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The U.S. intelligence community has retreated from claims that two emails in Hillary Clinton’s private account contained top secret information, a source familiar with the situation told POLITICO. The determination came from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s office and concluded that the two emails did not include highly classified intelligence secrets. Concerns about the emails' classification helped trigger an on-going FBI inquiry into Clinton's private email set-up.

This could be the worst whitewashing since Tom Sawyer suckered people into helping him with that fence . . . On today's Morning Joe, Joe Klein cleared Hillary of responsibility for American deaths in Benghazi, and blamed the CIA. According to Klein, "this really was a CIA station there, not so much a consulate, and those guys should be able to protect themselves in most circumstances." Klein doesn't think Hillary should even be called to testify: "this is something that does not rise to the level of the Secretary of State." He suggested instead that David Petraeus be hauled before...

LT. COL. RALPH PETERS: What we have here is very, very clear, it's damnably clear that the White House which doesn't understand why this is a big deal. I mean, he just deserted, right?Wouldn't anybody do that? And they just want to protect the president. And they are pressuring the Army, pressuring the Army to whitewash this. And they don't understand that for the military, those who went before, retirees like me, those on active duty, this is a powerful matter, as you heard from the young soldier, of precedent and principle.

Six months after the military began an investigation into the disappearance of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and his capture by the Taliban, which held him for five years, the results remain under wraps as senior Army officials determine what to do next. Bergdahl was recovered in Afghanistan by U.S. troops in a controversial swap for five Taliban officials on May 31. He had disappeared from his small patrol base on June 30, 2009, under a cloud of suspicion and fear as it became clear he been captured by militants. The Army in June launched a new investigation into Bergdahl’s disappearance...

The first federal prosecutor to probe the financial dealings of Bill and Hillary Clinton says he was poised to bring high-profile indictments against top Arkansas political and business figures — based in part on testimony from a chief witness against the then president — when he was abruptly replaced by a panel of federal judges, throwing his investigation into turmoil. "I was angry, frustrated and above all disappointed that I was not going to be able to carry through and finish bringing the indictments," writes Robert Fiske, a former U.S. attorney who served as the original independent counsel in charge...

Doctors say deaths, can be linked to delays. A starkly different view than the one painted by VA inspector general’s report. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., questioning of acting VA IG, Richard Griffin, about whether IG was corruptly influenced by VA officials.... Miller banged his gavel to stop acting shill Griffin's speel. “You want the truth?” Griffin, incredulously. "As a physician” Katherine Mitchell, I believe the OIG case review systematically overlooked relationships between delays and deaths. Mitchell, joined by VA doctor Samuel Foot. Foot, "VA IG’s office used a criminal activity, as damage control, rather than using it to get to...

The GOP-led House Select Committee on the Benghazi terror attack shows no sign of backing down despite a report from another congressional panel that, according to a top Democrat, found no intelligence failures around the deadly 2012 assault. "There is more work to be done and more to be investigated," a spokeswoman for House Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told CNN on Wednesday. Shortly before beginning its August recess, the House Intelligence Committee, also led by Republicans, approved its report on the militant attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other...

On July 31, when all eyes were focused on the Ted Cruz-stoked chaos unfolding in the House chamber over the border bill, the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee did something rather remarkable. It voted to declassify its Benghazi report. After two years of investigation, it found no evidence to buttress any of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans. We didn’t get this news from committee chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.). Nope. There was a story in the San Francisco Chronicle on Friday. A press release...

Weeks after leading the Florida State Seminoles to a national championship, quarterback Jameis Winston was quietly interrogated by university administrators, and two of his teammates were brought up on school conduct charges related to allegations that Winston raped a fellow student, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. It had not previously been known whether FSU had initiated what's called a Title IX investigation. Now we know. The two teammates, Chris Casher and Ronald Darby, were recently charged with five violations of the university's code of conduct, according to the source, who spoke with Deadspin on condition of...

In George Orwell’s novel 1984 the Ministry of Truth would alter or eliminate inconvenient and embarrassing records as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened. The Ministry would later recreate history to match often-changing state propaganda. Today’s efforts at properly sprucing up the past be called testaments to political correctness. In order for the memory hole to work the people have to be unaware of the process of revisionism. Ft Hood November 5, 2009 Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan, while yelling “Allahu Akbar,” performed brutal acts of Islamic terrorism, killing 13 and wounding 32...

