Posted on 01/01/2014 7:25:48 PM PST by xzins
WASHINGTON—The mother of a victim in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack blasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with WORLD, saying a recent article in The New York Times is only trying to protect Clinton’s 2016 presidential aspirations.
“They’re just covering up for Hillary,” Pat Smith, mother of slain foreign-service officer Sean Smith, told me by phone. “Hillary killed my son. … As far as I can tell from all my sources, she was responsible—directly.”
Lawmakers, media outlets, and analysts have all criticized a front-page story in Saturday’s edition of The New York Times, in which reporter David Kirkpatrick, after “months of investigation,” concluded neither al-Qaeda nor other international terrorist groups were involved in the 9/11 anniversary attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Kirkpatrick, whose story is part of his forthcoming book, also wrote that “contrary to claims by some members of Congress, [the attack] was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.”
Smith told me that conclusion doesn’t jive with reports from her sources, many of whom have reached out to give her information since she testified before Congress in September. She said she’s “very upset” about the Times article, which doesn’t mention Clinton and offers no explanation for why security was porous or why reinforcements were told not to go help during the all-night attack.
“All the [U.S. Navy] SEALs and everybody I’ve talked to recently, they say they would never, ever, ever leave someone to be sacrificed. And that’s what happened—they were sacrificed,” she said.
The Times story contradicted the sworn testimony of Gregory Hicks, then the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, who in May told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the YouTube video was a non-event for Libyans. Hicks—who spoke by phone with Stevens during the attack, the last known conversation the ambassador had—said he talked with Clinton at 2 a.m. local time, and the video was never discussed as even a possible reason for the attack. Hicks said he was stunned when he heard the administration blaming the film: “My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed.”
According to Victoria Toensing, Hicks’ legal counsel, Kirkpatrick made no attempt to talk to Hicks for his article or the book. “It’s obvious he didn’t want to talk to my client,” she told me. “It’s inexplicable to me why he did not call.”
Kirkpatrick built his story mostly on sources, including numerous anonymous ones, from Benghazi, which Toensing said was like going to Japan during World War II to ask if they attacked at Pearl Harbor. “The story is based on proving a negative,” she said. “I was shocked that The New York Times published something so unsophisticated.”
The story says al-Qaeda had been unable to establish a foothold in Libya, a claim that runs counter to the U.S. government’s findings a month before the attack. An August 2012 Library of Congress report said al-Qaeda “has established a core network in Libya,” though it “remains clandestine and refrains from using the al-Qaeda name.” It said Ansar al-Sharia, the group that immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, “has increasingly embodied al-Qaeda’s presence in Libya.”
Kirkpatrick acknowledged Ansar al-Sharia’s role in the attack but found “no evidence” to suggest a “direct role” for al-Qaeda. Kirkpatrick contended only local extremists, led by an “eccentric” militia leader named Ahmed Abu Khattala, carried out the assault.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of that committee, both told Fox News the Times story was misleading. Rogers said the FBI is targeting people with “strong al-Qaeda ties” in connection with the attack, and Schiff said, “The intelligence indicates al-Qaeda was involved.”
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the Times story largely tracks with what the State Department believes happened in Benghazi, though the investigation is still ongoing. When asked if she agreed that al-Qaeda played no role, she chose her words carefully, saying no “core al-Qaeda” members directed or planned the attack, but “extremists were involved. … These were clearly terrorists.”
Clare Lopez, a former CIA officer who is part of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, said it would be very easy to identify what kind of attack took place if the administration would release the surveillance.
“They’ve got a lot of camera footage, and they’re not releasing it,” she told me. “They knew who broke through, when they broke through, and what weapons they were carrying.”
Throughout the Middle East this administration has taken the side of the islamo-fascists...even against Israel.
It only makes sense that they were funneling them weapons.
What’s curious to me is that it appears there’s some kind of cell within our intel/spec ops communities that was trying to recover those weapons and deny them to the enemy.
It makes me wonder if there’s a black ops clandestine war going on between our socialists and our patriots.
First, we need a Senate that will impeach. A House impeachment is nothing more than an indictment.
That is why the Dems are scared to death of Nov 2014 and the damage done by Obamacare.
