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Washington D.C. is big on tradition, and one of those traditions involves official portraits of top government officials. The Defense Department just awarded a $31,200 contract (frame included) to Portraits, Inc. for an official portrait of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta: The Washington Headquarters Services Acquisition Directorate issued a Firm-Fixed Price (FFP) purchase order for the painting and delivery of the official oil portrait for the former Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, as required by the Department of Defense. This portrait shall be executed by an artist experienced in commissions of Presidential Cabinet Level or other Senior/High Ranking Officials. The...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's top special operations commander ordered military files about the Navy SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden's hideout to be purged from Defense Department computers and sent to the CIA, where they could be more easily shielded from ever being made public. The secret move, described briefly in a draft report by the Pentagon's inspector general, set off no alarms within the Obama administration even though it appears to have sidestepped federal rules and perhaps also the Freedom of Information Act

Not only did former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta leak the name of the Navy SEAL group responsible for the killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, but the release of the Pentagon Inspector General’s (IG) report revealing the incident, which was ready in July 2012, was delayed until now. In the spring of 2012, GOP members accused Barack Obama’s administration of leaking national security secrets to help Obama get reelected, but the administration denied it. At a CIA awards ceremony on June 24, 2011, Panetta named the SEAL group and its commander. Among those present were 1300 military and...

According to Politico, that’s the conclusion of an Inspector General report. The information on the raid was classified as Secret and Top Secret, and its dissemination to the filmmakers has been a controversial point ever since the film was announced:

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed the name of the Navy SEAL unit that carried out the Osama Bin Laden raid and named the unit’s ground commander at a 2011 ceremony attended by Zero Dark Thirty filmmaker Mark Boal, according to a draft Pentagon inspector general’s report obtained by a watchdog group.

It was the Obama administration that sealed the fate of the Pakistani doctor jailed for helping nail Usama Bin Laden, by divulging key details after the fact and dooming any chance Shakil Afridi's cover story could win his freedom, according to a confidential Pakistani report. When former Secretary of Defense and ex-CIA Director Leon Panetta publicly acknowledged Afridi's role in the ruse which helped the CIA pinpoint Bin Laden's presence in an Abbottabad compound, any chance that Pakistani authorities could help him get out of the country vanished, according to what some have called Pakistan’s version of the 9/11 Commission,...

Elite U.S. troops were completely capable of saving Ambassador Chris Stevens during the Benghazi Consulate attacks on September 11, 2012. Elements of the highly specialized Combatant Commanders In-Extremis (CIF) units are always on alert, on forward deployment, ready to respond. Their job description is to hit the ground in 3 to 5 hours. CIF elements are ready to engage in active combat anywhere in their region, 3 to 5 hours after the call. Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense at the time, either misled the U.S. Congress or was incompetent. Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 7,...

Panetta: Obama Absent Night of Benghazi Daniel Halper February 7, 2013 12:05 PM Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testified this morning on Capitol Hill that President Barack Obama was absent the night four Americans were murdered in Benghazi on September 11, 2012: Panetta said that Obama left operational details, including knowledge of what resources were available to help the Americans under siege, "up to us." In fact, Panetta says that the night of 9/11, he did not communicate with a single person at the White House. The attack resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Panetta said...

Former Pacific Fleet chief: We need full disclosure on Benghazi — now POSTED AT 9:31 AM ON OCTOBER 30, 2012 BY ED MORRISSEY Retired Admiral James A. Lyons likely pulled few punches as commander in chief of the US Pacific Fleet during his career … and he hasn’t started pulling punches now, either. In a blistering column at The Washington Times, the former commander blasts the lack of action from the US when the administration learned our consulate in Benghazi had come under attack, writing that “courage was lacking” that might have saved at least some of the four American...

