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Obama ‘Went to Bed While People Died’

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Photo Credit: WNDAfter all is said and done, the Benghazi scandal boils down to just the same two key questions as those in the Watergate scandal: What did the president know? And, when did he know it?

That’s according to a man who used to guard the president for a living, former secret service agent Dan Bongino, author of the WND bestseller, “Life Inside the Bubble,” and current candidate to represent Maryland in Congress.

Bongino strongly suggested the answers to those questions will show President Obama just as responsible for the scandal as President Nixon was for his. The difference was, he said, people died in Benghazi.

Parodying the phrase used by former Secretary of Stare Hillary Clinton, Bongino rhetorically asked, “What difference does it make?” He then answered by saying four men were killed and nothing was done to help them.

The man who used to personally guard the president was one of more than a dozen expert panelists convened by the Heritage Foundation and the Benghazi Accountability Coalition for a four-hour examination of the scandal called, “Benghazi: The Difference it Makes is Accountability.”

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US Spy Agencies Knew During Benghazi Attack Who Was Doing the Attacking

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Photo Credit: TownHall While the administration would much prefer that the “false controversy” of Benghazi be swept under a rug, never to be talked about again, Americans know there’s more to the story and want answers. While the Benghazi select committee seems promising, in the meantime, the public became privy to new information on Wednesday that further discredits the White House’s story that the attack was a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video.

On Fox News’ “Special Report” last night, Bret Baier aired an interview with retired Air Force Major Eric Stahl, who was also the commander and pilot of the plane used to transport not just the 4 Americans that died in the attack on the consulate, but also the remaining consulate staff (including the wounded) from Tripoli to the U.S. base in Ramstein, Germany.

I highly recommend watching the video in its entirety, but here are a couple major takeaways…

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Photo Credit: TownHall Sources: DOD memo sent after Benghazi attack listed suspects with Al Qaeda ties

By Catherine Herridge.

A targeting memo sent to the State Department by the Defense Department’s Africa Command two days after the Benghazi attack listed 11 suspects with ties to Al Qaeda and other groups, counter-terrorism and congressional sources confirmed to Fox News.

This is significant because it arrived two days before then-UN ambassador Susan Rice appeared on television shows blaming the assault on an inflammatory video. It also came nearly a day before presidential aide Ben Rhodes sent an email also suggesting the video – and not a policy failure – was to blame for the Sep, 11, 2012 attack that claimed four American lives.

The memo, which was referred to in passing during recent congressional testimony, was drawn up by the Defense Department’s Africa command, known as Africom, and was sent to the State Department as the best available intelligence in the early morning hours of September 14, 2012.

It included the names of 11 suspects, four connected to the Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa known as AQIM, and seven connected to Ansar al-Sharia, a group with ties to the terrorist network.

“They knew from the get-go that Al Qaeda was involved in the attack so the idea that the Obama administration didn’t know that early on or they suspected it was something else entirely basically is willful blindness,”said counter-terrorism analyst Thomas Joscelyn of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

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Fact Check: Hillary Came Up with Benghazi Video Explanation

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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.

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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

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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.

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Ted Cruz: Hillary ‘Deliberately Stonewalled’ on Benghazi

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Photo Credit: WPROTea party heavyweight Sen. Ted Cruz said that he believes former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton purposely prevented the public release of details pertaining to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

“What I think is that she has deliberately stonewalled,” Cruz said in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week.

“The American people deserve the truth; our men and women in harm’s way deserve the truth,” the Texas Republican added.

Although Cruz did not directly say that he believes Clinton’s handling of Benghazi should disqualify her from running for president, he had a quick response to Stephanopoulos when asked for the case against a Hillary Clinton presidency.

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Hillary’s Failed Benghazi Spin

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard Hillary Clinton is right about Benghazi—or at least she’s right about one thing.

