The Deep State
Page 12
After our return, I found myself behind a dumpster at a Goodwill store in Virginia, hoping to meet an informant. Having recently returned from Libya, I had fresh perspective and information that needed to be exposed. Very few others knew what I knew.
My small but tenacious staff on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subcommittee on national security was willing to aggressively pursue the facts. We were trying to cultivate a potential whistleblower who had firsthand information about the security situation in Libya prior to the terrorist events on September 11, 2012.
Many of the people who had served in Libya during the attacks were being reassigned to other international posts, conveniently putting them out of the reach of congressional investigators. We knew of one who was in the United States for several weeks in language training school.
Eric Nordstrom had served as the regional security officer, commonly referred to as the RSO, in Libya prior to the attack. He departed Libya in August 2012, a few weeks before the bloody event in Benghazi, but had the firsthand knowledge of the security failures that played a role.
Tom Alexander, the staff director for the subcommittee who was trying to communicate with Nordstrom, noted that Nordstrom was nervous, very nervous. He knew very well that by telling the truth he could be risking his livelihood—or worse. He was trying to keep his head down and do his job. Speaking with Congress came with great personal peril and would likely suppress his future career progress. However, his testimony was pivotal to understanding why Benghazi happened.
We already knew from our trip that during his time in Libya, Nordstrom’s superiors in Washington, D.C., had made it clear his requests were unwelcome and problematic. He came to understand that his persistence was unwanted. The Department of State didn’t want to hear about security vulnerabilities. It was my understanding Nordstrom would potentially share details with us, but he was unsure whether to trust us.
Knowing the location of the language training school in Virginia, we found a retail store. It was a Goodwill store near the school. We passed along word that on a specific date Tom and I would be behind a dumpster nearby. We described the vehicle and indicated we would be there for an hour. Nordstrom could look up my picture on the Internet to verify my identity.
It was a beautiful fall day with a bit of crispness in the air. Tom and I parked close and wandered over to the dumpster and waited. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say if someone from the store or law enforcement showed up to inquire, but I also knew we weren’t doing anything wrong. In fact, we were doing the right thing pushing to get the truth and hopefully building confidence in a potential witness.
Part of me wondered if we were being set up. We were two guys in ties pulling up in Tom’s two-door Mercedes-Benz and hanging out by a dumpster. It certainly did not look natural. It looked like a drug deal.
Nordstrom didn’t show up that day but the fact that we made the effort was an important part of winning his confidence. He later told us why he didn’t show. He had consulted with Legislative Affairs at the State Department about talking to us. Although their job is ostensibly to facilitate such communication, they told him in no uncertain terms that he absolutely should not meet with us. They told him he could not meet with us unless they were present. This is categorically false. As a whistleblower, he has every right to meet with us, and they have no authority to stop him. In fact, they violate the law by trying to prevent him from coming to us.
But who is going to enforce that law? The Obama Justice Department? Attorney General Eric Holder? There are no consequences when the Deep State violates the law, because enforcement has become selective. These decisions are now political. The Deep State does not protect the whistleblower. And employees know very well that if they step out of line, they will be given some ridiculously bad assignment. Nordstrom was understandably protecting himself, his family, and his career. I respect that.
We were serious about getting to the truth and doing the right thing. Through some good staff work and work with him on the phone we eventually earned Nordstrom’s confidence. We had some help from his former colleague Lieutenant Colonel Wood, the constituent who had first alerted me to the inconsistencies of the attack narrative. Irate with the knowledge that Legislative Affairs had prevented Nordstrom from talking to us, we demanded he be made available for a transcribed interview with our staff. We were able to document that he was in the country, leaving them no excuse to withhold his testimony.
When Nordstrom came in for his interview, the State Department came with him. Their presence tends to suppress candid conversations, which is the point. But to his credit, his public testimony a few weeks later was both honest and heartfelt.
In October 2012, Eric Nordstrom would join Lieutenant Colonel Wood, Ambassador Kennedy, and Deputy Secretary of State Lamb in a hearing before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
We learned that Lamb had essentially let them know: Don’t ask for things. You’re not going to get them. They wanted no paper trail, and they wanted no problems. Just do as you’re told. So rather than react to the local security concerns by those on the ground, it was the classic Deep State Washington, D.C., signal that we know what is best. It was more of a political calculation than a security calculation.
Nordstrom, near the end of the hearing, would memorably describe the State Department this way: “For me, the Taliban is inside the building.”
In the months after this important, initial hearing I would get to know the heroes who defended the personnel in Benghazi. Four died, but others lived. Kris “Tonto” Paronto, John “Tig” Tiegen, Mark “Oz” Geist, and Dave Ubben were heroes that night and are still my heroes today.
