Parent Advocates
Search All  
 
State Department Belatedly Releases New Hillary Clinton Benghazi Documents
Another piece of the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton and Benghazi fell into place this week when the State Department released to us new documents containing telephone transcripts from the evening of September 12, 2012. The documents reveal that the then-Secretary of State informed then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound the day before "had nothing to do with the film."
          
State Department Belatedly Releases New Hillary Clinton Benghazi Documents
Judicial Watch
April 14, 2016

Another piece of the scandal surrounding Hillary Clinton and Benghazi fell into place this week when the State Department released to us new documents containing telephone transcripts from the evening of September 12, 2012.

The documents reveal that the then-Secretary of State informed then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound the day before "had nothing to do with the film."

You will recall that on the evening of September 11, Mrs. Clinton issued an official State Department press statement, approved by the White House, placing the blame for the attack on an Internet video:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

Yet the next day, September 12, in her conversation with Kandil, Clinton said, "We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack - not a protest." Kandil responded, "You're not kidding. Based on the information we saw today we believe that group that claimed responsibility for this is affiliated with al-Qaeda."

Nevertheless, two days later, at the ceremony when the bodies of the four Americans who were killed arrived in the United States, Clinton again left the implication that it was all due to the video:

"This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We've seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We've seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with."

This became an administration theme. On September 16, then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice, appearing on all the Sunday morning political talk shows, invoked the video. For example, she told Jake Tapper of ABC:

"But our current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous - not a premeditated - response to what had transpired in Cairo. In Cairo, as you know, a few hours earlier, there was a violent protest that was undertaken in reaction to this very offensive video that was disseminated."

There are actually two scandals here. The first is Hillary Clinton telling different stories to different foreign leaders about the Benghazi attack - including an admission that it was a terrorist attack.

The second is the State Department's cover-up of these documents. The department has forced Judicial Watch to play 'whack-a-mole' with Clinton and Benghazi documents. It is no wonder that two frustrated federal court judges granted Judicial Watch discovery into the Clinton FOIA issues.

Here's the story on that.

Clinton's admission to Kandil was first revealed to the Select Committee on Benghazi on October 13, 2015 and publicized on the day of Mrs. Clinton's testimony, October 22. However, court filings in Judicial Watch litigation show that the record was only produced after two federal court judges ordered the State Department to produce more Benghazi-related records to us.

Similarly, our litigation also forced the release of the September 11, 2012, email in which Clinton informed her daughter that the attack had been staged by an "Al Qaeda-like group," rather than as the result of "inflammatory material posted on the Internet," as Mrs. Clinton had claimed in her official public statement one hour earlier. (So, the two big reveals of the Benghazi Select Committee during Clinton's testimony only came about because of your Judicial Watch - and despite the incompetence of Congress.)

The State Department had previously told a federal court that the Kandil document wasn't responsive to Judicial Watch's request and resulting lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)) seeking:

Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.

But the State Department then delivered this information last month to us. The records, the State Department told the Court, were found among thousands of new Clinton State Department records supposedly only discovered in December, 2015 - again, two months after the key Kandil document was first produced to the Benghazi Committee.

Under court order, the State Department released 11 documents responsive to the Judicial Watch request with large blocks of information redacted. The documents also include phone conservations between Clinton and other foreign dignitaries and heads of state during the period of the deadly terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate.

At 10:08 p.m. on September 11, Mrs. Clinton issued an official State Department press statement, approved by the White House, placing the blame for the attack on an Internet video:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

Yet the next day, in her 7:49 PM September 12 conversation with Kandil, Clinton said, “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack – not a protest.” Kandil responded, “You’re not kidding. Based on the information we saw today we believe that group that claimed responsibility for this is affiliated with al-Qaeda.”

On September 15, in a telephone call with then-Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr, Clinton emphatically portrayed the “stupid, very offensive film” as the root cause of the Benghazi violence. Clinton told Amr, “I have repeatedly, as has the President and other officials in our government, deplored not only the content of this stupid, very offensive film… But we have to exercise more self-discipline… otherwise we’ll be in a vicious downward circle against everyone who has ever felt offended, particularly on the internet….”

Clinton’s telephone call with Amr also contained a curious reference to what the former secretary referred to as a “very successful investment visit led by my deputy Tom Nides, and on the very day they left this series of incidents began to unfold.” According to the Washington Post, Nides, who was deputy secretary for management and resources at the State Department, was at the same time responsible for “communications with donors” to the Clinton Foundation. Nides was also involved in the scandal involving Clinton’s efforts to provide special access to State Department officials for hedge fund clients of her son-in-law, Marc Mezinsky.

In a September 12 call with the Afghan President Hamid Kharzi, Clinton says at some point they need to talk about “about religious feelings and insults and defamation.” Islamists seeks to criminalize criticism (“defamation”) of Islam. The Obama administration worked closely with advocates for restrictions on free speech as part of their Benghazi video pr campaign.

The documents also show that Clinton referenced the “actions of a mob” to Tunisian Prime Minister Jebali on September 14. Jebali responded that he condemned “these terrorist actions.”

“There are two scandals here. The first is Hillary Clinton was telling different stories to different foreign leaders about the Benghazi attack – including an admission that it was a terrorist attack,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The second is the State Department’s cover-up of these documents. The State Department is forcing Judicial Watch to play ‘whack-a-mole’ with Clinton and Benghazi documents. It is no wonder that two frustrated federal court judges granted Judicial Watch discovery into the Clinton FOIA issues.”

I provide more analysis in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, which you can watch here.

Bureaucratic bungling or cover-up? What do you think?

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton will appear on "Special Report with Bret Baier" on the Fox News Channel in the 6 pm ET hour Tuesday, April 26, 2016, regarding the Obama State Department's admission that it withheld a key Benghazi email of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from Judicial Watch since at least September 2014. If the State Department had disclosed the email when it was first supposedly found, Clinton's email server and her hidden emails would have been disclosed nearly two years ago, before Clinton authorized the alleged deletion of tens of thousands emails.

 
© 2003 The E-Accountability Foundation