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not much came out of all that.

Seems to be the mantra from the unbiased experts in here

Actually I did- http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/05/09/could-president-obama-be-impeached-over-benghazi


Judge Napolitano does say he doubts it will happen tho... but he thinks he's guilty and will prolly kick his ass if he sees him alone...

To Prosecute Bush would require Nacy Pelosi and Harry Reid and all Congress to be prosecuted and that would be unacceptible but i am all for Going after Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in Effigy , oh and Clinton for that Bosnia debacle..

I love Reagan but he did sort if sell arms to the eye a tolla, send the money to the contras and lie about it all. I think some folks may have even gotten in trouble for it.

Good job brownie

Benghazi memos reportedly revised 12 times, official 'concerned' they would hurt State


New details about the Obama administration's initial story-line on the Benghazi attack are raising additional questions about top-level efforts to downplay terrorism, with one report showing a State Department official pushed to delete a section that could have been used to "beat up" her department.

The fresh reports have surfaced two days after three whistle-blowers testified on Capitol Hill about the Benghazi attack. One of them sharply challenged the administration's decision to describe the attack out of the gate as a protest gone wrong.

ABC News reported Friday that, despite administration claims that the flawed description reflected the best intelligence at the time, the talking points that led to the statement were revised 12 times.

Initial versions, as has been previously reported, contained references to Al Qaeda that were later deleted. But the latest excerpts show how State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland pressed the CIA to scrub references to the agency's prior security warnings.

According to ABC News, the original paragraph read:

"The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks."

But Nuland wrote that the lines "could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned ..."

The paragraph in question was then reportedly deleted.

The Weekly Standard, which referenced that exchange briefly in a prior account, also reported new details Friday, describing how then-CIA Director David Petraeus voiced surprise when he learned the Saturday after the attack that officials had deleted all prior references to Al Qaeda and jihadists, leaving only the word "extremists."

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice would use the final version of the talking points to say on several Sunday shows that the attack was triggered by protests over an anti-Islam film.

While administration officials and congressional Democrats have described the protracted debate over the talking points as politically motivated and inconsequential, the testimony this week drew new attention to it.

Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, said Rice's comments actually hurt the FBI investigation by insulting the Libyan president -- who gave a conflicting account at the time by saying the attack was premeditated.

Hicks said the anti-Islam film was actually a "nonevent" in Libya, and his "jaw dropped" when he heard Rice's comments.

ABC News reported that the CIA's first drafts did say the attack appeared to be "spontaneously inspired" by the protests at the embassy in Cairo. However, the early versions also said "we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

The State Department and White House have continued to defend their actions and intervention in light of the new details.

After it was first revealed that references to security concerns -- in addition to references to Al Qaeda -- were removed, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said: "What we said and what remains true to this day is that the intelligence community drafted and redrafted these points."

He defended administration claims that the faulty statements were merely the product of incomplete intelligence in a rapidly changing environment. Despite the excerpts, he stood by claims that White House involvement was minimal.

"The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this. But the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and non-substantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from 'consulate' to 'diplomatic facility' and the like," he said.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell also said Rice's comments were based on the intelligence community's "best assessment that there was not any evidence of months-long pre-planning or pre-meditation, which remains their assessment."


Film at 11....

Guess nothing has changed, fuggin Dem's!

Just saying!

Big ears and Hagatha need to be held responsible.

This makes me think back about all the **** Condi Rice took.


Who do you believe anymore.

WTF does that even mean or say ?

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is issuing a subpoena for Secretary of State John Kerry to testify before the committee May 21 about Benghazi, Issa announced Friday.

The move comes in the wake of new, "smoking gun" emails that show top White House officials working to craft a narrative that the attack was the result of a YouTube video and "not a broader failure of policy."

Republicans have expressed outrage that the documents were not provided earlier under subpoenas for them, but instead came out via a Freedom Of Information Request lawsuit by the conservative non-profit group Judicial Watch.

“Compliance with a subpoena for documents is not a game. Because your Department is failing to meet its legal obligations, I am issuing a new subpoena to compel you to appear before the Committee to answer questions about your agency’s response to the congressional investigation of the Benghazi attack," Issa said in a May 2 letter to Kerry.

On Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner called on Kerry to testify before the House to explain why the documents weren't provided earlier.

“The House used its subpoena power to obtain documents, including emails, last year, but these emails didn’t show up until now, after a court ordered their release to an outside watchdog group,” Boehner said.