What the book and movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi couldn’t share is what happened when the plane finally departed Benghazi carrying the shell-shocked Americans who had defended our consulate through the night.
They had literally been in the fight of their lives and saved more than thirty others from certain death. When the plane departed, it flew to Tripoli where they received initial medical care.
It never became clear why the plane went to Tripoli rather than Sigonella, Italy, where we had NATO assets, American personnel, and modern medicine. It would have been almost the same time and distance to go to Italy rather than Tripoli, where our American personnel had fled the embassy because of a pending attack.
Nevertheless, an American military plane was eventually dispatched to Tripoli to pick up the wounded Americans and take them to Germany. Dave Ubben in particular was severely injured.
Once patched up, the American heroes wanted to go home. Ubben, of course, could not. The State Department told them they were free to go but offered them no transportation to return home. No military airlift, no airline ticket, nothing. They were required to get their own tickets at their own expense to get home to their families.
To add insult to injury, the Department of State revoked their security clearances. This is how the State Department treated the heroes of Benghazi. This is how the Deep State suppresses, intimidates, and mistreats people. The Deep State didn’t want them home talking about their experiences, and they certainly didn’t want them to work again in their field of expertise.
Oh, and one more thing. Jeremy Freeman, the State Department employee who called Cheryl Mills and did all he could to thwart our investigation? Today, he still works for the State Department. That’s the Deep State.
The Benghazi investigation almost didn’t happen. Had I not heard from Lieutenant Colonel Wood, I wouldn’t have traveled to Libya in time to get the unfiltered truth. We would have all been left to believe it was as Susan Rice said—a consequence of a YouTube video gone awry. There can be no doubt now that that was a lie.
More important, without exposing Benghazi we might never have learned that Hillary Clinton was using her private email server to conduct government business and transmit classified information. Benghazi was a symptom of a much deeper problem
at the State Department. Their decisions were based not on a security calculation, but on a political one.
Even More State Department Shenanigans
The second time I encountered a “minder” from the State Department was during a February 2014 visit to the U.S. embassy in Papua New Guinea. I was there to learn more about how changes in the embassy design process would impact cost and security for the construction of a new embassy in Port Moresby.
As secretary of state, Colin Powell had developed a process called Standard Embassy Design, or SED, which used a secure design template for each embassy, saving both time and money. It meant construction didn’t require reinventing the wheel each time with each new embassy. But when Hillary Clinton took over the State Department she worked closely with Senator John Kerry, and they reconfigured how the United States builds embassies. Clinton’s plan, called Design Excellence, emphasized openness and “customized artistic designs.” Right.
Within the bowels of the Department of State is the OBO, or Overseas Building Operations. Having reviewed a combination of inspector general (IG) reports and Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits, we found that the OBO seemed to be building embassies more slowly and more expensively than Powell’s State Department did under his SED plan. This was costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and slowing down the ability to secure embassies around the world. We were building fewer embassies and spending more, which leaves more people at risk. Some of the older embassies are in bad shape and are not secure.
After seeing what happened in Libya, I knew this lack of security was serious and needed to be addressed quickly. So this investigation took me to Papua New Guinea. Yes, Papua New Guinea.
I was also deeply concerned about the incredible waste of money and time in construction of our embassies. The State Department had started building an embassy in Port Moresby only to stop its construction partway through. They decided to expand and redesign the building, which meant starting over.
Now, you should know a little bit about Port Moresby: It is the largest city in the South Pacific outside of Australia and New Zealand. It has a 60 percent unemployment rate. It is filled with poverty, shantytowns, and serious crimes like murder and rape. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index rates it No. 5 on the list of ten least livable cities in the world.
The place is a dangerous horror, and Westerners are targeted.
So, the new embassy design would cost a few hundred million dollars more than the first design. Or, as CBS News reported, “The project estimate has ballooned from $50 million to $211 million, and according to an internal State Department document, there has been a ‘termination of the current work and shuttering of the site until a new construction contract is awarded.’”
This was an incredibly dangerous city. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that we needed a new embassy sooner rather than later. The existing embassy was in an extremely vulnerable situation because it was co-located with a bank that overhung the street parking, making both buildings an easy target for terrorists.
The State Department knew of our investigation. When I arrived, the ambassador had not been given prior notice that the new embassy was going to be dismantled in favor of a new design. I had to be the one to tell him because the State Department hadn’t bothered.
State’s decision was going to set back the opening date by several years. It was clear the department was communicating very little with anyone in that very small embassy.
