Fact Check: Hillary Came Up with Benghazi Video Explanation

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APBy Catherine Herridge.

Hillary Clinton’s newly released memoir leaves little doubt she was the first member of the Obama administration to publicly link an anti-Islam video to the 2012 Benghazi terror attack – though she does not explain what intelligence she relied on to make the faulty connection.

The former secretary of State and potential Democratic presidential candidate discussed the Benghazi attack in her memoir “Hard Choices.” The 33-page Benghazi chapter sheds some light on events, but it leaves plenty of inconvenient details out.

According to the chronology she offers,Clinton issued the statement linking Benghazi to the video before she called President Obama on the night of the attack to provide an update, suggesting she was the originator of the flawed explanation.

The State Department press release, issued in her name, on Sept. 11, 2012 at 10:07 p.m. tied the death of Foreign Service officer Sean Smith to the video. Later that evening, a mortar strike killed former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, permanently maimed another CIA contractor and severely injured diplomatic security agent David Ubben – all of whom were defending the CIA annex. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens also died in the Benghazi assault.

The accuracy of the mortar attack, three out of five rounds on target, from more than a half mile away in the dark of night in under a minute, required military training, and premeditation according to multiple military and intelligence professionals.

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________

ABC News’s Diane Sawyer destroys Hillary Rodham Clinton on Benghazi

By Erik Wemple.

A standard defense for Hillary Rodham Clinton when facing questions about Benghazi, Libya, has been to cite her commissioning of a report from the State Department’s Accountability Review Board (ARB), which took a deep look at the attacks that claimed the lives of four U.S. personnel on Sept. 11, 2012. In testimony before Congress in January 2013, Clinton said: “I hurried to appoint the Accountability Review Board led by Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen so we could more fully understand from objective, independent examination, what went wrong and how to fix it. I have accepted every one of their recommendations.”

In an interview with Clinton that aired last night on ABC News, anchor Diane Sawyer threw the ARB right back in the face of the former secretary of state. The two tangled over the preparedness of the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi for a terrorist attack. In defending her work on this front, Clinton stressed that she had delegated the particulars of security to the experts in the field. “I’m not equipped to sit and look at blueprints to determine where the blast walls need to be, where the reinforcements need to be. That’s why we hire people who have that expertise,” said Clinton, who did the interview as part of the tour for her book “Hard Choices.”

Sensing an opening, Sawyer cited the document that Clinton herself has so often cited: “This is the ARB: the mission was far short of standards; weak perimeter; incomplete fence; video surveillance needed repair. They said it’s a systemic failure.”

Clinton replied, “Well, it was with respect to that compound.”


ABC US News | ABC Celebrity News

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: YouTube Hillary Says She Won’t Turn Over Benghazi Notes

By Chuck Ross.

In an interview during a media tour to promote her latest memoir, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that she kept extensive notes during the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi but said that she won’t turn them over to congressional investigators if asked.

“Did you keep a diary during your time?” NBC News’ Cynthia McFadden asked Clinton in an interview on Tuesday.

“I kept a lot of notes,” said Clinton.

McFadden followed up, asking the former secretary of state what she would do with the notes if they were requested by a House Select Committee appointed to investigate the attack — which left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Read more from this story HERE.

Dem Rep Compares Taliban to Soldiers in American Revolution

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: isafmediaA Democratic congressman offered a curious analogy on Monday to explain why the U.S. is dealing with the Taliban — apparently comparing them to soldiers in the American Revolution.

According to sources, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., made the comparison during a House briefing late Monday with administration officials on the trade of Taliban members for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.

Nadler apparently made the point that the Taliban, as non-state actors, have a status similar to that of American soldiers who fought the British during the Revolutionary War.

This comparison, Fox News is told, was met with a lot of groaning by other lawmakers.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Adviser Valerie Jarrett Met ‘Four Or Five Times’ With Illegal Immigrant Activist Group (+video)

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jonathan ErnstBy Patrick Howley.

President Obama’s senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett held a series of meetings with illegal immigrant activists during Obama’s first term and concluded that “They are the best that we have.”

