‘Hillary killed my son’ (Sean Smith's Mother Responds to NYT Article on Benghazi)

WASHINGTON—The mother of a victim in the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, terrorist attack blasted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in an interview with WORLD, saying a recent article in The New York Times is only trying to protect Clinton’s 2016 presidential aspirations.

“They’re just covering up for Hillary,” Pat Smith, mother of slain foreign-service officer Sean Smith, told me by phone. “Hillary killed my son. … As far as I can tell from all my sources, she was responsible—directly.”

Lawmakers, media outlets, and analysts have all criticized a front-page story in Saturday’s edition of The New York Times, in which reporter David Kirkpatrick, after “months of investigation,” concluded neither al-Qaeda nor other international terrorist groups were involved in the 9/11 anniversary attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Kirkpatrick, whose story is part of his forthcoming book, also wrote that “contrary to claims by some members of Congress, [the attack] was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.”

Smith told me that conclusion doesn’t jive with reports from her sources, many of whom have reached out to give her information since she testified before Congress in September. She said she’s “very upset” about the Times article, which doesn’t mention Clinton and offers no explanation for why security was porous or why reinforcements were told not to go help during the all-night attack.

“All the [U.S. Navy] SEALs and everybody I’ve talked to recently, they say they would never, ever, ever leave someone to be sacrificed. And that’s what happened—they were sacrificed,” she said.

The Times story contradicted the sworn testimony of Gregory Hicks, then the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, who in May told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the YouTube video was a non-event for Libyans. Hicks—who spoke by phone with Stevens during the attack, the last known conversation the ambassador had—said he talked with Clinton at 2 a.m. local time, and the video was never discussed as even a possible reason for the attack. Hicks said he was stunned when he heard the administration blaming the film: “My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed.”

According to Victoria Toensing, Hicks’ legal counsel, Kirkpatrick made no attempt to talk to Hicks for his article or the book. “It’s obvious he didn’t want to talk to my client,” she told me. “It’s inexplicable to me why he did not call.”

Kirkpatrick built his story mostly on sources, including numerous anonymous ones, from Benghazi, which Toensing said was like going to Japan during World War II to ask if they attacked at Pearl Harbor. “The story is based on proving a negative,” she said. “I was shocked that The New York Times published something so unsophisticated.”

The story says al-Qaeda had been unable to establish a foothold in Libya, a claim that runs counter to the U.S. government’s findings a month before the attack. An August 2012 Library of Congress report said al-Qaeda “has established a core network in Libya,” though it “remains clandestine and refrains from using the al-Qaeda name.” It said Ansar al-Sharia, the group that immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, “has increasingly embodied al-Qaeda’s presence in Libya.”

Kirkpatrick acknowledged Ansar al-Sharia’s role in the attack but found “no evidence” to suggest a “direct role” for al-Qaeda. Kirkpatrick contended only local extremists, led by an “eccentric” militia leader named Ahmed Abu Khattala, carried out the assault.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a member of that committee, both told Fox News the Times story was misleading. Rogers said the FBI is targeting people with “strong al-Qaeda ties” in connection with the attack, and Schiff said, “The intelligence indicates al-Qaeda was involved.”

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the Times story largely tracks with what the State Department believes happened in Benghazi, though the investigation is still ongoing. When asked if she agreed that al-Qaeda played no role, she chose her words carefully, saying no “core al-Qaeda” members directed or planned the attack, but “extremists were involved. … These were clearly terrorists.”

Clare Lopez, a former CIA officer who is part of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, said it would be very easy to identify what kind of attack took place if the administration would release the surveillance.

“They’ve got a lot of camera footage, and they’re not releasing it,” she told me. “They knew who broke through, when they broke through, and what weapons they were carrying.”

