachment
• Yes, the cover-up in Benghazi is at least as disgraceful and documented as Watergate
• Yes, it's as least as bad, and Watergate produced jail terms
• Yes, of course it is. But the left-leaning media will not hold this president accountable as they did with Nixon
• Yes, the cold-hearted response to the crisis and the outrageous, ongoing cover-up far exceed Watergate
• Yes, the Watergate burglars didn’t result in deaths, let alone the killings of an ambassador and 3 American heroes
• Yes, and the consequences for the president and those who enabled Benghazi-gate should be more severe than those of Watergate
• Yes, Benghazi-gate was infinitely worse than the Watergate break-in. It's truly in a league of its own
• Other

View Results

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/video-mak...TfHoXgaUQVt.99

Is the Benghazi scandal worse than Watergate?

• Yes, and the consequences for the president and those who enabled Benghazi-gate should be more severe than those of Watergate (45%, 1,478 Votes)
• Yes, Benghazi-gate was infinitely worse than the Watergate break-in. It's truly in a league of its own (28%, 916 Votes)
• Yes, the Watergate burglars didn’t result in deaths, let alone the killings of an ambassador and 3 American heroes (10%, 335 Votes)
• Yes, the cold-hearted response to the crisis and the outrageous, ongoing cover-up far exceed Watergate (8%, 253 Votes)
• Yes, of course it is. But the left-leaning media will not hold this president accountable as they did with Nixon (7%, 224 Votes)
• Yes, the cover-up in Benghazi is at least as disgraceful and documented as Watergate (less than 1%, 14 Votes)
• Yes, it's as least as bad, and Watergate produced jail terms (less than 1%, 9 Votes)
• No, this is a ridiculous attempt by nutty right-wingers to advocate for Obama's impeachment (less than 1%, 6 Votes)
• No, of course not. Watergate reached the highest level of the White House. Benghazi was a mishandling by the state department (less than 1%, 5 Votes)
• No, Watergate was clearly a premeditated crime, and Benghazi was a combination of ineptitude and cover-up (less than 1%, 5 Votes)
• Other (less than 1%, 2 Votes)
• No, this is a political witch hunt to weaken Democrats before the 2014 election (less than 1%, 1 Votes)
• No, Republicans will put '-gate' at the end of any Obama issue (less than 1%, 1 Votes)
• No, and at this point, what difference does it make?! (0%, 0 Votes)
• No, I'm confident the Obama administration made the right call in Benghazi (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 3,249

Vote

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/video-mak...TfHoXgaUQVt.99

Bombshell Benghazi Testimony: Beyond Incompetence

By Bobby Eberle May 9, 2013 7:13 am

On Wednesday, the famed Benghazi "whistle blowers" testified before The House Oversight and Reform Committee, and what they had to say should have every single media outlet burning the midnight oil to get the story out. The testimony was detailed, emotional, and riveting. More importantly, the testimony painted a picture of a series of events that goes beyond incompetence. What we are looking at is political corruption that led to the death of four Americans.

One of the key witnesses was Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya Greg Hicks. Greg was there. He was in the middle of it all, and he became the highest ranking representative of the U.S. in Libya when his boss, Ambassador Chris Stevens, was murdered.

Hicks noted that there was absolutely no public uprising going on during the night of September 11, 2012. Hicks also noted that it was crystal clear, almost immediately, that the attack was a terrorist attack. There was no "fog of war." There was no Internet video. There was only an Islamic extremist group hell bent on killing Americans. The State Department knew this. The White House knew this. Everyone knew this.

During the proceedings, it was noted that not one, not two, but three separate military units were within range to help the doomed Americans. They were within range, but help was not sent. Hicks was standing next to one of the generals who wanted to help but was told to "stand down." That part of the testimony really stood out to me.

Another whistle-blower questioned Wednesday why more military assets were not deployed sooner during the Benghazi terror attack. Mark Thompson, a former Marine and official with the State Department's Counterterrorism Bureau, said he was rebuffed by the White House when he asked for a specialized team -- known as a FEST team -- to be deployed. This is a unit made of special operations personnel, diplomatic security, intelligence and other officers.