For the first time the Obama administration has explicitly accused China’s military of hacking into computer systems of the U.S. government and its defense contractors. "The accusations relayed in the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on Chinese military capabilities were remarkable in their directness," writes David Sanger of The New York Times.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Let's get to Benghazi.  Let's pick up where we left off yesterday.  Let's go to the audio sound bites starting at number nine.  Andrea Mitchell last night on the NBC Nightly News gave a report about the new hearings this week on the Benghazi attacks.  The hearings will feature testimony by the whistleblowers who say essentially there was a cover-up of what really happened.  You'll hear Hillary in this bite.  In fact, the whole thing is told through the prism of Hillary Clinton and how the Republicans are attacking her.  That's the focus of Andrea Mitchell's report...

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has offered up two contradictory explanations why there was no military operation to rescue U.S. officials who were under attack in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. During an October 2012 press briefing, Panetta claimed he was lacking real-time information at the time, and as a result of not having this information, he felt he couldn't send the FAST platoons, and other forces that were deployed in the region, into "harm's way" in "that situation". Hence, he made the decision not to send the forces to Benghazi. However, during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services...

Full title: Sean Smith’s Mom: Obama Didn’t Follow-Up on Personal Promise; Asks Congress: ‘Please, Please Help Me Find Out Who is Responsible’ (CNSNews.com) - Patricia Smith--the mother of Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, who was murdered by terrorists in Benghazi--says that President Barack Obama and other administration officials did not follow-up on promises they made to her personally when she traveled to Washington, D.C. last September to meet the return to the United States of her son’s casket. Mrs. Smith says she wants to know why her son and the others at the State Department compound in Benghazi on Sept....

Despite his 2008 campaign promise to close the U.S. government's detention center for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, President Barack Obama's administration last week announced plans to spend $195 million on renovation and new construction there—strongly implying that the nation’s taxpayers can expect to pay to imprison the center's 166 inmates, 86 of whom have been cleared of wrongdoing, for many years to come. Initially, on Wednesday, General John F. Kelly, Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, requested $150 million to $170 million for renovations to the prison complex, including $99 million for two barracks facilities, $12 million for...

CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson on Tuesday night reported that the Obama administration has turned over documents relating to the Benghazi terrorist attack to the Senate Intelligence Committee. She made a number of revelations that don’t bode well for the White House via her official Twitter account. “One source who viewed the docs says someone in federal agency ‘press shop’ was involved in changing the talking points to remove al Qaeda,” Attkisson wrote. She also reported that an “official familiar with the docs” said there were advanced warnings in the days leading up to the attack, including ones that...

The real war against women is the announced plan of the Obama administration, using outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta as the fall guy, to assign women for the first time in American history to fight our nation’s enemies in military ground combat. That’s real war, with real guns, real bullets and real deaths. This war doesn’t involve only women who have volunteered to serve in our military. It’s a real war against all 18-year-old American girls, because for the first time in our nation’s history they will be required to sign up for the draft and be ready for...

Who’s Minding The Military?: Obama abandons his post by Daniel Clark If outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s testimony on the Benghazi attack is to be believed, President Obama abandoned his post as Commander-in-Chief, even as the lives of ambassador Chris Stevens and several others hung in the balance. Panetta met with Obama and Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, around 5 o’clock on the day of the attack, which would continue until about seven hours later. He says the president told the two of them, “to do everything we needed to do to try to protect...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Hillary Clinton inspired his decision to allow women in combat. “And in many ways, I have to tell you, it was her inspiration that encouraged me to move forward to be able to bring down the last barriers for women in the Department of Defense and to give them the ability to have a chance to engage in combat. I thank you for that inspiration,” Panetta told Clinton at a Pentagon ceremony on Thursday. …

Of all of the characteristics one might ascribe to Susan Rice, prescience is probably not the first thing that comes to mind. Surprisingly however, five years ago she said something that demonstrated a momentary clarity of vision that is staggering. In a March 2008 interview she said the following: “Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at 3:00 in the morning, and yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready. They’re both not ready to have that 3 AM phone call.” If the events immediately following Benghazi showed Ambassador Rice to be a hapless marionette of the administration, the...

(CNSNews.com) – The White House isn’t saying where President Barack Obama was, what he did or whom he spoke to between 5:30 p.m. Sept. 11, 2012—when he finished a meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, which took place while the Benghazi terrorist attacks were unfolding—and 11:26 p.m. that night, which is approximately the time former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed in the attacks.