Yo say it’s not murder, it might be treason, and it is indefensible - an amazing combination that is utterly dependent upon a presumption of absolute indemnification under any cirumstances by the sole criteria of government employment. You deny the combat scenario yet invoke combat justification. You admit a deliberately homicidal decision, yet deny murder. You misrepresent civil government indemnification as absolute, and then misapply it to a federal executive refusing massive support to save endangered lives of her own staff, for which she has personal responsibility, and towards which she repeatedly denied preliminary protections. And then you cite your “experience” as a paralegal to disdain any liabilities towards criminal activities merely because they are invoked passively, while blithely dismissing thresholds of aggravated non-action and clear evidence of knowing effect from non-action.

Your position is a mockery of law and justice, and it denies real-world, real courtroom, real caselaw denials of government claims of absolute indemnification. You also mock combat responsibilities and liabilities for acts and results of acts, as if none exist. And you especially deny, and even reverse, the extended responsibilites of a cabinet official who acts with knowing disregard and homicidal intent aginst the clear interests of the United States, and against the personal representative of the country, under desperate emergency conditions.

You also deny the uniform applicability and construction of corporate law, while claiming expertise in jurisdictional matters that clearly apply across interrelated codes, yet blather on about physical irrelevencies such as seagoing vessels.

Other than caustic sniping and word games, your position in this matter is anethema to justice and indefensible. You dance around the difference between homicide and murder without even bothering to claim justification for the killing, delighting in you legal parsing of the difference between actually being able to bring Hillary before a court, and simply knowing she carried out deliberate, unjustified, indefensible homicide.

Well enjoy your word games. The rest of humanity sees this as the atrocity it really is. Hitler murdered millions without violating the German laws of the time - to you, that means none of those killings were murder, either. They were just deliberate, knowing, indefensible homicides - but not murder. After all, murder is breaking the law, and the Nazis broke no law. So according to you, unless someone can drag Hillary before a court, the same thing applies to her.

Go away. You revolt me.

“You also deny the uniform applicability and construction of corporate law, while claiming expertise in jurisdictional matters that clearly apply across interrelated codes, yet blather on about physical irrelevencies such as seagoing vessels.”

If corporate law is somehow applicable to Benghazi, please explain how or shut up. Cite me chapter and verse of the law to which you refer, and tie it in. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t. No corporations involved.

“Other than caustic sniping and word games,”

You are caustic. At word games, you are remarkably inept.

” your position in this matter is anethema to justice and indefensible. You dance around the difference between homicide and murder without even bothering to claim justification for the killing, delighting in you legal parsing of the difference between actually being able to bring Hillary before a court, and simply knowing she carried out deliberate, unjustified, indefensible homicide.”

OK. You simply know that she did it. I simply know that saying stuff like that when she can’t be brought to court is a form of jerking off. It’s not pretty to watch, either.

“Well enjoy your word games. The rest of humanity sees this as the atrocity it really is. Hitler murdered millions without violating the German laws of the time - to you, that means none of those killings were murder, either.”

OK. Here’s a word game. Name that source. “’tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.” Who said it?

” They were just deliberate, knowing, indefensible homicides - but not murder. After all, murder is breaking the law, and the Nazis broke no law.”

Actually, they did. There was a German judge in the final days of the Reich who was actively working to shut the final solution down. They kept it secret for a reason, because it did violate German law. Also, there was international law, especially the Geneva Convention, which absolutely forbid the mass murder of civilians. Also, there’s the fact that most of the attrocities committed did not occur on German soil, but in occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia... where it was against the law. Finally, you have just done what the Left does all the time, bring the Holocaust into an unrelated subject for rhetorical overkill.

” So according to you, unless someone can drag Hillary before a court, the same thing applies to her.”

The Germans were dragged before a court. Quite a few of the big boys were hanged.

“Go away. You revolt me.”

Sorry. You just convinced me to keep this conversation going. I may revolt you, but you amuse me. Want me to go away? Just stop removing all doubt that you are a fool. Anything you can say I can rebut, just for fun. Read tales of Brer Rabbit, specifically Tar Baby.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.