Free Republic

There are no Benghazi hearings on the House calendar, but the silence doesn’t mean the investigation is fading away. Rep. Trey Gowdy is launching a special committee to wrangle a probe that’s sprawled across the jurisdictions of multiple headline-hungry committee chairmen. And while the South Carolina Republican isn’t committing to specifics, like whether there will be public hearings with high-profile witnesses like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his methodical approach could help the GOP savor a scandal that has at times looked more like a political sideshow. “No one [has] defended the five-minute questioning [process] as the most calculated...

Ed Klein’s new book, “Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas” has been making waves for its many salacious details — for example Klein’s assertion that there is a deep rift between Michelle Obama and the president such that they slept in separate bedrooms at Martha’s Vineyard (and continue to do so in the White House). However, the broader purpose of the book is to show that there is a heated battle going on — dating back to the brutal primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election cycle — that continues to manifest itself...

Classified info at compound required U.S. Marine protection Did the State Department under Hillary Clinton deliberately refuse to classify what has been described as sensitive information housed at the U.S. special mission in Benghazi? The storage of any officially classified information in the compound would have required the deployment of the U.S. Marine Corps Embassy Security Group for protection. Instead, external security at the facility was provided by unarmed local Libyan guards. Armed members of the Martyrs of the February 17th Brigades served as the official quick-reaction force that worked within the compound. The Brigade is an offshoot of the...

Court documents filed by the U.S. Justice Department in the criminal case against Benghazi attack suspect Ahmed Abu Khatallah provide unprecedented details about the evolution of the assault and further shatter the Obama administration's initial claim that it sprouted from protests over an anti-Islam film. The narrative that the video played a role continues to live on, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying recently that some of the attackers may indeed have been influenced by the online video. But the Justice Department's court filings make clear that at least those spearheading the attack were part of a "conspiracy,"...

What happens when the president who has politicized law-enforcement to a degree unprecedented in American history meets a terrorist responsible for killing Americans he has recklessly failed to protect, decimating his pretensions about “decimating” al-Qaeda? What happens is: You get the most politicized terrorism indictment ever produced by the Justice Department. Behold United States v. Khatallah, Case No. 14 Crim. 141, quietly unsealed in a Washington courtroom last Saturday while the country dozed off into summer-vacation mode. Ahmed Abu Khatallah, of course, is the only suspect apprehended in connection with the Benghazi massacre, a terrorist attack on a still-mysterious U.S....

Editor's note: This column originally appeared in the July issue of Townhall Magazine. Despite President Obama’s promise of an “unprecedented level of openness in government,” the American people have unfortunately become accustomed to a new normal over the past six years: incompetence, scandal, and misconduct. When news breaks about freshly exposed corruption, the reaction of far too many is, “Unbelievable, but I’m not surprised.” Since Obama took office in 2009, we’ve witnessed Operation Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Department of Justice spying on reporters and their families, IRS targeting of conservatives, the HealthCare.gov debacle, the GSA conference scandal, Solyndra, veterans dying...

Believe it or not, it was 10 years ago this month that Barack Obama, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate, introduced himself to America with a speech that shook the Fleet Center in Boston. The main theme of that Democratic convention was the litany of George W. Bush's failures — an unpopular and unending war in Iraq, a faltering image abroad, a stagnating middle class. Obama gave eloquent voice to those frustrations, arguing that all of them could be addressed if only we reunited the electorate. Probably Obama himself would not have guessed then that he would ascend to...

Obama gave this bloodthirsty Libyan jihad murderer the full protection of a US citizen. Ahmed Abu Khatallah was mirandized and has since clamped down and shut up, which was Obama’s objective all along. In the continuing cover-up of the Benghazi jihad murderers and Obama’s feckless and reckless abandonment of our people, Obama’s main objective is to cover up what really happened that night on his watch. This Libyan devout jihadi was read his Miranda rights — which give him the right to remain silent to avoid self-incrimination, a U.S. official told CNN. “I have serious concerns that conducting a rushed...

A legal filing prosecutors submitted in advance of a hearing set in federal court in Washington on Wednesday for Libyan militia leader Ahmed Abu Khatallah is vague about his role in the 2012 attack that killed four Americans at a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. Abu Khatallah was captured in Benghazi last month by U.S. military special forces and FBI personnel. He was brought across the Atlantic in a Navy ship before being helicoptered into Washington on Saturday morning for an arraignment in federal court on an indictment charging him with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists in connection...

