The GOP House Select Committee on Benghazi has interviewed 100 witnesses, spent $7 million of its own funds, and has forced other agencies to spend an additional $13 million. The Defense Department is at its wit\u2019s end and is rightly accusing the committee of making frivolous requests.<\/p>\n

Letters from Gen. Dana Chipman, the committee\u2019s own former chief counsel with 33 years\u2019 military experience, have been now released. In one to former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chipman states: \u201cI think you ordered exactly the right forces to move out and to head toward a position where they could reinforce what was occurring in Benghazi.\u201d Contrary to the right-wing press, there were no orders for those forces to stand down.<\/p>\n

One of the most inflammatory charges made against Hillary Clinton was that she dismissed the Benghazi deaths by saying \u201cWhat difference does it make\u201d? In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (1\/23\/13), the gravity of this loss is clear: \u201cWith 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\u2019d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?\u201d<\/p>\n

There is also the accusation by GOP Rep. Darrell Issa that Clinton had \u201cpersonally signed\u201d a cable requesting reduced security in Benghazi.\u00a0 Fact checkers at the Washington Post<\/i> awarded Issa four Pinocchio\u2019s (a Whopper) for this lie. The fact is that every cable from the State Department has the Secretary\u2019s signature renders its author unidentifiable.<\/p>\n

GOP Sen. Rand Paul charged that Clinton \u201cwas asked repeatedly to provide security in Benghazi on several occasions, including direct cables.\u201d Investigators at Politifact have judged this claim \u201cmostly false.\u201d They state that \u201cno one has shown Clinton willfully ignored the cries for help from Libya. Paul\u2019s office didn\u2019t provide evidence linking requests for security directly to Clinton.\u201d All cables to the State Department cables are addressed to \u201cSECSTATE\u201d in \u201cWASHDC,\u201d but only a select few ever reach the secretary.<\/p>\n

On the October 15, 2012, Fox New\u2019s Sean Hannity claimed that \u201csomebody at the State Department was watching the attack in real time\u201d via video, and therefore should have known exactly what was happening.<\/p>\n

First, there was of course no live video feed from Libya to any government office; and second, Hannity may have misunderstood Charles Lamb\u2019s testimony that Clinton was in telephone contact with state department officials in Libya as if it were \u201calmost in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s critics apparently did not realize that this claim of real time contact contradicts their accusation that Clinton and Obama were \u201cunaccounted for\u201d during and after the attack. Not only was Clinton in constant telephone contact with the deputy chief of mission in Libya, but she was also speaking directly with national security advisor Tom Donilon, President Obama, and other administration officials.<\/p>\n

With regard to the cause of the attack, UN Ambassador Susan Rice has been rightly criticized for blaming it on an anti-Islamic video that caused protests in Egypt but not Benghazi. From the very beginning, however, Clinton was sure it was a terrorist attack.<\/p>\n

On the day after the attack, September 12, 2012, she called the Egyptian prime minister stating that \u201cwe know it had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack\u2014not a protest.\u201d On September 21, 2012, Clinton declared: \u201cWhat happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and we will not rest until we have tracked down and brought to justice the terrorists who murdered four Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics have charged that at a ceremony honoring the Benghazi victims, Clinton told their family members that the video caused the attack. But Jan Stevens, father of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Cheryl Bennet, Tyrone Wood\u2019s mother, and Barbara Doherty, Glen Doherty\u2019s mother, each said that Clinton did not mention the video in conversations with them. Only Charles Wood, Tyrone Wood\u2019s father, recalled that Clinton referred to the video.<\/p>\n

Allegations that Clinton ordered the \u201cscrubbing\u201d of Benghazi documents, that she blocked a whistle blower from coming forward, that she was silent about Benghazi attack for weeks, and that she did not take responsibility for the attacks have all been found to be false.<\/p>\n

When she was Secretary of State Clinton\u2019s approval ratings were 70 percent, but the fact that they are now at 45 percent is primarily due to this dark cloud of lies hanging over her head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The GOP House Select Committee on Benghazi has interviewed 100 witnesses, spent $7 million of its own funds, and has forced other agencies to spend an additional $13 million. The Defense Department is at its wit\u2019s end and is rightly…<\/p>\n