Obama’s Worst Scandal by Andrew McCarthy reveals which
presidential outrage tops them all by Garth Kant
WASHINGTON – For a highly accomplished lawyer, one who
notched significant victories in the war on terror as a federal prosecutor,
Andrew McCarthy can make a compelling case in plain English without resorting
to legalese.
And when it comes to Benghazi, his case against the Obama
administration boils down to this: It is president’s worst scandal because it
was a dereliction of duty, one that led to the deaths of four Americans,
including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.
McCarthy is not alone in his assessment of the gravity of
the scandal.
On the two-year anniversary of the
Sept. 11, 2012, attack, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the top Republican on the
Senate Armed Services Committee, told
an Oklahoma radio station he believed
the Obama administration’s Benghazi cover-up would become the biggest scandal
in U.S. history.
McCarthy is a New York Times bestselling author, Fox News
analyst, contributing editor at National Review and a former adviser to the
deputy secretary of defense. As chief assistant U.S. attorney in New York, he
successfully prosecuted the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center
bombing.
He put the case against the administration’s handling of
Benghazi in terms that are clear and simple but also comprehensive, and in a
way the jury in the court of public opinion may find compelling.
He told WND, “To me, the most offensive of the president’s
derelictions involves Benghazi,” which, he said, goes back to the war on Libya
when, “the president really initiated, unprovoked, a war on a regime that was
then being represented by our government as a key American counter-terrorism
ally.”
That error was compounded, McCarthy stated, because the
administration “switched sides” in a way that inevitably empowered the jihadis
in Eastern Libya, about whom Gadhafi was actually giving the U.S. intelligence.
“They follow up that with a really shocking failure to
provide security for Americans who, for some reason, still not explained, are
assigned to Benghazi, which is one of the most dangerous places on the planet
for Americans,” he observed.
Following that, McCarthy noted, as the jihadis continued to
hit Western targets and other countries removed their diplomatic personnel, “we
not only leave our people in, but we reduce security. That, inevitably, leads
to the September 11, 2012, attack, which is an act of war in which our
ambassador is killed. ”
“The enemy, who we are at war with already, attacks an
American installation and the administration responds to that with this
ridiculous story about how it was generated by an anti-Muslim video under
circumstances where it’s clear that they knew it was a terrorist attack.”
Inhofe emphatically drove that point
home, saying four key members of the administration – former Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta, CIA Director John Brennan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Martin Dempsey and National Intelligence Director James Clapper –
had
said the proof that the attack on the consulate was a planned, terrorist
operation was “unequivocal.”
“All four of them
used the word ‘unequivocal,’” the senator insisted. “It was unequivocal, on
that day we knew that it was an organized, terrorist attack.”
“The president,” insisted the senator, “had all of that
knowledge and deliberately lied to the American people for one reason: It was
right before his re-election. He wanted the American people to think there was
not organized activity in the Middle East.”
“So I’m glad that they’re finally having the hearings,” he
said, referring to the Select Committee on Benghazi chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy,
R-S.C., due to begin Wednesday.
WND asked McCarthy if a dereliction of duty that caused the
loss of life would be considered an impeachable offense.
“Yes, dereliction of duty is one of the more profound
impeachable offenses,” he succinctly replied.
The former federal prosecutor used both his legal acumen and
knowledge of history to explain why that was the case.
“There’s a common misconception that ‘high crimes and
misdemeanors’ means criminal offenses like we find in the penal code, like I
used to have to try to enforce when I was a federal prosecutor,” he said.
“But, what the framers meant by high crimes and
misdemeanors, which was a British term of art, was gross maladministration of
the government. And it entails not only things which would be indictable
offenses, but a broad range of things.
“It’s actually much more like military justice concept where
dereliction of duty, failure to follow an oath, and the like, are pretty
straight-forward impeachable offenses. I think it’s unfortunate that people
think a president has to be indictable before he is removable.”
McCarthy detailed that contention in
his recent book, “Faithless
Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.”
In an interview last week, he told WND there is no question
about Obama’ lawlessness. But, as he outlines in the book, it is not feasible
to impeach the president without public support.
That public support might grow with an increasing stream of
new revelations about Benghazi, as, even two years after the attack, evidence
is quickly mounting to support McCarthy’s assertion there was a dereliction of
duty.
Just last week, three survivors of
the Benghazi attack, members of a security team at the secret CIA annex, told Fox
News a top CIA official prevented them
from responding to the attack at the compound, a mile away, even though they
were getting calls from State Department employees begging for help.
Thirty minutes later, the team defied orders and went to the
compound, but it was too late.
