Re: Clinton sought end-run around counterterrorism bureau on night of Benghazi attack
http://news.investors.com/ibd-edito...clinton-dereliction-of-duty.htm#ixzz2SaU5oC9CThe Scandal In Libya: On the night Bengazi burned and four Americans died, forces ready to deploy were told to stand down and our secretary of state cut out of the loop her department's counter-terrorism bureau.
Few people know who Gregory Hicks and Mark Thompson are, but then nobody knew who John Dean was when he testified at the Watergate hearings and blew the Nixon administration and its coverup out of the water.
"I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go," says Hicks, the U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya on that fateful night.
"I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning," he says and reportedly will repeat when he testifies before the House Oversight Committee of Rep. Darrell Issa on Wednesday.
Yet, also from the get-go, Secretary Clinton seemed determined to put that possibility out of her mind and the mind of everyone else.
From the testimony of Hicks and Thompson, it is clear that Secretary Clinton didn't want to know or admit it was a terrorist attack, the only possible reason being that it wouldn't fit the administration's narrative of a victory over al-Qaida in a war on terror that was now over. It would hurt the president she served and possibly her own presidential chances in 2016.
Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel — the Accountability Review Board — that Clinton convened to review the episode.
Thompson's lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.
Hicks was dumbfounded when the State Department quickly blamed a YouTube video about the Muslim prophet Mohammed for precipitating the attack and why no one called him to find out the truth before sending out Ambassador Susan Rice on five Sunday talk shows.
"I reported an attack on the consulate," Hicks says in transcripts released by Issa's committee. "It's jaw dropping to me how that came to be. ... I was personally known to one of Ambassador Rice's staff members. And, you know, we're six hours ahead of Washington. Even on Sunday morning I could have been called."