An arms dealer who had threatened to reveal potantially damaging information about Hillary Clinton's alleged role in arming Islamist militants until federal prosecutors abruptly dropped their case against him Tuesday, told Fox News the case has cost him everything.
Federal prosecutors faced a Wednesday deadline to turn over discovery documents to the legal team of American Marc Turi, who had been charged with selling weapons to Libyan rebels. Late Tuesday, an announcement came that the government was dropping the case, which was set to go to trial on Nov. 8 – the day American voters choose between Clinton and GOP nominee Donald Trump. The move may avert a release of potentially explosive documents.
“I am glad this horrific five-year ordeal is over and I am pleased to be able to move on with my life," Turi told Fox News in a statement. "The American public has the right to know that an injustice was committed against an innocent American."
Turi said his legal team advised him to accept the deal and avoid a trial, but insisted that his actions were in furtherance of his ongoing support of U.S. foreign policy. He said defending himself in a case that has now been dropped has scost him everything.
"The government took away my life, my savings, and my company that I worked so hard to build to serve our nation, and for what?" he said. "I still don’t really know who the unjust actors were who launched this attack against me from the shadows. I just hope that someday there will be someone that will be held accountable."
Last year, in his only extended television interview, Turi provided Fox News with documents and email exchanges he had with high-level members of Congress as well as military, and State Department employees to back up his claim that the Obama administration authorized in 2011, at the height of the Arab Spring, a covert weapons program that spun out of control.
"That's where I came up with this 'zero footprint' Arab supply chain, whereby, our foreign ally supplies another, Arab country," Turi said. In this case, the US would supply conventional weapons to a US ally-Qatar, who would inturn supply them to Libya, as a kind of workaround.
"If you want to limit the exposure to the US government, what you simply do is outsource it to your allies," Turi said, describing the practice. "The partners-the Qataris, and the Emiratis did exactly what they were contracted to do."
Turi told Fox he never supplied any weapons to Qatar, and it was in the hands of the U.S. government and the State Department's Bureau of Political and Military Affairs which was headed by a key Clinton aide, Andrew Shapiro. Shapiro was responsible to oversee the export control process at the State Department.
“They don’t want this stuff to come out because it will look really bad for Obama and Clinton just before the election,” an associate of Turi told Politico, claiming that information sought by Turi’s team would show Clinton’s own role in arming Libyan rebels fighting former strongman Col. Muammar Qaddafi while she was secretary of state.
Fox News, citing federal records, reported last year that documents showed U.S. officials supported Turi’s effort to channel weapons to Libyan rebels while Clinton was secretary of state.
Many of the arms destined for Libyan rebels ultimately fell into the hands of Islamist militants, reportedly including those in Syria.
"When this equipment landed in Libya, half went one way, and the half went the other way," Turi previously told Fox News, emphasizing that poor oversight, allowed individuals hostile to the United States to get arms. "The half that went the other way is the half that ended up in Syria."
Film at 11.... 🤔
Federal prosecutors sure love Hillary... 😟
