Still Waiting for the Truth

Twenty-five minutes before the start of Thursday’s hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Charles Woods stood alone behind the witness table, marveling at the chaos around him. A gaggle of still photographers was rehearsing their movements for the arrival of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Young people in smart outfits scurried about with stern looks on their faces, as if the urgency of their movement reflected the importance of their various errands.

Woods, a handsome man with a shock of near-white hair, wore a black suit and yellow and black flowered tie in the style of his native Hawaii. He was nearly run over by a young woman in heels and in a hurry, who scowled at him briefly for standing in the aisle as she maneuvered around him, a look she probably wouldn’t have given him if she’d had any idea who he was and why he was here.

Woods is the father of Tyrone Woods, a retired Navy Seal killed in the attacks on Benghazi on September 11, 2012. Shortly before the hearing began, I asked him what he hoped to learn from the hearing.

Charles Woods has been waiting a long time for the truth. He met his son’s body at Joint Base Andrews, three days after the attacks, at a solemn ceremony in just outside Washington, D.C. He first met Clinton at that brief memorial service. He remembers it well, in part, he says, because he took notes immediately after he spoke with her.

From (excellent) article:

Clinton misled the committee on topics big and small, on issues crucial to the inquiry and irrelevant to it.

*She called the Accountability Review Board “nonpartisan” and “independent.” It was neither. Clinton hand-picked the co-chairmen. They never interviewed her and never saw her emails. They provided a draft copy of the final report to Clinton’s chief of staff for editing and tipped off the State Department about potentially problematic witnesses.

*Clinton downplayed her role in Libya policymaking, suggesting she was just a bit player in Obama’s decision to intervene. But an email from Jake Sullivan, a senior Clinton adviser, laid out her “leadership on Libya.”

*Clinton once again claimed that emails to her from Sidney Blumenthal were “unsolicited.” Asked to define “unsolicited,” Clinton explained: “It means I did not ask him to send” the emails. But her responses repeatedly show her soliciting more information from Blumenthal. In a July 7, 2012, email to Blumenthal, she writes: “...and thanks for keeping this stuff coming.”

*Clinton said of Blumenthal’s commercial pursuits in Libya: “I did not know anything of his business interests.” But Blumenthal laid out those interests in an email to Clinton previewing an upcoming meeting she was to have. Clinton’s response to that email indicates that she was not only aware of his business interests, she was eager to help further them. She wrote: “Anything else to convey?”

*Clinton testified that Blumenthal was neither an “official or unofficial” adviser and said he “wasn’t advising me.” But Clinton testified Thursday that she found Blumenthal’s information “useful.” She regularly sent Blumenthal’s information on to others in the Obama administration, often with instructions to follow up on those emails. Blumenthal’s thoughts were included in Clinton’s public remarks and her private correspondence. Top Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan wrote to Clinton: “The speechwriting crew is taking Sid’s points below and massaging them into a set of remarks.”

*Clinton claims that there was no classified information at U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi. And she downplays suggestions that there was “sensitive” information there either. It depends how you define “sensitive,” she said. But the Washington Post reported: “More than three weeks after attacks in this city killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, sensitive documents remained only loosely secured in the remains of the U.S. mission.”

*Gowdy asked Clinton whether the Accountability Review Board had access to her emails. The correct answer is the obvious one: “No.” But when Gowdy asked Clinton, she disingenously left open the possibility that they had.

*Clinton claimed her emails about Libya with Blumenthal were not work-related. But emails show that Blumethal’s emails a offered policy advice on Libya and often shared them with senior State Department officials. The question isn’t whether those emails were “work-related” – they surely were. The question is what other work-related emails Clinton kept private with the claim that they were merely “personal.”

Everybody in America.....everybody.....knows that Hillary was responsible for Benghazi.

I paid her wages.

I want to know what happened. I want to know why four Americans, including a United States Ambassador, were murdered in Benghazi.

What I don’t want, is for this former employee to sit there under oath playing word games with the people we elected to keep a watch over this government.

And if the President, who is also my employee, is trying to cover for her, then I want the FBI Agents whose salaries I also pay, to look into what kind of shenanigans he’s up to.

We don’t have an aristocracy. If we did, it damn sure wouldn’t consist of dirty little snots like Hillary.

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