The latest Benghazi news... via the Daily Signal:
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As the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepares for
its first hearing this week, a former State Department diplomat is coming
forward with a startling allegation: Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an
operation to “separate” damaging documents before they were turned over to the
Accountability Review Board investigating security lapses surrounding the Sept.
11, 2012, terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.
(UPDATE: Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff allegedly
present at after-hours document review.)
According to former Deputy Assistant Secretary Raymond
Maxwell, the after-hours session took place over a weekend in a basement
operations-type center at State Department headquarters in Washington, D.C.
At the time, Maxwell was a leader in the State
Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which was charged with collecting
emails and documents relevant to the Benghazi probe.
This is the first time Maxwell has publicly come forward
with the story.
“I was not invited to that after-hours endeavor, but I
heard about it and decided to check it out on a Sunday afternoon,” Maxwell
says.
(He didn’t know it then, but Maxwell would ultimately
become one of four State Department officials singled out for discipline — he
says scapegoated — then later cleared for devastating security lapses leading
up to the attacks. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher
Stevens, were murdered during the Benghazi attacks.)
* NO DOUBT MAXWELL FUCKED UP! THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT HILLARY
DIDN'T FUCK UP EVEN MORE! IN A MORE PERFECT WORLD THEY'D PROBABLY BOTH BE IN PRISON...
AT THE VERY LEAST "RETIRED" AND IN DISGRACE.
Maxwell says the weekend document session was held in the
basement of the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters in a room
underneath the “jogger’s entrance.” He describes it as a large space, outfitted
with computers and big screen monitors, intended for emergency planning, and
with small offices on the periphery. When he arrived, Maxwell says he observed
boxes and stacks of documents. He says a State Department office director, whom
Maxwell described as close to Clinton’s top advisers, was there. Though the
office director technically worked for him, Maxwell says he wasn’t consulted
about her weekend assignment.
“She told me, ‘Ray, we are to go through these stacks and
pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs] front
office or the seventh floor in a bad light,’” says Maxwell.
* AND AT THAT POINT MAXWELL SHOULD HAVE ORDERED HER TO
STOP AND IMMEDIATELY INFORMED THE CHAIRMEN AND SENIOR MINORITY MEMBERS OF THE
RELEVANT CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES OF WHAT HE'D STUMBLED UPON!
He says “seventh floor” was State Department shorthand
for then-Secretary of State Clinton and her principal advisers.
“I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ She responded,
‘Ray, those are our orders.’”
* LIKE I WROTE ABOVE... SCUMBAGS... ALL SCUMBAGS... FROM
CLINTON TO "RAY" TO THE OFFICE DIRECTOR... ALL SCUMBAGS... ALL SHOULD
BE IN JAIL.
A few minutes after he arrived, Maxwell says, in walked
two high-ranking State Department officials.
In an interview Monday morning on Fox News, Rep. Jason
Chaffetz, R-Utah, named the two Hillary Clinton confidants who allegedly
were present: One was Cheryl Mills,
Clinton’s chief of staff and a former White House counsel who defended
President Bill Clinton during his impeachment trial. The other, Chaffetz said,
was Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, who previously worked on Hillary
Clinton’s and then Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.
“When Cheryl saw me, she snapped, ‘Who are you?’” Maxwell
says. “Jake explained, ‘That’s Ray Maxwell, an NEA deputy assistant secretary.’
She conceded, ‘Well, OK.’”
Maxwell says the two officials, close confidants of
Clinton, appeared to check in on the operation and soon left.
* "THE OPERATION." CUTE.
Maxwell says after Mills and Sullivan arrived, he, the
office director and an intern moved into a small office where they looked
through some papers. Maxwell says his stack included pre-attack telegrams and
cables between the U.S. embassy in Tripoli and State Department headquarters.
After a short time, Maxwell says he decided to leave.
“I didn’t feel good about it,” he says.
* WHAT... A... COWARD.
* WHAT... A... SCUMBAG.
We contacted Mills and Sullivan to ask about the
allegations and the purpose of the described separation of documents, but they
did not return calls or emails. We reached out to Clinton, who declined an
interview request and offered no comment. A State Department spokesman told us
it would have been impossible for anybody outside the Accountability Review
Board (ARB) to control the flow of information because the board cultivated so
many sources.
* WHAT SORT OF "SPOKESMAN?" A "STATE
DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN?"
(*SNORT*)
* PERHAPS SOME OBAMA ADMININSTRATION IRS OFFICIALS MIGHT
WANT TO PINKY SWEAR TOO!
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
When the ARB issued its call for documents in early
October 2012, just weeks after the Benghazi attacks, the executive directorate
of the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs was put in charge of
collecting all emails and relevant material. It was gathered, boxed and — Maxwell
says — ended up in the basement room prior to being turned over.
* QUESTION: WOULD ANY OF YOU READING THIS BE SURPRISED IF
WITHIN THE NEXT FEW DAYS MAXWELL TURNS UP DEAD... A "SUICIDE?"
* VINCE FOSTER, FOLKS...
(*SHRUG*)
In May 2013, when critics questioned the ARB’s
investigation as not thorough enough, co-chairmen Ambassador Thomas Pickering
and Adm. Mike Mullen responded that “we had unfettered access to everyone and
everything including all the documentation we needed.”
* TWO MORE SCUMBAGS.
Maxwell says when he heard that statement, he couldn’t
help but wonder if the ARB — perhaps unknowingly — had received from his bureau
a scrubbed set of documents with the most damaging material missing.