Jarrett, a Chicago-era mentor to Obama and wife Michelle, is currently fighting to pass immigration reform legislation, in her words, “this summer.”

“I had met, maybe, a year-and-a-half ago, with about Four Dream Act kids,” Jarrett said in a 2012 conversation with Walter Isaacson at the 2012 Aspen Ideas Festival, video of which was posted by The Aspen Institute in 2014.

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Central America Newspapers Tout Open US Door for Illegal Minors

By Todd Beamon.

Newspapers in El Salvador and Honduras are promoting policies by the Obama administration that defer deportation to minors brought to the United States as children by their parents — known as “Dreamers” — and those that are housing illegal children at military bases in the South and West.

“Almost all agree that a child who crossed the border illegally with their parents, or in search of a father or a better life, was not making an adult choice to break our laws, and should be treated differently than adult violators of the law,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is quoted in a story about a new two-year extension of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Act published by Diario El Mundo in El Salvador.

Signed by President Barack Obama in 2012, the law grants temporary legal status to many young illegal immigrants, ending the threat of deportation for at least two years.

The policy, however, does not entitle the immigrants to state services. The law was renewed for two more years.

“With the renewal of DACA, we act according to our values and code of this great nation,” Johnson said. “But the biggest task of comprehensive immigration reform is yet to come.”

Read more from this story HERE.

NSA: Our Systems Are Too Complex To Stop Deleting Evidence (+video)

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Gary CameronThe National Security Agency is making an ironic excuse for why it can’t stop deleting data evidence that could be used against it, despite receiving multiple court orders to stop – it doesn’t know how.

Technology focused privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which currently has a case pending against NSA alleging the agency illegally intercepted client data, discovered through a Justice Department email slip-up last week that the agency was deleting evidence it had already been ordered to keep by multiple courts.

After failing to comply with an order to retain data collected under both executive authority and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority, DOJ claimed in March it misunderstood the order to read it only had to keep data acquired under the former. Pointing to documents proving otherwise, a FISA Court judge accused the department of attempting to mislead the court, and again ordered the retention of data in both circumstances.

Upon learning the destruction of such data was still going on, EFF immediately filed a restraining order against NSA and DOJ, which California U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White issued against the government the same day along with a demand for an immediate explanation from the government for violating the March order.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hillary Backtracks From ‘Dead Broke’ Comments (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Jose Luis MaganaFormer Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was forced to explain — and recast — what she meant when she complained of her family’s financial struggles after leaving the White House.

The subject was broached on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” when host Robin Roberts asked Mrs. Clinton if she could understand America’s head-scratching reaction to her claim that the Clintons were “dead broke” upon leaving the White House and needed to hit the lucative speaking circuit to build their bank accounts.

“Yes I can, but everything in life has to be put into context,” she said, The Hill reported. “As I recall, we were something like $12 million in debt.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Ted Cruz Renounces Canadian Citizenship

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APCanada-born U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz has given up his citizenship from his birth country, making good on a promise from last summer.

Spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said the Tea Party favorite formally gave up his citizenship May 14. He received official confirmation of the action at his Houston home Tuesday.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska School Gets $127K Penalty for Animal Deaths

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: destination arctic circle / Creative Commons The University of Alaska Fairbanks has been penalized $127,100 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture after 12 musk oxen died from malnutrition at the school’s large animal research station earlier this decade.

An administrative law judge for the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued the civil penalty Thursday for violating of the Animal Welfare Act. An animal rights group that initially filed a complaint over the deaths in 2011, prompting a USDA investigation, announced the penalty Tuesday.

The size of the penalty “tells me the USDA is sending a message to these facilities that they are no longer going to stand for these criminals that break the law, and we’re very happy to see this,” said Michael Budkie, executive director of the group Stop Animal Exploitation Now.

The university entered into the agreement without admitting fault.

Read more from this story HERE.

Judge Urges Feds to Investigate Denver Police, Sheriff in Abuse Case (+video)

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Lindsay Pierce, The Denver PostSaying that a Denver police investigation “smacks of a sham,” U.S. District Judge John Kane has asked federal authorities to investigate the “patterns and practices” of the Denver police and sheriff’s offices and suggested they were intimidating a key witness.