According to a story by Maggie Haberman about the Benghazi chapter in Clinton’s forthcoming book Hard Choices, the former secretary of state contends that some of her critics have badly mischaracterized the now infamous question she asked at a January 23, 2012, congressional hearing: “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

She’s right, they have. The question, which came in the middle of a heated back-and-forth with U.S. senator Ron Johnson, was not so much a declaration of indifference as it was an attempt to redirect the questioning from its focus on the hours before the attacks to preventing similar attacks in the future.

But beginning with her bizarre analogy to explain that question, Clinton’s attempt to spin Benghazi—at least as insofar as the Politico piece represents it—is highly misleading.

Clinton writes: “My point was simple: If someone breaks into your home and takes your family hostage, how much time are you going to spend focused on how the intruder spent his day as opposed to how best to rescue your loved ones and then prevent it from happening again?”

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Photo Credit: APTed Cruz: Hillary more obsessed with ‘right-wing-conspiracy’ than Benghazi terrorists

By Tony Lee.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for obsessing about the so-called “right-wing conspiracy” more than the terrorists who murdered four Americans in Benghazi in 2012.

In the Benghazi chapter of her new book, Clinton still blames the YouTube video for the terrorist attacks and dismisses Americans who want answers about what may have been her lowest moment as Secretary of State.

“She’s more focused on blaming the so-called vast right-wing conspiracy than on the terrorists,” Cruz said on ABC’s This Week. “The truth shouldn’t be partisan, and there’s a pattern in this administration.”

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Trey Gowdy Brings ‘Zeal For the Truth’ as Head of House’s Benghazi Panel

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesRep. Trey Gowdy’s rise from obscure South Carolina backbencher to chairman of the House’s new special Benghazi committee took a quantum leap last October, when he stole the show at an otherwise mundane Republican news conference about the terrorist attacks.

While only in his second term, the conservative Gowdy rushed to the podium and — with the conviction of a preacher and the erudition of a prosecutor — launched into a passionate yet disciplined plea for “justice” that mesmerized those watching, including his GOP colleagues on the dais.

“No one has been arrested, no one has been prosecuted, no one has been brought to justice,” he said soberly. “I am not surprised the president of the United States called this a phony scandal, I’m not surprised [former Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton asked what difference does it make?… I’m just surprised a lot of people bought it.”

His three-minute address skillfully summarized Republican frustration over the Obama administration’s response to the attacks like no one had before, and was a seminal moment in the party’s push to raise public awareness about the scandal. And it instantly transformed Gowdy into a cult hero in conservative America (a clip of his remarks has generated 3.4 million views on YouTube).

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Libyan Warplanes Strike Islamist Militias in Benghazi

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Photo Credit: REUTERS / ESAM OMRAN AL-FETORIBy Reuters.

Libyan warplanes bombed militia bases in Benghazi on Wednesday as part of a renegade former general’s campaign to purge the chaotic North African state of Islamist militants, witnesses and officials said.

Two jets attacked a base belonging to the February 17 brigade, one of the Islamist-leaning armed groups operating in Benghazi, and an Ansar al-Sharia militant base in the west of the city, a Reuters witness and an air force official said.

The attacks are part of a campaign by irregular forces loyal to former Libyan army general Khalifa Haftar who earlier this month launched operations against Islamist militants he says the weak central government has failed to control.

“Our forces are bombing the February 17 battalion base and Ansar al-Sharia base in Quarsha,” Mohamed Hejazi, a spokesman for Haftar, told Reuters.

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Photo Credit: APAmericans Urged to Leave Libya After Group Linked to Benghazi Attack Threatens U.S.

By Patrick Goodenough.

The State Department on Tuesday warned American citizens not to travel to Libya and urged those there to leave immediately.

The embassy in Tripoli has not been evacuated, although the administration began positioning military assets in Sicily last week to carry out a potential emergency extraction if deemed necessary. The amphibious assault ship USS Bataan moved into the Mediterranean Sea.