Suggesting that some were hesitant to deploy because they were unsure what was happening, "One definition of a crisis is you do not know what's going to happen in two hours," he said.
Further, Hicks explained how a separate team of special forces personnel were not given the authorization to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi. "They were furious," he said

Video at the Page Link:

The Democrats on the committee were absolutely pathetic. Don't they want to know why this happened?

What we've learned is that all facets of the Obama administration knew that the attack was terrorist related. So why didn't Obama order action to help save these Americans? Why was the military not allowed to act? Recall that Obama gave a speech just the week before the attack stating that al Qaeda was on the run.

Trying to save face from an obvious terrorist attack could be the reason why the story was invented that the attack was a spontaneous uprising due to an anti-islamic Internet video. The idea of politics being played with this situation and a blatant lie put forward to the American people is worthy of serious fallout within the Obama administration. They flat out lied to the American people. But that was the "after." Even more ominous is the fact that Obama and his team REFUSED to act to save American lives. They refused. For this, they should all be put in jail. Period.

The Benghazi murders go beyond incompetence. There were specific decisions made to withhold support for the Americans fighting for their lives. Then, in order to cover up these deliberate decisions, and a story... a cover-up... was concocted which Obama's team hoped with explain why they didn't act: "we didn't know for sure what was happening... we thought it was an uprising." We know this isn't true, and because it's not true, the motives behind what happened are much more chilling.

http://www.gopusa.com/theloft/2013/0.../?subscriber=1

White House sweats buckets as it responds to new Benghazi revelations.

Posted by Bill Bissell, Admin II on May 9, 2013 at 11:47pm in Patriot Action Alerts

Susan Crabtree of The Washington Times reports that the White House was still sticking with the story of Obama not knowing who attacked the Benghazi embassy of no less than four days, even though new testimonies show the terrorist group Ansar Al Sharia Brigade totally involved.

The White House on Wednesday stood by its story that the Obama administration remained unsure exactly who was responsible for the attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi nearly five days after it occurred even though new revelations show Ansar al-Sharia’s direct involvement.

I wonder how many packs of cigarettes Obama might have gone through May 8th as he watched Gregory Hicks the deputy chief of missions at the U.S. Embassy, and self described whistleblower testify before a Congressional committee of Ambassador J Christopher Stevens body being missing for hours after being dragged out of diplomatic post in Benghazi.

U.S.A Today reports

Hicks was the first person who was in Libya during the attack to testify publicly before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating the Obama's administration's handling of security in Libya and response to the attack.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=HBiE2XgmHU4

Do you wonder if Obama reacted at all to what was reported by The Washington Times regarding Hicks testifying how the Ambassador's body was taken to a hospital run by Ansar Al Sharia?

He said a Libyan official eventually called him that night to inform him Mr. Stevens had died and that his body was at a hospital run by Ansar al-Sharia. Mr. Hicks said it was the saddest phone call of his life

When the hearings continue, and the other whistleblowers testify, will it cause Obama's hair to go utterly white in one week? Will the real story force Obama to quit, or force others in his own party to really wake up and help throw this arrogant, selfish man out of the White House where Obama should not have been allowed to get close to?

Click here to see highlights of Gregory Hicks testimony

Tags: Ambassador, Ansar, Benghazi, Gregory, Hicks, J.Christpher, al-Sharia, hearing


http://patriotaction.net/forum/topic...sg_share_topic

How Obama used taxpayer funds in Benghazi cover-up

When Obama wants to go golfing, you pay.

When he wants to take the family to Hawaii, or the first lady wants to go to Paris, or the first daughters want to go to Mexico for spring break, you pay.

And when Obama is in a major pickle because he failed to anticipate a terror attack in Benghazi and -- worse -- failed to respond to it and needs to sell a cover story ... you guessed it, you pay.Here's what it cost.