Last week the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its report on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The report concluded that the attack, which resulted in the murder of four Americans, was "preventable." Some have been suggesting that the blame for this tragedy lies at least partly with Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack. This is untrue: The blame lies entirely with Washington. The report states that retired Gen. Carter Ham, then-commander of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom) headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, twice offered to "sustain" the special forces security team in Tripoli...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn't plan to file criminal charges over the Internal Revenue Service's heightened scrutiny of conservative groups, according to law-enforcement officials, a move that likely will only intensify debate over the politically charged scandal. The officials said investigators didn't find the kind of political bias or "enemy hunting" that would amount to a violation of criminal law. Instead, what emerged during the probe was evidence of a mismanaged bureaucracy...

The FBI is not planning to file criminal charges involving the Internal Revenue Service's extra scrutiny of the Tea Party and other conservative groups, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing law enforcement officials. The newspaper quoted officials as saying that investigators probing the IRS actions, which unleashed a political furor in Washington, did not uncover the type of political bias or "enemy hunting" that would constitute a criminal violation. The evidence showed a mismanaged agency enforcing rules it did not understand on applications for tax exemptions, the Journal reported. The case is still under investigation, but criminal charges...

The Journal reports that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is unlikely to file any criminal charges in the targeting of conservative political organizations by the Internal Revenue Service. Yet Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents many of the targets, says that the FBI has never contacted any of her clients to discuss their treatment at the hands of the IRS. "Shouldn't law enforcement talk to the victims in an investigation?," she asks in an email. "That's like investigating a burglary without interviewing the burgled," notes a Journal editorial. The press corps suddenly cares a great deal about cancelled meetings in...

An exhaustive investigation by The Times goes a long way toward resolving any nagging doubts about what precipitated the attack on the United States mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. The report by David Kirkpatrick, The Times’s Cairo bureau chief, and his team turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or another international terrorist group had any role in the assault, as Republicans have insisted without proof for more than a year. The report concluded that the attack was led by fighters who had benefited directly from NATO’s air power...

On Monday, the editor of the New York Times Editorial page was compelled to write that the publication has not decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for president in 2016 yet. His pronouncement came two days after the paper attempted to whitewash the Benghazi tragedy by printing a story that alleged that there was no al-Qaeda involvement in the attacks that killed four Americans (contradicting the paper's own reporting), murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens had "little understanding" of the region, and that the terrorists were motivated by an anti-Muhammed YouTube video. On a blog post on the paper's website, Andrew Rosenthal...

A New York Times investigation has found no evidence to support claims al-Qaeda or any other international terrorist organization had links to the 2012 storming of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The six-part report published Saturday instead blamed the poorly-planned attack on local extremists outraged by an American-made video mocking Islam. The Times refutes claims made by many Republicans that al-Qaeda was involved in the attack despite Obama administration assertions to the contrary. ‘Extensive interviews with Libyans in Benghazi who had direct knowledge of the attack there and its context, turned up no evidence that Al Qaeda or other

A participant in a White House-sponsored review of surveillance activities described as “shameful” an apparent decision to leave most of the National Security Agency’s controversial bulk spying intact. Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology Institute, said Friday that the review panel he advised is at risk of missing an opportunity to restore confidence in US surveillance practices. “The review group was searching for ways to make the most modest pivot necessary to continue business as usual,” Meinrath said... According to the leaks, the review group will recommend that bulk collection of every American’s phone call data continue, possibly by...

Obama was looking forward to spending the night at his house in Kenwood, on the city’s South Side—the redbrick Georgian Revival pile that he and Michelle and their daughters left behind when they took up residence in the White House. He arrived fairly late, after 10:00 p.m., but then stayed up even later, intrigued by some old boxes that had belonged to his late mother, Ann Dunham. Dunham had died seven years earlier, but Obama hadn’t sorted through all her things. Now, alone in his old house for just the third night since he’d become president, he started rummaging through...

A group of veteran security experts and former White House officials has been selected to conduct a full review of U.S. surveillance programs and other secret government efforts disclosed over recent months, ABC News has learned. The recent acting head of the CIA, Michael Morell, will be among what President Obama called a “high-level group of outside experts” scrutinizing the controversial programs. Joining Morell on the panel will be former White House officials Richard Clarke, Cass Sunstein and Peter Swire. An announcement is expected Thursday, a source with knowledge of the matter told ABC News’ Jon Karl....