“This defiance of the House’s subpoena power is the most flagrant example yet of the administration's contempt for the American people’s right to know the truth about what happened when four Americans died in a fiery terrorist attack. If the White House won’t explain it, Secretary Kerry should come to the Capitol to explain why he defied an official congressional subpoena. And the White House needs to understand that this investigation will not end until the entire truth is revealed and justice and accountability are served,” Boehner added.

“The email from Ben Rhodes demonstrates the Obama administration from the beginning misled Congress, the media and most importantly, the American people,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor said on Wednesday. “It is increasingly clear that this administration orchestrated an effort to deflect attention away from their failed Libya policy and the resurgence of Al Qaeda and other terrorists.”


WASHINGTON – Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., announced the issuance of a subpoena for testimony to Secretary of State John Kerry. The subpoena requires Secretary Kerry to appear before the Committee to answer questions at a public hearing on May 21, 2014.



“The State Department’s response to the congressional investigation of the Benghazi attack has shown a disturbing disregard for the Department’s legal obligations to Congress,” Chairman Issa writes in a letter to Secretary Kerry accompanying the subpoena. “Compliance with a subpoena for documents is not a game. Because your Department is failing to meet its legal obligations, I am issuing a new subpoena to compel you to appear before the Committee to answer questions about your agency’s response to the congressional investigation of the Benghazi attack.”



On April 17, 2014, the State Department sent a letter informing the Committee that it was producing previously unreleased e-mails subject to prior requests and subpoenas. These e-mails show that White House official Ben Rhodes coordinated talking points for then-Ambassador Susan Rice which encouraged an emphasis that the attack was “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.”



“The fact that these documents were withheld from Congress for more than 19 months is alarming,” wrote Chairman Issa. “The Department is not entitled to delay responsive materials because it is embarrassing or implicates the roles and actions of senior officials.”



Yesterday, retired USAF Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell, who was in the operations control room in Germany on the night of the attacks, testified that the State Department never asked military forces to go save Americans in Benghazi during the attack.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/02/Issa-Subpoenas-Kerry

“Dude, this was like two years ago.”

"What does it matter?"

So much for "From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli", eh?

With any luck they'll get their commission with Gowdy @ the head and mebbe finally get some answers and heads rolled

Just to balance things...

(CNN) -- What happened in Benghazi, Libya, was a tragedy -- not a scandal. And no amount of Republican witch hunting or wishful thinking will make it otherwise.

Now a new e-mail "reveals" what was already plainly known, that the White House participated in crafting talking points in the aftermath of attacks in Libya and around the globe. Republicans claim the White House "politicized" the talking points. The irony, of course, is that Republicans have been desperate to politicize Benghazi from day one. Fueled by the relentless conservative message machine, it can be hard to have a reasonable discussion about Benghazi, one that relies on facts. So let's try to have that conversation here.

What exactly are the Republican accusations regarding Benghazi?

The main Republican critique appears to be that the White House and State Department politicized talking points given to U.N Ambassador Susan Rice, who spoke about the attacks on American TV five days later. Republicans argue the White House deliberately downplayed the involvement of al Qaeda and played up the spontaneous nature of the protests as a reaction to an anti-Islam video, to avoid tarnishing President Obama's national security record in advance of the 2012 presidential election. This, despite the fact that the White House talking points matched those produced by the CIA.

Republicans also have criticized the Obama administration for not responding to the attacks more aggressively when they happened, though a bipartisan Senate investigation found that military resources simply weren't in position to help. Similarly, Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican most aggressively pressing Benghazi accusations, says he has "suspicions" that Hillary Clinton gave "stand down" orders to stop military resources from deploying to Benghazi even though a Republican report to the Armed Services Committee says that no such "stand down" order was issued.

In addition, Republicans have criticized the Obama administration for not doing more to prevent the attacks, such as beefing up consular security. Yet it was the same House Republicans who initially denied the Obama administration's request for additional embassy security funding.


What do we believe actually happened that night in Benghazi?


The answer to that question depends on when you're asking it. We know that the killing of four Americans on September 11, 2012, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, was in part the result of pre-coordinated terrorist activity. According to an extensive investigation by The New York Times, "The attack does not appear to have been meticulously planned, but neither was it spontaneous or without warning signs." The Times also reports that the attack was "fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam."


But in critiquing the Obama administration's comments in 2012 in the moments during and after the Benghazi attack, what would seem more relevant is what the White House and intelligence community reasonably believed was happening.