WND EXCLUSIVE

Obama used taxpayer funds in Benghazi cover-up

$70,000 Pakistani ad buy blamed obscure anti-Muhammad film

Published: 1 day ago Aaron Klein

Video at the Page Link: http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/obama-use...4RWRChcbybr.99

JERUSALEM – As the House Oversight Committee hears from witnesses presenting a chronological timeline that starkly contrasts with initial statements by the Obama administration on the Benghazi attacks, it is instructive to recall how the administration spent $70,000 in taxpayer funds on an ad denouncing an anti-Muhammad film.

The ad aired on Pakistani television amid White House claims that the Benghazi attacks were caused by popular protests against an obscure Muhammad film released on YouTube.

It would later emerge that no such protests took place and that the Obama administration almost immediately had evidence the Benghazi attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The ads reportedly aired on seven Pakistani networks. They also came in response to protests in Pakistan that were reportedly a reaction to the film. However, it was the claim of popular protests in Benghazi at the time that garnered the biggest public reaction from the White House.

The Sept. 19, 2012, ads feature Obama and Clinton making statements against the film in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, which transpired one week prior.

“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation of respect, that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” Obama says in the ad, which is stamped “paid content.”

Clinton then denies any official U.S. involvement in producing the “Innocence of Muslims” video.

“We absolutely reject its contents,” she says.

The Obama administration blamed the YouTube video for what it claimed were popular protests that engulfed the Benghazi mission.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, three days before the ads were released, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White House response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, she asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”

Rice’s spot on “Face the Nation” was preceded by the new president of Libya, Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had “no doubt that this was pre-planned, predetermined.”

Still, other Obama administration officials made similar claims about the film being behind the Benghazi attacks.

Scores of news reports, video and intelligence evidence that was immediately available to the government had demonstrated there were no popular protests outside the Benghazi facility and that the attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The claims about the anti-Muhammad film being behind the Benghazi attacks are also now called into question by a top State Department official who said he knew immediately the attacks were terror strikes, not a protest turned violent, according to interview transcripts released Sunday.

“I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go,” said Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. “I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning.”

According to Hicks, “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go.”

Reacting to Rice’s television interviews blaming the anti-Muhammad film, Hicks stated, “I’ve never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day.”

In testimony yesterday, Hicks said he was “stunned,” his “jaw dropped” and he was “embarrassed” when Rice blamed the terror attack on an Internet video.

“The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya,” he stated.

With additional research by Joshua Klein.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/obama-use...4RWRChcbybr.99

Speaker Boehner Pushes White House To Release Crucial Benghazi Emails - Lou Dobbs



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=ezjfELfDvDA

I believe the Benghazi cover up is more similar to the Iran-Contra affair during the Regan era, weapons movement. I've only heard one media person ask why the Turkish Amb talked with our Amb, prior to his death that night, was it about the Turkish government detaining a ship load of weapons heading for Syria 6 days prior. This is a cover up but doubt the press will ever work to get answers.

ABC News: Benghazi Talking Points Revised 12 Times - Scrubbed of Terror Reference

Video at the Page Link:

Michael Miller
On May 10, 2013
http://mikesright.wordpress.com/

After doing its best to ignore Benghazi for eight long months, the mainstream media is finally playing catch-up and reporting what has now become abundantly clear:

Deliberate actions were taken by the Obama Administration to conceal the truth surrounding the attack from the beginning – and a cover-up of those actions has continued ever since.
The mainstream media is finally beginning to report the news vs. running cover for the Administration. From ABC News:

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before sheappeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened. The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:

“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al Qaeda in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals have previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?

The paragraph was entirely deleted. Continue reading…

From Breitbart.com: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department apparently did most of the editing. In his Good Morning America report Friday morning, Jonathon Karl said that emails have been read that to him…

…that show that many of these changes were directed by Hillary Clinton spokesperson at the State Department, Victoria Nuland. In one email she said that information about CIA warnings ‘could be used by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that. After that email, all references were deleted.

