Boehner reappoints Republicans to Benghazi select committee
There’s more to learn.
The Obama Administration may think the Benghazi controversy is settled, but for House Republicans, the fight for transparency has just begun.
House Speaker John Boehner announced today that Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) will continue to chair the Select Committee on the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, during the next session of Congress.
From the Speaker’s Office:
“On September 11, 2012, four Americans were killed in a brutal terrorist attack in Libya. Two years later, the American people still have far too many questions about what happened that night – and why. That’s why I will reappoint Rep. Trey Gowdy and the Republican members of the House Select Committee to investigate the events in Benghazi in the 114th Congress. I look forward to the definitive report Chairman Gowdy and the Select Committee will present to the American people.”
This move comes in the wake of backlash suffered by the House Intelligence Committee, whose recently declassified report claims that Obama Administration officials were not directly responsible for the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Although Democrats say that the Benghazi committee is redundant given the contents of the report, Republicans in both chambers are convinced there’s more to the story:
Full of crap it may very well be, considering new information that has surfaced regarding the legal authorization and nature of the CIA’s covert arms smuggling mission in Libya:
From page 3 of the main report: “The Committee also found no evidence that the CIA conducted unauthorized activities in Benghazi and no evidence that the IC [intelligence community] shipped arms to Syria.”
What exactly does that mean?
For the CIA to have conducted “unauthorized activities” in Benghazi would have been the height of insanity, as many former CIA executives explained to me when I was researching my book on the September 11, 2012 attacks.
Ever since Iran-Contra, when Democrats in Congress teamed up with federal prosecutors to go after CIA officers and White House officials for operating beyond official guidelines, no sane CIA officer will engage in a covert operation – such as helping to arm the Syrian rebels – without explicit legal authority.
It’s called “lawyering up.” Everyone does it. And nothing happens without it these days.
The CIA was operating in Benghazi to train and equip the Libya rebels under the authority of a presidential finding. Therefore, anything they did in Benghazi, including liaising with militias now recognized as terrorist groups who were involved in the attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Ty Woods, was authorized.
Is that a scandal? Absolutely. But it gets passed over in the HPSCI report because it was “authorized.” Don’t look here, is the message.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. President, but I have a feeling Rep. Gowdy is going to look in that exact spot.
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Comments
Ken Timmerman reported this in the book Dark Forces awhile ago.
When the ‘legacy’ of the jugeared jackass is written, Trey Gowdy will infest it so much people might think Mr/ Gowdy was the focus.
I pray I will live long enough to see Trey Gowdy proclaimed as the hero he already is (and will grow even more heroic).
Can you picture Trey Gowdy sitting in the same seat as is John Kerry, negotiating a Iran nuclear armament treaty which would benefit the long term deal for the middle east and our interests? It wouldn’t be the crap that opened today’s headlines, again buying time for ISIS to have nuclear capability in the next two years.
Not everyone in our society celebrates death. Not everyone seeks comfort in dissociation of risk. We need a few good men and women to right the ship of state and society.
Benghazi was a U.S. rendition resource
Operation Zero Footprint allowed for the distribution of Stinger missiles to Islamic groups in Libya that were forwarded to Islamic groups in Afghanistan and were used to shoot down U.S. helicopters. Zero Footprint was authorized by Obama and supervised by 8 members of Congress.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/11/10/the-benghazi-brief-3/#more-91949
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/11/22/the-motives-behind-the-november-rogersruppersberger-house-intelligence-panel-report-on-benghazi/
The takeaway here is the *possibility* that the GOP Select Committee on Intelligence may have gotten a little too close, too chummy with the intelligence agencies, as they appear to be whitewashing in their absolution of State and connected intel folks.
Another example of Confirmation Bias. This time by Republicans. A systematic refusal to accept information contrary to their entrenched political beliefs. Even when it comes from a committee controlled by a Republican majority.
Those of us who decide elections — the independent middle — take the report at face value. Those Republicans (and Democrats) on the intelligence committee were not operating out of party affiliation, but in the larger interest of the nation to tell the truth as they best could judge it, in the national interest.
It’s time for Lindsey Graham to get his head out of his ass on the Benghazi Report, because he’s the one who is full of crap on that one. And for the rest of the rightie-wrongies on Behghazi to concentrate on criticism of the Iran talks fiasco, where they’re on solid ground.
Those Republicans (and Democrats) on the intelligence committee were not operating out of party affiliation, but in the larger interest of the nation to tell the truth as they best could judge it, in the national interest.
Oh, bulldust. You don’t beleive a word of that. And nobody’s buying it. The report isn’t even a competent whitewash, it’s just that the reporters didn’t bother reading it before telling us what they thought it said, or what they’d heard it said.
Have a read of this and tell me how thorough and competent the report is. Or this, which it barely gets into.
I AM an independent, you moron. Stop claiming your positions are synonymous with independents. A dozen scholarly takedowns of this insipid House report were put up within hours of its release.
You attack Republicans when they agree with congressional reports (rubber stamping!) and now you attack Republicans when they disagree with congressional reports.
Call yourself whatever you need to, but what you is be obvious.
“Those of us who decide elections — the independent middle — take the report at face value.”
Well, speaking as an independent, you have you face up you own butt.
Again. Your kinda establishing a pattern.
You REALLY need to spin up on the subjects of the scandalsssssss involved in Benghazi, its predicates and aftermath.
And the hilarious part is he doesn’t see the irony – his own confirmation bias prompts his accusation of Republican confirmation bias.
I am a total outsider, and I believe that you are not an Independent voter at all. In fact I believe that you are a troll who has been sent to this site to infest it with your crap.
That report was full of holes and what Aussies would term as B.S. or mushroom fodder. It was in fact a whitewash.
Enough other evidence has surfaced to indicate that at the very top of the tree there has been a very big cover up of the real facts including the talking points (and they were a load of crap). At the very least Susan Rice and those who advised her should have been admonished. In fact anyone who advocated the video nonsense should have been admonished.
Loyalists to that yucky person Hilary Clinton I hope will be in for a very big shock because she deserves to be rejected by the U.S. electorate, especially over the way that she handled being SoS as well as her role in the whole Benghazi affair.
That the report relies heavily on Morel, who admittedly mislead Congress on his role in the talking points for months, and who has never given straight answers to some simple questions, puts it into question from the start.
Remember the Intelligence Committees in both House and Senate tend to get very cozy with the ‘community,’ and is more likely to help conceal any failings or outrages for fear of ‘damaging our capability.’