Computers stolen from the U.S. Consulate during the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack may have contained sensitive information, jeopardizing the lives of locals and allowing classified material to fall into the wrong hands. Sources in Washington and Libya told Fox News on Tuesday that the marauders got away with computers with hard drives that included the names of all the users, among other information. A Libyan eyewitness said the terrorists took computers, computer devices, M-16 rifles and a suitcase, Washington investigators confirmed to Fox News. Former CIA officer Charles Faddis called the theft a “huge deal” and “a front-burner thing,” saying...

The Obama administration’s just-released criminal complaint against the alleged mastermind of the Benghazi terrorist attacks provides a final contradiction to its own evolving explanations for what happened that day. The Justice Department’s indictment spells out a calculated conspiracy by Ahmed Abu Khatallah and associates to attack the U.S. diplomatic mission and CIA annex, which killed four Americans. The indictment might be viewed as a death knell for a theory that the attack resulted from a spontaneous protest against a U.S.-produced video. Now in custody, Khatallah was a commander of Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, and is himself...

Hillary Clinton’s popularity has been in steep decline recently, and the reduction in her fan base is well deserved. Clinton was a big player in the Benghazi cover up, despite her best efforts to escape scrutiny for her role in the tragedy. The former Secretary of State has lied repeatedly about the events that took place that night, and soon she will be forced to come clean about her actions if Rep. Trey Gowdy has anything to say about it. The real horror of Benghazi is that Clinton took no action to save the lives of American citizens who were...

The Benghazi Brief – “Operation Zero Footprint” – What We Know About The Benghazi Mission, And Subsequent Attack… As with all complex stories the valuable discoveries come with time. We now have a pretty good understanding of who, what, where, and why surrounding the 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi Libya. We are also better positioned to understand why, or perhaps more importantly why not, certain actions were taken before, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the attack itself. ***** Within months after delivering weapons to the Benghazi and Darnah rebels (May, June and July 2011) we...

The Democrats have no more loyal a media servant than Candy Crowley, who proved her devotion by derailing scrutiny of Benghazi and the phony video cover story in a 2012 presidential debate. Yet even Candy can’t accept the line that the destruction of Lois Lerner’s emails is a pure coincidence.

Blood Feud, Ed Klein’s new book on the Clintons and the Obamas currently rocketing to the top of the Amazon best seller list even before its official publication day, is a lurid, irresponsible work of yellow journalism filled with suppositions, inaccuracies, myriad anonymous sources, made-up dialogue and (often extreme) bias. In other words, it is essentially like your average front page story in the New York Times. But unlike the Times, Klein gets it essentially right about his subject — the Clintons and the Obamas despise each other. And unlike the Times, Blood Feud is a compulsive read. I dare...

By now you must be pretty sick of reading and hearing about Hillary Clinton. Personally, I am ready for No Mas. But after I wrote my first column about Benghazi many readers wrote and asked me to promise I would not let the subject die. Since nothing has happened that has warranted dropping the subject I felt obligated to march on to find the facts. Hillary has now released her book, Hard Choices, with a 34 page chapter dedicated to the subject. I spent my hard earned money to find out if the Secretary of State answered any questions. This...

Reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s story sounds familiar to me: A major network got tired of her reports criticizing government. She no longer works there. The CBS correspondent reported on Fast and Furious, the shifting explanation for the Benghazi and Libya attacks and the bungled rollout of the Obamacare website. “But as time went on, it was harder to get stories on,” she said. “There are people who simply would rather just avoid the headache of going after powers that be because of the pushback that comes with it, which has become very organized and well-financed,” she said on my TV show....

Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the Libyan militant charged in the 2012 Benghazi attacks, will face a federal judge Saturday afternoon for an initial court appearance, authorities confirmed to Fox News. At that time, the government is expected to outline the charges against him. Khatallah is being held at a federal courthouse in D.C. amid tight security, Department of Justice spokesman William Miller said. He was flown to Washington by helicopter shortly after sunrise from a navy warship, where he had been held since his capture nearly two weeks ago. Khatallah is accused of being involved in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack...

Walid Shoebat says that quagmire that is going on in Iraq is just going to increase and there isn’t much America can do about it at this point. But when it comes to what started this quagmire in Iraq, Walid blames the US for ‘aiding and abetting’ the Free Syrian Army in Syria, which we all know is a terrorist group: We’re indirectly aiding and abetting an Al-Qaeda like operation, when it comes to Syria, and that’s what started the quagmire. Our aiding and abetting the Free Syrian Army — which is a terrorist group and we’ve been showing this...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Libyan militant charged in the 2012 Benghazi attacks was in federal law enforcement custody, the U.S. attorney's office said Saturday. Security at the city's federal courthouse was heightened.