After all, at the same time as the unrest in Benghazi, violent outbursts very clearly in reaction to the anti-Islam video were going on in Egypt, Yemen and Sudan. The night of the Benghazi attacks, Al Jazeera reported they appeared to be spontaneous protests against the anti-Islam film.

Of course we don't know the classified intelligence, but it would not seem preposterous to believe what was happening in Benghazi was more spontaneous protests rather than pre-planned terrorism. And even if affiliates of al Qaeda were suspected to be involved, it's not surprising that the intelligence community would not want to show its hand amid active efforts to track and capture those responsible. It was the CIA that removed the reference to al Qaeda, according to e-mails released to CNN by the White House.


Here is what Susan Rice said, four days later, that in retrospect seems so wildly misleading to conservatives:

"Our current best assessment based on the information that we have at present is that, in fact, what this began as 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.

"We believe that folks in Benghazi, a small number of people, came to the embassy to—or to the consulate, rather—to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then, as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that, as you know, in the wake of the revolution in Libya, are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there."

That seems not only responsibly cautious in the wake of a complicated and still-unfolding national tragedy, but strikingly accurate.

But the talking points were edited! For political motivations!

That's what talking points are, they are the way political figures on both sides of the aisle attempt to tell the facts in the most favorable light. That said, the CIA gave both parties in Congress the same "talking points" it prepared for Rice. And, as noted, there are plausible national security reasons for not wanting to show our entire intelligence hand amid an active investigation.

This responsible caution stands in direct contrast, for instance, to the Bush administration deliberately distorting not only talking points but also actual intelligence reports for political purposes to justify the war in Iraq. Or consider that just hours after the Benghazi killings, even before the White House had made a statement, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney condemned the Obama administration's response. Those talking points were definitely political.

The talking points not only seem consistent with events on the ground at the time but with what we now know, per The New York Times and several congressional reports. Yet that hasn't stopped Sen. John McCain from suggesting that editing talking points amounted to a "cover-up" and Rep. Eric Cantor from saying the White House "misled" the American public.

Can't we have an honest, open investigation and settle this once and for all?

We have. Several times. And then some. So far, Politico reports, Republican congressional investigations on Benghazi have included "13 hearings, 25,000 pages of documents and 50 briefings." In a letter written in March 2014 responding to a request for information from a ranking Democrat in the House Armed Services Committee, the Pentagon notes:

"The department has devoted thousands of man-hours to responding to numerous and often repetitive congressional requests regarding Benghazi, which includes time devoted to approximately 50 congressional hearings, briefings and interviews which the department has led or participated in. The total cost of compliance with Benghazi-related congressional requests sent to the department and other agencies is estimated to be in the millions of dollars."

A bipartisan report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence determined that "there were no efforts by the White House or any other executive branch entities to 'cover-up' facts or make alterations for political purposes." The report did say the attack could have been prevented and blamed the State Department, military and U.S. intelligence community for failing to do so.

What difference does it make?

Great question. And one taken from a quote by Hillary Clinton, made during her testimony on Benghazi to the House Oversight Committee. Conservatives use the line to suggest that Clinton is callous toward the loss of life in Benghazi. No. Here's the full context:

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin: "No, again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests and that something sprang out of that -- an assault sprang out of that -- and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact, and the American people could have known that within days and they didn't know that."

Clinton: "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.

"Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. ... But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backward as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we'll figure out what was going on in the meantime."

"I take responsibility," Clinton said four days after the Benghazi attacks, before Susan Rice ever said a word. "I do feel responsible," Clinton reiterated at the hearings in January 2013. When things went wrong in Benghazi, the Obama administration took responsibility.

But when Republicans have the facts wrong on Benghazi, they don't do the responsible thing and drop it. They keep pursuing their partisan witch hunt, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars desperate to smear Obama and 2016 presidential front-runner Clinton with anything that will stick.

The facts on Benghazi simply do not undercut the Obama administration, but that won't stop Republicans from digging for mud.

meh. just presenting another view. This subject reminds me of the birther garbage. Something's gotta stick at some point.

wow... just wow...

Eat mor chikin!

I would have thought one of the 2,597 investigations by congress would have had that intel and drawn those conclusions. Maybe I expect too much. By the way most spaghetti thrown at the wall has been debunked, including some words from a General lately. But it's all ignored. Something must be there.

I see where you missed it TW.
Z has info which congress wasn't given. He's in the loop like that. ;)

This benghazi thing is starting to feel like the birthers all over again.
I'm glad we don't trust our legislators blindly... they are idiots and really unworthy of leading this country. But really, we've heard the republican's best shots at making this into an actual scandal so many times...