In an emergency hearing, Kane ordered Denver police internal affairs detectives to stop an investigation against witness Amos Page, who is testifying in the case of a former jail inmate.

The inmate, Jamal Hunter, has accused the city and Denver jail Deputy Gaynel Rumer of facilitating and encouraging a brutal 2011 attack against him in his cell. Rumer did not come to Hunter’s aid while the inmate screamed and fellow inmates attacked him.

Kane on Friday ordered Denver police to produce all documents in its investigation of Page, including recordings of interviews, e-mails, notes and correspondence by June 16.

Read more from this story HERE.

Miller Questions Opponents’ Judgment Regarding Bergdahl

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: SenateDemocratsJoe Miller today questioned the judgment of Senator Mark Begich and GOP primary opponent Mead Treadwell regarding the prisoner swap of five top Taliban leaders for American defector Bowe Bergdahl. Primary senate challenger Dan Sullivan has made no known public statements concerning this egregious act by the Obama Administration.

Following a White House briefing about the prisoner swap last week, Begich told The Hill, “There are still some questions, but a lot of them are answered,” he said. “We don’t leave any of our military personnel behind.”

Miller responded, “How Mark Begich could side with the President regarding the release of five Taliban prisoners for one American soldier who deserted his post is unfathomable. The Obama Administration broke the law and has put American military personnel at risk around the world.”

Treadwell issued contradictory statements regarding the Bergdahl release. In the first, issued May 31, he praised “those who worked tirelessly to liberate” Bergdahl and thanked God for his safe return. In the second, issued Friday, he called the Administration lawless for making the swap, stating it “sets a dangerous precedent.”

Miller issued a statement last Monday condemning the Obama Administration’s lawless act as “white flag diplomacy” that will only embolden our enemies.

Miller characterized Treadwell’s initial statement as “dumbfounding.” “There was ample evidence at the time of Treadwell’s first statement that trading five senior terrorist leaders, handpicked by the Taliban, for an anti-American deserter was not in our national security interests,” said Miller.

Treadwell’s statement raises serious questions about his capacity to make important decisions that will affect Alaska’s military community: (1) Is he prone to make hasty uninformed decisions in an attempt to curry favor with the public?; (2) Does he lack the judgment to deal with important national security issues?; (3) Does he have the integrity to admit when he is wrong and correct course?

“Both Mark Begich and Mead Treadwell have exercised poor judgment regarding the Bergdahl release, and Dan Sullivan’s views are still unknown in a matter with profound national security implications,” said Miller. “Alaskans deserve a senator whose judgment will be determined by principle not politics, and one who will not be afraid to speak out on issues that impact Alaska’s substantial military personnel.”

Ron Paul: Obama’s Foreign Policy Rhetoric Does Not Match U.S. Actions

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall President Obama’s recent foreign policy speech, delivered at this year’s West Point graduation ceremony, was a disappointment to anyone who hoped the president might be changing course. The failure of each U.S. intervention thus far in the 21st century might have inspired at least a bit of reflection.

However, the president made it clear that interventionism and American exceptionalism would continue to guide his administration in its final two years. The president said, “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being,” adding the dubious claim that “because of American diplomacy and foreign assistance, as well as the sacrifices of our military — more people live under elected governments today than at any time in human history.”

It’s funny he would mention elections. Last week the Syrians held their first multi-candidate presidential election in 50 years. Almost three-quarters of Syrian voters participated, giving President Assad 88 percent of the vote. After three years fighting a foreign-backed insurgency, voting conditions were not optimal. However, despite State Department claims to the contrary, it can no longer be stated that Assad enjoys no popularity in his country. Even former CIA chief Michael Hayden not long ago envisioned Assad winning a fair election in Syria.

But the U.S. government completely rejected the vote in Syria, with Secretary of State John Kerry calling it “a great big zero,” because, as he put it, “you can’t have an election where millions of your people don’t even have an ability to vote.”

Read more from this story HERE.