Clearly, after eight months, the Administration’s version of the events surrounding the terrorist attack that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and four other brave Americans dead is finally unraveling. While the mainstream media has come late to the party, it’s good that they’ve finally arrived.

http://www.ijreview.com/2013/05/5144...ror-reference/

May 7, 2013 by Tim Brown

Is This Man The Mastermind Behind The Benghazi Cover Up?

184 Comments

I wrote yesterday about how the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew that the attack in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 was a terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda operatives. We know the Obama White House put out the story for nearly a week that it was just Muslims upset over a benign YouTube video. In spite of knowing what was going on and having the ability to intervene, the Obama administration did nothing to stop or assist Americans who they knew were being attacked by Al-Qaeda. Instead, they chose to cover it up and intimidate witnesses. Stephen F. Hayes has an excellent piece at the Weekly Standard titled The Benghazi Talking Points, in which he fingers the man he believes is the main person behind the Benghazi coverup, Ben Rhodes.

Of course, one would immediately have to wonder about those who would be around a man who has vowed to stand with the Muslims instead of America. If you recall, Barack Obama made a speech in Cairo, Egypt to an audience which included the Muslim Brotherhood, in which he distorted the Qur’an to put it in a good light and then attempted to make out like Islam had made great contributions to both America and the world. That speech was written by Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter and now a part of a his National Security Council.


Hayes writes in his article about the talking points that were first put out to officials. He writes:

The talking points were first distributed to officials in the interagency vetting process at 6:52 p.m. on Friday. Less than an hour later, at 7:39 p.m., an individual identified in the House report only as a “senior State Department official” responded to raise “serious concerns” about the draft. That official, whom The Weekly Standard has confirmed was State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland, worried that members of Congress would use the talking points to criticize the State Department for “not paying attention to Agency warnings.”
In an attempt to address those concerns, CIA officials cut all references to Ansar al Sharia and made minor tweaks. But in a follow-up email at 9:24 p.m., Nuland wrote that the problem remained and that her superiors—she did not say which ones—were unhappy. The changes, she wrote, did not “resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership,” and State Department leadership was contacting National Security Council officials directly. Moments later, according to the House report, “White House officials responded by stating that the State Department’s concerns would have to be taken into account.” One official—Ben Rhodes, The Weekly Standard is told, a top adviser to President Obama on national security and foreign policy—further advised the group that the issues would be resolved in a meeting of top administration officials the following morning at the White House.

There is little information about what happened at that meeting of the Deputies Committee. But according to two officials with knowledge of the process, Mike Morrell, deputy director of the CIA, made broad changes to the draft afterwards. Morrell cut all or parts of four paragraphs of the six-paragraph talking points—148 of its 248 words (see Version 2 above). Gone were the reference to “Islamic extremists,” the reminders of agency warnings about al Qaeda in Libya, the reference to “jihadists” in Cairo, the mention of possible surveillance of the facility in Benghazi, and the report of five previous attacks on foreign interests.

Ed Lasky writes concerning Rhodes, “Ben Rhodes should be called to account for trying to divert blame away from Islamic terrorists and the Obama team members whose feckless negligence led to the Benghazi massacre.”

“I have previously written about Ben Rhodes and his role in the Obama White House,” writes Lasky. “It is shameful that this ‘kid’ (he is all of 35) has been given any responsibility at all in our government. In ‘Does it bother anyone that this person is the Deputy National Security Adviser?’ I noted his problematic background for someone given so much power by Obama. But then again he does specialize in fiction-writing. He earned a master’s degree in fiction-writing from New York University just a few years ago . He did not have a degree in government, diplomacy, national security; nor has he served in the CIA, or the military. He was toiling away not that long ago on a novel called ‘The Oasis of Love’ about a mega church in Houston, a dog track, and a failed romance. ”

Lasky concludes that Ben Rhodes is the man that attempted to whitewash Islamists and the Obama administration, not only in the Cairo speech, but in the talking points promoted by the Obama White House in the days following the attack on Benghazi that left four Americans dead.

I guess we’ll wait and see if he is even called as a witness this by the House in this week’s hearings.


http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/05/is...hazi-cover-up/