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When the Accountability Review Board’s report on Benghazi came out, last December, John Bolton noted that the State Dept. was basically investigating itself, and suggested that their assertions might not hold up to scrutiny. It looks like the ARB´s findings are indeed not holding up to scrutiny. The report is being savaged by the attorneys who are representing material witnesses who they say were ignored by the ARB. (Snip) Toensing told Geraldo that “the things that her client will be saying will be contradictory to what the administration’s scenario was.” Di Genova promised that “what will come out of the

May 2, 2013 State Department's Benghazi review panel under investigation, Fox News confirms James Rosen The State Department's Office of Inspector General is investigating the special internal panel that probed the Benghazi terror attack for the State Department, Fox News has confirmed. The IG's office is said by well-placed sources to be seeking to determine whether the Accountability Review Board, or ARB -- led by former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen -- failed to interview key witnesses who had asked to provide their accounts of the Benghazi attacks to...

Benghazi report could damage Clinton’s legacy at State Dept.By Julian Pecquet - 12/19/12 05:30 AM ET The Benghazi report released Tuesday night bemoans “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” in Hillary Clinton's State Department that could come back to haunt her should she run for president in 2016. Clinton remains one of the nation's most popular politicians and has worked tirelessly to improve America's image abroad following President George W. Bush's tenure. The independent review of the Sept. 11 attack, however, tarnishes that legacy by faulting the department for failing to put in place a coordinated approach for handling...

And so the reckoning begins. Only hours after a special task force concluded on Wednesday that “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” may have contributed to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, Libya, the State Department’s security chief resigned and three other officials were relieved of their duties. What was lacking in the report, however, was any sense of who was responsible farther up the chain. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Accountability Review Board—chaired by retired Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering and vice chaired by another national-security heavyweight, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won't testify to Congress next week on Benghazi, after fainting and suffering a concussion Saturday and due to her ongoing stomach ailment. "While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines said in a statement. "She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors. At their recommendation, she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials. She is looking forward to being back in the office...

Proof Positive - In My Opinion True Source Found For "Innocence of Muslims." (Obama)This is a Youtube video produced by user Montagraph who speculated that "Innocence of Muslims" was a false flag op. So did I. He has done a lot of work tracing numerous websites connected to the original uploading of the now famous video. His narrative starts out very slow but give it a chance. He does explain it all in detail and has sourced it all with URLs below his vid. Montagraph declines to say that his evidence is definitive so you be the judge. The internet...

JERUSALEM – The Obama administration’s lead investigator into the Benghazi attack, former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, previously held clandestine meetings with Hamas aimed at opening U.S. dialogue with the terrorist group, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials. Sources within Hamas previously disclosed to WND the June 2009 meeting. The gathering allegedly took place in Geneva with two Hamas leaders, Bassem Naim and Mahmoud al-Zahar. Naim is Hamas’ health minister, while al-Zahar is one of the main Hamas leaders in Gaza. Pickering is further tied to the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa through his role as a member...

Thanks Bronco Bamma! And Hillary, you must make Bill[wink wink remember 1998 Kenya/Tunisia?] and your mentor, Madeline Albright[1998 Albright also ignored pleas for more securityfrom US Ambassador to Kenya Ms Bushnell (h/t Anna)], proud with your determination to get to the bottom of this f'n screwupAmerica is a seething hotbed of “Islamophobia,” filled with ignorant racist rubes who irrationally fear the benign Muslim religion, according to the Obama administration’s lead investigator into the Benghazi atrocities. So said former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in more polished, diplomatic language during an Oct. 23 panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington,...

America is a seething hotbed of “Islamophobia,” filled with ignorant racist rubes who irrationally fear the benign Muslim religion, according to the Obama administration’s lead investigator into the Benghazi atrocities. So said former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in more polished, diplomatic language during an Oct. 23 panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The talk was on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia,” a make-believe mental illness that Islamists would love to have listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Radical Islam’s stateside defenders frequently accuse anti-terrorism hawks of “McCarthyism,” hurling...

America is a seething hotbed of “Islamophobia,” filled with ignorant racist rubes who irrationally fear the benign Muslim religion, according to the Obama administration’s lead investigator into the Benghazi atrocities. So said former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in more polished, diplomatic language during an Oct. 23 panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The talk was on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia,” a make-believe mental illness that Islamists would love to have listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Radical Islam’s stateside defenders frequently accuse anti-terrorism hawks of “McCarthyism,” hurling...

