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June 12, 2013 State Department Whistleblower, a Career Foreign Service Officer, Seeks Congressional Protection After State Threatens Her Kids Bryan Preston The State Department whistleblower is Aurelia Fedenisn. She worked in the department’s inspector general’s office until her retirement in December 2012. According to USA Today, she has sought protection as an official whistleblower after the State Department directly threatened her, once at her home. It threatened her with criminal charges when she turned over documents to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) showing evidence that the department had watered down her report, in which she alleged that the department at the...

<p>A top State Department official stymied investigators trying to get to the bottom of four killings in Honduras involving DEA agents and local police — yet another revelation from internal memos leaked by a whistleblower claiming a pattern of coverups.</p>

On Monday afternoon, Yahoo! News is reporting yet another governmental cover-up regarding United States’ State Department employees having been criminally investigated. One ambassador – perhaps more – were covered up, or perhaps ignored, to keep the department from being embarrassed. Several members of the Diplomatic Security Service – whose job it is to protect American diplomats overseas – had been told to stop their investigations of personnel to make sure that charges would never be made against the employees. This information comes from a memo produced by the Diplomatic Security Service’s Inspector General’s office. The criminal charges allegedly covered up...

State Department memo reveals possible cover-ups, halted investigations (CBS News) CBS News has uncovered documents that show the State Department may have covered up allegations of illegal and inappropriate behavior within their ranks. The Diplomatic Security Service, or the DSS, is the State Department's security force, charged with protecting the secretary of state and U.S. ambassadors overseas and with investigating any cases of misconduct on the part of the 70,000 State Department employees worldwide. CBS News' John Miller reports that according to an internal State Department Inspector General's memo, several recent investigations were influenced, manipulated, or simply called off. The...

Hey, if Susan Rice qualifies for a big promotion, why not Victoria Nuland?  She's the State Department spokeswoman at the center of the firestorm over the administration's Benghazi talking points -- and if the president has his way, she'll be movin' on up to Assistant Secretary of State: The State Department spokeswoman who earlier this month found herself in the middle of the controversy surrounding key revisions to the Benghazi talking points appears to be in line for a promotion. The White House announced Thursday that President Barack Obama intends to nominate Victoria Nuland as assistant secretary for European and...

This is a very interesting article by Sharyl Attkisson at CBS News. It’s very long and covers different topics surrounding Benghazi, from the decision not to deploy FEST to how the talking points came about. The quote below talks about how certain anonymous White House officials say that the missteps in Benghazi was less about malice and more about incompetence. For instance, they claim that the reasoning behind not deploying the counterterrorism unit known as FEST stemmed from a misunderstanding of FEST’s role and ability. One official does pin the decision not to send in FEST on Under Secretary Patrick...

New details about the Obama administration’s initial story-line on the Benghazi attack are raising additional questions about top-level efforts to downplay terrorism, with one report showing a State Department official pushed to delete a section that could have been used to “beat up” her department. The fresh reports have surfaced two days after three whistle-blowers testified on Capitol Hill about the Benghazi attack. One of them sharply challenged the administration’s decision to describe the attack out of the gate as a protest gone wrong. ABC News reported Friday that, despite administration claims that the flawed description reflected the best intelligence...

The Libyan militia group that the State Department hired to defend its embattled diplomatic mission in Benghazi had clear al-Qaida sympathies, and had prominently displayed the al-Qaida flag on a Facebook page for months before the deadly attack. That organization, the February 17th Martyrs Brigade, was paid by the U.S. government to provide security at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But there is no indication the Martyrs Brigade fulfilled its commitment to defend the mission on Sept. 11, when it came under attack.

The February 17th Martyrs Brigade, a Benghazi-based militia with Islamist elements that the State Department hired as a “quick reaction force” (QRF) to protect the department’s mission in Benghazi, warned the State Department that it would not protect the movements of Amb. Chris Stevens when he visited there last September. That warning was relayed to the regional security officer (RSO) at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli—the top security adviser to the ambassador—in an internal State Department email dated Sept. 9, 2012. That was one day before Stevens departed Tripoli for Benghazi—for what was scheduled to be a five-day visit. …

What actually happened in Benghazi? A Special Operations soldier reported that they know where the person responsible for the attack on the ambassador and annex is known, in Libya, have "fixed " him – got his coordinates. Have been denied permission by Pentagon, State and White House to go and catch him. Variety of whistleblowers: at State (Clinton defenders say "she had to sign every cable, as long as she was in Washington" – but her deputy, Amb Patrick Kennedy, was well informed of all this.) Amb Stevens ran situations and so State knew all. In fact, that evening, Secy...

