Pickering to DeSantis:
“We found weaknesses in taking account of a whole series of activities in the region that everybody seemed to live with, and not take as a kind of bell-ringing in the night that the situation was getting worse and you’d better take a look at it.”
Pickering to DesJarlais:
“He [Raymond Maxwell] told us that he had made a conscious decision NOT to read the intelligence.”
DesJarlais; Re: Maxwell’s supervior, Beth Jones-—where she said that it has been determined that there was no intelligence that could have told us that this attack was underway.
P: Her subsequent testimony to the committee indicated that she was not aware of the fact that her subordinate was not reading the intelligence
DesJarlais: But, in fact, there was evidence that he had NOT stopped reading all the intelligence.
P: He made a statement to us that led us to believe that he had stopped reading the intelligence.
Was that CUMMINGS who jumped in here? Camera didn’t move to who was speaking.
Mullen: It was a strong indicator of his [Maxwell’s] detatchment
P: Maxwell is one of the people who should take the heat for Benghazi
ISSA: People above him and below him knew of the previous attacks....So he is part of the culture of not caring enough, but people above him and below him, including Kennedy were acutely aware of the growing danger and risk actually occurring in Benghazi. That is a YES or NO!
P: They were not required to follow on a daily basis. He [Maxwell] had the dot. He made it clear he had the dot.
ISSA: ....But neither was your mandate to look at the question of a system under Kennedy that did NOT ALLOW ANYBODY TO PULL THE PANIC BUTTON, but rather it kept looking for one person who would decide not to have Benghazi open or to man it with resources they may not have had.
~~~~~~~
WTH???
Did Maxwell get a promotion yet? Subordinates know what info their bosses want to know about.
Plausible deniability - Hear no evil; see no evil; speak no evil was the code phrase re; Benghazi. Such info would have disturbed Hillary’s plans.
OK! Now at Lummis who wants to follow up on DesJarlais’ and Issa’s questioning...
That is another interesting line of questioning from today.
Sean Smith's mom: "I don't trust my government anymore.. They lie to me!"
Another amazing situation here is that you have a full ADM making excuses for Hill not knowing what was going on when, in the Naval service, the guy at the top is ALWAYS ultimately responsible if anything goes wrong...it’s always the case. Gowdy went after that line but could’ve nailed Mullen more if he had brought up that aspect, to my mind.