They believed the delay cost the lives of Ambassador Stevens
and U.S. Foreign Service officer Sean Smith.
The team members said they also requested air support, but
it never arrived.
Additionally, the government
watchdog group Judicial
Watch has just revealed it has obtained documents it said show the State Department was warned nearly three
months before the attack the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi was not only
unsafe, it was likely a death trap.
Using a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, lawsuit to
obtain the documents, Judicial Watch said it found top State Department
officials were explicitly warned that security guards were abandoning their
posts “out of fear of their safety.”
Furthermore, the groups said the documents also warned that
an explosion outside the compound wall had “created a fear factor when it came
to working the night shift.”
The documents showed Department of State Contract Specialist
Neal Kern was warned that the number of local security guards leaving their
posts had put the U.S. Benghazi Mission at risk.
Judicial Watch noted that two months before the attack
Ambassador Stevens himself requested more help but the request was refused by
both the Departments of State and Defense.
The group also pointed out how Chris
Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, told
the Wall
Street Journal almost two years ago how security
personnel had dropped from 30 in July 2012 to only 11 diplomatic security
agents under Steven’s authority on the night of the attack.
Judicial Watch also said “additional emails confirmed that
in the months leading up to the terrorist attack, State Department officials
were repeatedly informed of the Benghazi security staffing problems.”
It also found “the State Department’s local militia
‘security’ feared for their own safety and wouldn’t even show up to provide
necessary protection.”
Accusations of State Department
responsibility for the deaths at Benghazi, and dereliction of duty on the part
of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were detailed last week with the
release of investigative journalist Aaron Klein’s new work from WND Books, “The
REAL Benghazi Story: What the White House Doesn’t Want You to Know.”
Klein said Clinton misled the public about her role in
helping to secure the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi and may have even
deceived lawmakers during her public testimony probing the attacks.
The author asked: “[By signing the waivers,] did Clinton
know she was approving a woefully unprotected compound? If not then at the very
least she is guilty of dereliction of duty and the diplomatic equivalent of
criminal negligence.”
Also said to be revealed in the book:
- Clinton, together with then-CIA Director David H. Petraeus, were the architects of a plan to arm the Libyan and Syrian rebels.
- Public sources in a systematic connect-the-dots exercise indicate both the U.S. mission and the nearby CIA annex in Benghazi were involved in coordinating U.S. aid transfers to rebels in the Middle East, with particular emphasis on shipping weapons to jihadis fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
- The compound itself was deliberately set up with minimal security so as not to attract attention to what the author reports were secretive activities taking place inside the mission, activities for which Clinton herself was a central player.
- Clinton’s claim that the intelligence community believed the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video” is called into question by numerous revelations.
- Clinton placed the blame for the controversial talking points squarely with the CIA without mentioning the State Department contributed to the manufacturing of the points.
- Clinton wrongly wrote that the closest U.S. Special Forces that could have responded to the attacks were “standing by in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, but they would take several hours to muster and were more than five thousand miles away.”
- Klein notes it has been confirmed Special Forces known as C-110, or the EUCOM CIF, were on a training mission in Croatia the night of the attack. The distance between Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, and Benghazi is about 925 miles. The C-110 is a rapid-response team that exists for emergencies like terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies abroad.
- Clinton’s assertion “no one in the State Department, the intelligence community, any other agency, ever recommended that we close Benghazi. We were clear-eyed about the threats and the dangers as they were developing in eastern Libya and in Benghazi” was contradicted by her top deputies, including officials known to be close to her who were responsible for some major denials of security at the compound, such as Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, who cancelled the use in Tripoli of a DC-3 aircraft that could have aided in the evacuation of the Benghazi victims.
- Kennedy also denied permission to build guard towers at the Benghazi mission and approved the withdrawal of a security support team, or SST, that special U.S. forces specifically maintained for counter-attacks on U.S. embassies or threats against diplomatic personnel.
- Clinton’s contention she was not informed of the general nature of security at the Benghazi facility, even though she was known to have taken a particular interest in the compound.
- Clinton reportedly called for the compound to be converted into a permanent mission before a scheduled trip to Libya in December 2012 that eventually was canceled.
- Clinton failed to mention Stevens may have gone to Benghazi for a project that she specifically requested, what Hicks called Clinton’s wish to convert the shanty complex into a permanent mission in a symbol of the new Libya, so she could announce the establishment of a permanent U.S. State Department facility during her planned visit there in December 2012.
Follow Garth Kant @DCgarth
Source: http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/dereliction-of-duty-obamas-worst-scandal/
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