(*SMIRK*)
Maxwell also criticizes the ARB as “anything but
independent,” pointing to Mullen’s admission in congressional testimony that he
called Mills to give her inside advice after the ARB interviewed a potential
congressional witness.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... I DON'T CALL PEOPLE
"SCUMBAGS" FOR NO REASON! PICKERING AND MULLEN CO-CHAIRED A COVER-UP
- OR AT LEAST THAT WAS THE RESULT.
(*DRIP...DRIP...DRIP*)
In an interview in September 2013, Pickering told me that
he would not have done what Mullen did. But both co-chairmen strongly defend
their probe as “fiercely independent.”
* SCUMBAGS THROWING EACH OTHER TO THE WOLVES... JUST LIKE
MAXWELL IS NOW THROWING CLINTON TO THE WOLVES WHEREAS BEFORE HE WAS READY AND
WILLING TO "JUST FOLLOW ORDERS."
Maxwell also criticizes the ARB for failing to interview
key people at the White House, State Department and the CIA, including not only
Clinton but Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides, who managed department
resources in Libya; Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs
Andrew Shapiro; and White House National Security Council Director for Libya
Ben Fishman.
* QUITE A LIST. (ALL FAMILIAR TO ME... BUT IS THE LIST
FAMILIAR TO YOU FOLKS... MY READERS...)
* FOLKS... GO THROUGH THE ARCHIVES... NONE OF THIS IS
NEW. THE MULLIN-PICKERING "INVESTIGATION" WAS A JOKE.
“The ARB inquiry was, at best, a shoddily executed
attempt at damage control, both in Foggy Bottom and on Capitol Hill,” Maxwell
says. He views the after-hours operation he witnessed in the State Department
basement as “an exercise in misdirection.”
* IT WAS EVIDENCE TAMPERING!
Sullivan did not respond to emails or to messages sent to
him through his current teaching job at Yale Law School.
* THE OLIGARCHY TAKES CARE OF ITS OWN...
Mills did not respond to a message passed to her through
Black Rock, a major global investment firm where she is on the board of
directors.
* AGAIN... THE OLIGARCH TAKES CARE OF IT'S OWN...
Clinton’s press officer ultimately referred us to the
State Department, though none of the three currently works there.
(*SNORT*)
A State Department spokesman, Alec Gerlach, calls the
implication that documents were withheld “totally without merit.”
* UH-HUH...
Gerlach says the State Department instructed all
employees to cooperate “fully and promptly” with the ARB...
(*WINK-WINK*) (*NOD-NOD*)
...which invited anyone with relevant information to
contact the board directly.
* GEEZUS... WHO DO THEY THINK THEY'RE KIDDING...?!?!
(BUT, HEY... I CAN'T REALLY BLAME 'EM... THEY'VE BASICALLY GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT
UP TO NOW AND WHO KNOW... PERHAPS THEY'LL ALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.
(*SHRUG*)
“So individuals with information were reaching out
proactively to the board. And, the ARB was also directly engaged with
individuals and the [State] Department’s bureaus and offices to request
information and pull on whichever threads it chose to,” Gerlach says.
* THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT! A TRUE INVESTIGATION WOULD
SUBPENA PERSONS OF INTEREST AND REQUIRE THEM TO TESTIFY UNDER OATH - UNDER
PENALTY OF LAW FOR REFUSING OR LYING! NONE OF THAT HAPPENED HERE!
Maxwell says he has been interviewed privately by several
members of Congress in recent months, including Chaffetz, a member of the House
Oversight Committee, and Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the House Select
Committee on Benghazi.
When reached for comment, Chaffetz told me that Maxwell’s
allegations “go to the heart of the integrity of the State Department.”
* THEY HAVE NO INTEGRITY! (WE KNOW THAT!)
“The allegations are as serious as it gets, and it’s
something we have obviously followed up and pursued,” Chaffetz says. “I’m 100
percent confident the Benghazi Select Committee is going to dive deep on that
issue.”
* FUCKIN' BOEHNER! FUCKIN' MCCONNELL! BENGHAZI HAPPENED
OVER TWO YEARS AGO!
* UNDERSTAND, FOLKS... BOEHNER AND MCCONNELL BASICALLY
WORKED WITH THE DEMS TO DELAY GETTING TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS? WHY? STUPIDITY.
FAULTY ANALYSIS OF THE PROBABLY RESULTS. BOTTOM LINE... THEY WERE SCARED TO GO
HEAD TO HEAD WITH THE ADMINISTRATION.
Maxwell, 58, strongly supported President Barack Obama
and personally contributed to his presidential campaign. But post-Benghazi, he
has soured on both Obama and Clinton, saying he had nothing to do with security
and was sacrificed as a scapegoat while higher-up officials directly
responsible escaped discipline.
* AGAIN... MAXWELL IS A DOUCHE. JUST BECAUSE HE'S NOW
FINALLY DOING THE RIGHT THING DOESN'T MAKE HIM A GOOD GUY - IT SIMPLY MAKES HIM
(PERHAPS) A BIT LESS OF A DOUCHE.
Maxwell spent a year on paid administrative leave with no
official charge ever levied against him. Ultimately, the State Department
cleared Maxwell of wrongdoing and reinstated him. He retired a short time
later, in November 2013.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
(*DEEP SIGH*)
* OH... ONE MORE THING...
Several weeks after he was placed on leave with no formal
accusations, Maxwell made an appointment to address his status with a State
Department ombudsman.
“She told me, ‘You are taking this all too personally,
Raymond. It is not about you,’ ” Maxwell recalls.
“I told her that ‘My name is on TV and I’m on
administrative leave, it seems like it’s about me.’ Then she said, ‘You’re not
harmed, you’re still getting paid. Don’t watch TV. Take your wife on a cruise.
It’s not about you; it’s about Hillary and 2016.’ ”
* ADD THIS OMBUDSMAN TO THE WITNESS LIST!
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