Obama administration officials threatened whistle-blowers on Benghazi, lawyer says

[Team Sergeant]

I'm Shocked I tell you, just shocked!!!!!!!! Why don't we just hand Barry the U.S. Constitution and let him rip it up and wipe his ass with it. America the Stupid.




Obama administration officials threatened whistle-blowers on Benghazi, lawyer says.

By James RosenPublished April 29, 2013FoxNews.com

At least four career officials at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have retained lawyers or are in the process of doing so, as they prepare to provide sensitive information about the Benghazi attacks to Congress, Fox News has learned.
Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and Republican counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now representing one of the State Department employees. She told Fox News her client and some of the others, who consider themselves whistle-blowers, have been threatened by unnamed Obama administration officials.
“I'm not talking generally, I'm talking specifically about Benghazi – that people have been threatened,” Toensing said in an interview Monday. “And not just the State Department. People have been threatened at the CIA.”
Toensing declined to name her client. She also refused to say whether the individual was on the ground in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, when terrorist attacks on two U.S. installations in the Libyan city killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.
However, Toensing disclosed that her client has pertinent information on all three time periods investigators consider relevant to the attacks: the months that led up to the attack, when pleas by the ambassador and his staff for enhanced security in Benghazi were mostly rejected by senior officers at the State Department; the eight-hour time frame in which the attacks unfolded, and the eight-day period that followed the attacks, when Obama administration officials incorrectly described them as the result of a spontaneous protest over a video.
“It's frightening, and they're doing some very despicable threats to people,” she said. “Not ‘we're going to kill you,’ or not ‘we're going to prosecute you tomorrow,’ but they're taking career people and making them well aware that their careers will be over [if they cooperate with congressional investigators].”
Federal law provides explicit protections for federal government employees who are identified as “whistle-blowers.” The laws aim to ensure these individuals will not face repercussions from their superiors, or from other quarters, in retaliation for their provision of information about corruption or other forms of wrongdoing to Congress, or to an agency’s inspector-general.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...#ixzz2RtpQv854

[tonyz]

Source: Military Forces Could Have Responded to Benghazi Attack in Time

Fox
Adam Housley
April 29, 2013

"Because the special operator in the video above is fearful of reprisal, his identity was concealed. The man, who watched the events unfold and has debriefed those who were part of the response, told Fox News’ Adam Housley that the C110 special forces group “was doing a training exercise not in the region of Northern Africa but in Europe. And they had the ability to react and respond.”

http://nation.foxnews.com/benghazi-a...zi-attack-time

http://video.foxnews.com/v/233853455...d-in-benghazi/

<snip>

[SF18C]

This is total HORSE SHIT!

Whose got money on the "What difference does it make" Bitch running for president in 2016!

[Stobey]

I saw that video as well. I certainly understand his apprehension, with what we have in the WH and at the top of the CIA. There is no doubt whatsoever that this was a betrayal, not just of the people at the "mission" property; but specifically of Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty - who saved those people from being killed or taken as hostages by the muzzies (with all that that entails - think Beslan, on a smaller scale of course).

I would very much like for the truth about Benghazi to come out. From what I was able to ascertain, roadblocks were going up in the streets around the "mission" property long before the attack. Stevens was supposedly meeting w/a Turkish minister just before the attack. That Turkish minister had been allowed to pass through the roadblocks w/no problem. Then all hell broke loose.

And why, after this fiasco, did Gen. Ham find it necessary to "retire"? Something really stinks here. And a number of people have the blood of Stevens, his aide and Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty on their hands. Guess that's what happens when you have "security" provided by Ansar al-Sharia.

[Box]

...and somehow, 51 percent of the American voting public finds all of this circus-like behavior perfectly acceptable

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

...and somehow, 51 percent of the American voting public finds all of this circus-like behavior perfectly acceptable

Coincidentally, that's same percentage who are devoted Honey Boo Boo fans.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by Dusty

Coincidentally, that's same percentage who are devoted Honey Boo Boo fans.

Damn, and my day was going so well 'til I read that, Bro. I can't believe that shit is even aired. Isn't there a rating system for Stupid, Really Stupid, and F'n Obnoxiously Stupid? Aaargh!

[steel_eel]

The Prez "hadn't heard" of these threats and he will "look into it"...