Thanks for the ping.
“...not the same thing as picking up an AK47 ....”
Actually - Hillary committed formal cooperation so is culpable for the deaths. Formal cooperation is the willing participation on the part of the cooperative agent in the sinful act of the principal agent.
Hillary is as culpable as if she held the gun (and she knows it -just look at her)
can you add me to the ping
“...Dems scared to death...”
I wish. The dems are not scared in the least becaue the plan is working. On topic - the next day 9/12 that Hillary got away with her coverup by blaming the “video” was the day it became clear that the tipping point had been breached.
I not only can, but I have. Welcome.
“...Hillary needs to toss Obama under the bus...”
She won’t. The Clintons could theoretically; However Clinton knows that Obama gave the stand down.
Obama gave the stand down and she covered it up. They are BOTH in it to the point that if one gives the other away they are exposed themselves.
Corruption - stinking bloated corruption.
She didn’t willingly cooperate with the mob of terrorists, though. She might have had a business relationship with them, mistakenly (?) giving them anti-aircraft missiles that Stevens was trying to buy back when they killed him.
But she did not have a cooperative relationship with them in which she actively helped and encouraged them kill an ambassador and three marines. She passively allowed them to do so by not beefing up security and by sending him on a fool’s errand to fix her unbelievably stupid mistake, but that doesn’t make her an accomplice.
Was President Grant an accomplice in the killing of Custer by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse? He also didn’t send a relief column. He also sent Custer’s single cavalry regiment into harm’s way on a fool’s errand, to subdue the Sioux and Cheyenne, who were united against them.
If hitlery was put in jail for Vince Foster’s murder, then this lady’s son would probably be alive today.
Argo was released August 31, 2012.
Hillary! finally got that dreaded “3 a.m.” phone call....and rolled over and went back to sleep.
All I know is what’s in the public eye, that what information is in the public eye doesn’t constitute murder, and that bereaved mothers do not necessarily use the same logic that is in circulation in courtrooms. If she has back-channel information that refutes that assumption, fine. Let’s see it and then we’ll judge.
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I touched on that community, and I guarantee that she has back channel information. In fact, in this article she says “my sources”.
There are so many who have been refused permission to testify. For many of them, logic would indicate they are willing to testify so they had to be prevented from doing so. For others, they probably don’t want to testify, so the refusal of permission is a protection for them.
People talk. People traverse those communities by simple paperwork changes. They bump into each other. They have a coffee together.
True. But I can’t draw conclusions based on information that I haven’t seen.
You can draw a conclusion if you believe this mother who says her son was murdered and that Hillary is involved.
You have these two people and you have your gut. You know the character of Hillary, and you have the character of this son, raised by this mother, who gave his life refusing to desert his fellow Americans in their time of dire need. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, so you have some kind of insight into the character of the mother.
Who will you pick to believe?
A well planned coordinated attack involving a pincer movement supported by pre-adjusted indirect fire by heavy weapons, “is not” a spontaneous operation by average rioters. But the uninformed voter doesn’t know about those things, anymore than they know how to write cursive. Even if Hillary shot our guys at point blank range, the UVs would still elect her.
I can disbelieve the mother not because I believe she is lying, but because she is a bereaved mother who wants somebody to blame, which is understandable, and would need more information than what I have to evaluate the facts.
That does not mean that I believe Hillary’s version, that it was all over a video and she really did try to save those poor men, but just then she fell and hit her head, and it doesn’t make any difference at this point if she’s guilty. She’s lying and she’s covering up, and she’s fallen and hit her head too many times if she says arrogant things like that out loud on TV.
But that does not establish what the truth is. At minimum, she is guilty of letting an ambassador and three servicemen get butchered without lifting a finger to cover up her transfer of shoulder-fired Surface to Air missiles to terrorists in Syria, and that might be what she’s lying to cover up. But it does not follow from that that she was complicit in their murder, other than by a failure to act. It would have been in her interest for Stevens to succeed in repurchasing the missiles she stupidly put in the wrong hands. Him being murdered would not help her cover up that act. So for those reasons, I’m skeptical, and would like to see more info.
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