America is a seething hotbed of “Islamophobia,” filled with ignorant racist rubes who irrationally fear the benign Muslim religion, according to the Obama administration’s lead investigator into the Benghazi atrocities. So said former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering in more polished, diplomatic language during an Oct. 23 panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The talk was on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia,” a make-believe mental illness that Islamists would love to have listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Radical Islam’s stateside defenders frequently accuse anti-terrorism hawks of “McCarthyism,” hurling...

The freshly appointed chairman of a federal investigation into the Benghazi massacre is an apologist for Islamic terrorism who has a cozy relationship with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. And to add insult to injury, at press time Tuesday evening the chairman of this new State Department panel, former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, was poised to participate in a panel discussion at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on “what role the faith community can play in fighting Islamophobia.” The news comes on the heels of a new report by the Investigative Project on Terrorism that found...

Is the man the Obama administration appointed on October 4 as key investigator for the terror attacks in Benghazi an Islamist-sympathizer? According to recently published reports, the new chairman of a State Department’s “Accountability Review Board,” which is heading the federal investigation into the Benghazi terror attacks, has been accused of being an “apologist for Islamic terrorism who has a cozy relationship with Iran.” What’s more, the man in question — former Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering — has documented ties with the controversial group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR, of course, is a documented Muslim Brotherhood affiliate and was...

The State Department’s top security officer is coming under scrutiny for playing a role in creating a special board that is investigating last month’s fatal attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. One of the State Department’s accountability review board’s key tasks will be to probe why the office of Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, rejected requests for more diplomatic security in Libya in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. Mr. Kennedy, a career diplomat whose portfolio includes being the top security officer, signed the memo Oct. 1 that set up the review...

The Obama administration reportedly is considering former Clinton administration official Jamie Gorelick, among others, to become the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Perez first reported the news last week, citing “U.S. officials” familiar with the situation. Gorelick served as vice chairman of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) when the government-sponsored enterprise began bundling subprime loans into securitized financial instruments. Prior to that, she served as deputy attorney general in the Clinton Justice Department under then-Attorney General Janet Reno from 1994 to 1997. ... But Gorelick is perhaps best known...

Shortly before Barack Obama took office, leaders of a prominent Iranian-American group in Washington began to fret. If the new president were to tap former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross to oversee the nation's Iran policy, they feared their long-running effort to persuade American officials to lift sanctions could wind up in tatters. Patrick Disney, acting policy director of National Iranian American Council (NIAC), summed up the strategy: "Create a media controversy" concerning Mr. Ross, whose support for a tough line on Iran was well known. "Those groups that feel comfortable being more aggressive in opposing Ross publicly (possibly Voters...

A recent meeting between two senior Hamas officials and former undersecretary of state Thomas R. Pickering was coordinated and promoted by the US State Department, according to the Arabic weekly, Al-Ahram. Mr. Pickering met with senior Hamas officials, Mahmoud al-Zahar and Bassem Naim in Geneva in mid-June. The Washington Post reported that the Hamas officials had said they believed the meeting "represented an opening in relations with the Obama administration." However, US officials said they had only learned of the meeting afterward: They said Pickering had not been asked to approach Hamas and had no official standing; U.S. officials learned...

JACKSON, Miss. – The estranged wife of former U.S. Rep. Chip Pickering claims in a lawsuit that the Mississippi Republican had an affair that ruined their marriage and derailed his political career. Leisha Pickering said in the lawsuit filed this week that her husband and the woman dated in college, reconnected and began having an affair while he was in Congress and living in a building where several Christian lawmakers reside on C Street near the U.S. Capitol. Chip Pickering is the third Republican with ties to the building at 133 C Street SE to find his personal life making...

Link only, due to copyright restrictions: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20090716/NEWS/90716027/-1/Nletter03/Ex-Miss.-politician-s-wife-sues-alleged-mistress?source=nletter-news

Maybe we’re looking in the wrong direction on this whole NSA issue. I can’t help but think that for the Dems to go to such lengths, there has to be some campaign money in it for them. Just like they pander to the far left whackos I.E. Moveon.org, maybe they also have to protect themselves as well as pander to some of their big money supporters who may not want their overseas calls monitored by the Bush administration. This is just a first attempt to connect some dots, but it is interesting. Let’s start with Judge Robertson and the Clintons....