James Rosen on Special Report tonight said that the State Dept. is not providing ‘a process’ for lawyers, being retained by whistleblowers, to get classified information on Benghazi, as we reported earlier today. But not only are they interfering with the legal representation, Victoria Toensing, one of the attorneys representing the whistleblowers, says that they have clients in both the State Dept. and CIA who are being threatened that if they come forward their careers will be over.

Earlier today, I said that we should cut the father of the two bombing suspects some slack for calling his younger son– now on the run from police — “a true angel.” On the other hand, the apple does not fall far from the tree, apparently:Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames.Watch More News Videos at ABC |Technology News |Celebrity News The father of suspected Boston Marathon bomber called on his son today to give up peacefully, but warned the U.S. that if his son is killed “all hell will break loose.”Anzor Tsarnaev spoke to ABC News from his home...

Secretary of State John Kerry reminded the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday that he was “on the other side of the podium” when U.S. interests came under attack in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, and he said if the State Department is trying to impede the committee’s investigation into embassy security, he’s “not aware” of it. “There’s certainly no position by me to delay anything,” Kerry said, “and I was not aware that—you know, if there’s anything that is appropriate to turn over.” Kerry said he wants to check “historical precedent” regarding investigative and FBI documents relating to the terror...

The U.S. State Department has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of Americans who claim U.S. aid money helps fund Palestinian terrorism. The 24 Americans now living in Israel who are the plaintiffs in the case filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for Washington, DC in November claiming that the State Department had ignored congressional safeguards and transparency requirements which govern financial assistance to the PA. In a statement, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs and director of the Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center ) explained: “Rather...

The Muslim Brotherhood denounced the U.S. State Department for expressing concern over legal action taken against an Egyptian satirist accused of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsi, stating that denigration of the Muslim religion is a “serious breach of law.” “The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has strongly criticized remarks made by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on legal complaints accusing Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef of contempt of religions,” said the Muslim Brotherhood in a statement on its official English website “Ikhwan Web.” … Known as Egypt’s Jon Stewart, Bassem Youssef was accused of insulting Islam and Morsi on...

As I reported yesterday, Christopher Stevens was lured to Benghazi by a foreign operative who hoped to leverage some sort of gain in exchange for proffered bait. I have this from trusted sources who cannot speak on the record because they are connected to U.S. intelligence. Who was the operative, and what did he offer? According to my sources, he was a popular Turkish middleman who was known in Benghazi for being able to broker goods or situations of all types. "He was a power player, very charismatic," said one intelligence source. "He was a procurer of everything. Whatever you...

The U.S. State Department’s policy on dealing with transgendered people will allow Americans who are anatomically male but identify themselves as female to secure U.S. passports that match their gender “identity” rather than their anatomy. The policy also allows records for births abroad to be changed to reflect the “new” gender of an individual. … Sex-change surgery is not required to get a passport with an individual’s preferred gender. …

Over the weekend, however, the Syrian Opposition Council -- the main umbrella group for the broad array of rebel politicians, clerics and soldiers, many of them Islamists with ties to al-Qaeda and other unsavory networks -- announced it was boycotting the session with Kerry in Rome.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said that he has accepted a new disclaimer from President Obama’s defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) disavowing one of his many offensive statements about the state of Israel. Graham told “Fox News Sunday” that he received a new letter from the beleaguered nominee in which Hagel claimed he “did not recall” the odious statement-- allegedly made during a speech at Rutgers University in 2007-- in which he argued that the State Department is controlled by the Israeli Foreign Minister’s office. “Well, if in fact that’s true, that would end the matter,” Graham said, adding, “I...

The State Department will have to stop humanitarian aid to millions of people, cut foreign assistance to Israel, and delay efforts to ramp up diplomatic security abroad after the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, if sequestration goes into effect next month, according to Secretary of State John Kerry. At the beginning of March, across-the-board cuts to all discretionary spending accounts will go into effect, based on the 2011 Budget Control Act and the failure of the "supercommittee" to agree upon discretionary budget cuts in 2012. Congressional appropriators are planning to reorganize those cuts when the continuing resolution that has been...