[Dusty]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013...ors-testimony/

President Obama said he is unaware of longstanding efforts by Republican lawmakers to question survivors of the Benghazi attacks but pledged to investigate it.

“I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody has been blocked from testifying,” the president said during a White House news conference on Tuesday. “So what I’ll do is I will find out what exactly you’re referring to.”

Obama’s pledge to find out more came as officials at the State Department pushed back against allegations -- first aired Monday on Fox News -- that career employees at the agency have been threatened if they furnish new information about the Benghazi attacks to members of Congress.

“The State Department is deeply committed to meeting its obligation to protect employees, and the State Department would never tolerate -- tolerate or sanction -- retaliation against whistle-blowers on any issue, including this one,” spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday. “That’s an obligation we take very seriously -- full stop.” (New catchy buzzphraze.)

Four Americans, including U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, were killed in terrorist attacks on U.S. installations in the port city of Benghazi, Libya on the night of Sept. 11, 2012. While the FBI investigation into the attacks continues, no known instances of any perpetrators being brought to justice have yet been reported.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will hold the first in a new round of hearings on the subject on May 8.

In two letters to the State Department, dated April 16 and April 26, Issa has sought explicit guidance on how attorneys representing witnesses with knowledge of the Benghazi attacks, including their prelude and aftermath, can receive the security clearances necessary to review classified materials.

“Attorneys representing Department personnel in this matter will require clearance to possess and discuss Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information,” Issa wrote on April 16 to Mary McLeod, the principal deputy legal adviser to the State Department.

But Ventrell insisted Tuesday that no such whistle-blowers have come forward, and no requests for security clearances have been made by private attorneys.

Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and onetime Republican counsel to the Senate intelligence committee, disclosed on Monday that she is representing a career State Department official who identifies himself as a whistle-blower. Toensing said this individual has been threatened by superiors with career-ending reprisals if he cooperates with the oversight committee.

“[The State Department has] had two letters from Chairman Issa, one on April 16th, the other one April 26th, that specifically say, ‘We want you to provide a process for clearing a lawyer to receive classified information,’” Toensing said during an interview Tuesday on “America’s Newsroom” with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum. “How can they possibly get up there and just lie to the press corps?”
Snip

[Stargazer]

Whistle-blower on camera states that Special Operations put out the call for help multiple times and no response?!?!!

[Box]

Who can tell for sure. I think Jay Carney hit the nail on the head...
“Benghazi happened a long time ago.”

...besides, the SECDEF and DCIA have both been replaced. What more can we ask for!

[Detonics]

This may prove to be interesting if verified. I mean even Al Gore said he'd "fire anyone who lied to the American public."

"As intelligence officials pieced together the puzzle of events unfolding in Libya, they concluded even before the assaults had ended that al Qaeda-linked terrorists were involved. Senior administration officials, however, sought to obscure the emerging picture and downplay the significance of attacks that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

The frantic process that produced the changes to the talking points took place over a 24-hour period just one day before Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her now-famous appearances on the Sunday television talk shows. The discussions involved senior officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House."

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articl...ts_720543.html

I'm going to wait and see if this is accurate info and if so, start ringing some phones off the hook for an Independent Counsel inquiry.

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Detonics

The frantic process that produced the changes to the talking points took place over a 24-hour period just one day before Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her now-famous appearances on the Sunday television talk shows. The discussions involved senior officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House."

[

Reminds me of Watergate, difference being the perspective of the press.

[Badger52]

Originally Posted by Dusty

But Ventrell insisted Tuesday that no such whistle-blowers have come forward, and no requests for security clearances have been made by private attorneys.

From the story:
Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be three career State Department officials: Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for Operations in the agency’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the regional security officer in Libya, the top security officer in the country in the months leading up to the attacks.

Full story here.

For what it's worth having seen a fair portion of the email trail back & forth from much-maligned Eric Nordstrom to the mother ship this doesn't bode well for the "what does it matter?" crowd. The deputies of mission and CT Opns don't either.

Then again, Congress did such a fine job effecting change with Fast & Furious. Anyone contemplated to be tossed under the bus has probably already left or is packing.

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by Badger52

Then again, Congress did such a fine job effecting change with Fast & Furious. Anyone contemplated to be tossed under the bus has probably already left or is packing.

The Teflon's wearing thin.