“This is a portion of a special purpose Marine Air-Guard task force crisis response that’s moved to a naval air station in Sicily,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a briefing. “This positioning was done in the event these resources are needed in the future.”

“We continue to review the situation and address embassy security needs,” Psaki said.

The travel warning said the staffing at the embassy has been limited, “due to security concerns,” and that the mission could offer only “very limited emergency services to U.S. citizens.”

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Allen West: Confidential Source Reveals to Me What Really Happened in Benghazi

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Today as I returned from Detroit, I had a moment that I truly felt was God sent, as I don’t believe in coincidences. It happened on one of my flights, and it was two hours I will never forget.

I was seated beside someone who personally knew one of the men who was there on the roof in Benghazi. This person was excited to share with me the “ground truth” of what happened September 11, 2012.

My seat mate drew schematics to orient me to the “time and spacing” and the direction of the attack. I learned about the repeated orders to the men at the CIA annex to stand down and do nothing — thank God two of them, Glenn Doherty and Ty Woods, lived up to their code of honor and ran to the sound of the guns, resulting in their loss of life — but the preservation of life for others, their fellow Americans.

I learned about the proximity of the staging area of the attack to the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, and the attackers were indeed Ansar al-Sharia, a group affiliated with al-Qaida. I came to understand why Ambassador Chris Stevens was there in the first place and that he had in fact requested better security but was denied – the question is, by whom? And I learned that the Martyrs of 17 February Brigade were in charge of security and were the ones who opened the gates, then fled.

I learned there are those who are being threatened with their pensions being cut off if they come forth to speak.

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Pelosi Reluctantly Picks Her Team for House Benghazi Probe

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsBy Fox News.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday reluctantly picked her team for a GOP-led Benghazi investigative committee, saying that Democrats’ participation was the only way to assure Americans of a “fair process.”

Pelosi appointed five fellow Democrats to the 12-member House select committee on Benghazi, including Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings as the ranking member of the panel.

“We’ve already been there,” Pelosi said in naming the members, continuing to voice concerns about the probe while also ending weeks of speculation about whether her party would participate.

“Eight reviews have been conducted in the House and Senate, 25,000 documents released, millions of taxpayer dollars spent. It was not necessary to put the families or our country through this partisan exercise once again,” the California Democrat continued. “I could have argued either way.”

Cummings is also the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and is known to publicly spar with the chairman of that committee, GOP Rep. Darrell Issa. Pelosi also named Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee; California Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the House Committee on Appropriations; California Rep. Linda Sanchez, a member of the House Committee on Ways and Means; and Illinois Rep. Tammy Duckworth, a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

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Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn MartinNancy Pelosi names five Democrats to Benghazi panel

By Susan Ferrechio.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calf., has named five Democrats to serve on a select panel that will investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Pelosi made the decision to appoint members after meeting Wednesday with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, about the terms of how the panel will operate.

Pelosi has tapped Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who now serves as the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has held several hearings examining the Benghazi attack.

Pelosi also named Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who is the House Armed Services Committee ranking member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., and Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., an injured war veteran who serves on both the Armed Services and House Oversight panels.

Schiff previously argued Democrats should boycott the committee, telling “Fox News Sunday” it would be a “colossal waste of time.”

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CNN President Jeff Zucker: ‘We’re Not Going To Be Shamed’ Into Covering Benghazi

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller CNN President Jeff Zucker declared his network would “not going to be shamed” into covering Benghazi and other stories without “real news value” at an awards dinner Monday.

Capital New York reports that Zucker explained CNN’s post-plane plans during an interview at the Deadline Club’s annual dinner on Monday night.

“I don’t think there’s any question about our commitment to breaking news, as evidenced by all the questions about the plane,” Zucker told The New York Times’ Bill Carter.

“So we’re still there whenever that happens,” he continued, “but we’re going to supplement that with some different kind of storytelling.”

What kind of stories? “Climate change is one of those stories that deserves more attention, that we all talk about,” he explained — though he lamented the fact that “when we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part.”

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