Just like the situation in Benghazi, when I showed up there was an unexpected State Department official in the room. This time I was much more comfortable pushing back aggressively against people from Foggy Bottom. I asked the ambassador privately if he knew this gentleman. He said no, that this guy had shown up unannounced the day before and said he had flown in from D.C. and decided to sit in on our meeting.
We were meeting in a conference room where roughly eight of us sat around a table. I decided to go around the room and have each person introduce himself or herself. When I got to the Deep State mystery man, he had the gall to tell me that his presence was merely coincidental to my visit. He said the embassy building was his responsibility in Washington, D.C., and he just happened to think that it might be a good idea to go out and visit.
Keep in mind, he had never visited that city previously, nor was he communicating on a regular basis with the ambassador. I challenged the notion that his visit was coincidental. I said, “I’m going to give you one chance to tell the truth. And that will determine whether or not you stay. Are you here because I’m here?”
He responded, “Oh, no, I would have been here regardless of your visit. It was just a good time for me to come introduce myself to the staff at the embassy.”
At that point, I unleashed on him and called him out for lying.
The State Department was given notice a few weeks ahead of my trip. They knew exactly when I would be there. I said, “You can get back on a plane and fly back to Washington, D.C. This is a total waste of taxpayer money. Your presence is not needed here and I will not allow you to sit in on this meeting.” He looked over at the ambassador and it was clear he supported my decision.
The embassy regional security officer helped him get on a flight back to D.C. By the way, this flight is about eighteen hours, with two stops, about as far as you can get from Washington, D.C. Later the ambassador and support staff thanked me for highlighting how obnoxious he was in presenting himself as merely a coincidence. They were shocked and dismayed that State had not been candid about their situation.
This was just another instance where the State Department was doing everything possible to spy on a member of Congress and put a person in the room who could report back and help them manage the narrative.
I’m not aware of any other situation where an investigative body has been so manipulated and in such a brash fashion.
Chapter 10
Flouting Subpoenas
By now you’ve gotten a sense of some of the battles I had in Congress against the Deep State. You’ve seen some of their faces, know some of their names and their misdeeds. The worst of the federal bureaucrats try anything to evade sunlight.
As I began my time as a member of Congress, and later chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (OGR), I always assumed the most potent weapon in exposing corruption, incompetence, and other wrongdoing would be issuing a subpoena. Remember, as oversight chairman I could issue a subpoena for anything, on anyone, at anytime.
There are two types of subpoenas we would normally require. One compels the agency under investigation to produce documents. The other compels witnesses to testify. Only two exceptions to this obligation are recognized by Congress. First, when the president himself invokes executive privilege, indicating the information is part of the chief executive’s personal conduct of his government duties, a subpoena can be legitimately blocked. The second allowable exception is when the information requested is part of certain grand jury material. Other than those two exceptions, Congress has a right to see everything. In theory. But in practice, not so much.
As you might imagine, the Deep State has developed innumerable strategies to play their version of Subvert the Subpoena.
Document subpoenas were more likely than testimony subpoenas to be subverted. I honestly don’t know if we ever got 100 percent document production on any case. My OGR colleague Trey Gowdy often said, if you want 100 percent of the truth you need 100 percent of the documents.
The Deep State resistance against public disclosure of documents is a battle they must fight on two fronts. Not only do they have to deal with document subpoenas from Congress, but they are also required by law to produce documents requested by the public through the Freedom of Information Act. They use a similar arsenal of tactics to evade both types of disclosure requests.
One of the most common practices involved manipulating the media into reporting compliance with a document request simply because agencies
had turned over “thousands of pages” of documents. Agencies would always tout the total number of documents they turned over to us. I wondered if the bureaucrats held stock in Staples or Office Depot. To inflate the page count, they would print copies of their agency websites. They would provide news and magazine articles. If they had a back-and-forth exchange among multiple employees, they would print the same exchange from each separate email account. No matter how long that exchange was, we’d get multiple copies of it, and they would count them as separate documents and pages.
Then they’d claim to reporters they’d already turned over thousands of pages, making it sound like they were wearing out their printer to provide documents, even as they withheld the documents that would have exposed the truth.
For example, when we were investigating the ATF “Fast and Furious” scheme, more than three years after we started our investigation, on November 4, 2014, Politico reported, “The Department of Justice has turned over nearly 65,000 pages of documents on the ‘Fast and Furious’ gunrunning scandal to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.” Sounds like a lot, right? Sounds like we might be getting some really meaty information about what went on at the ATF and the DOJ during that operation, right?
Well, as Politico elaborated, “The tens of thousands of pages of documents released to the House late Monday include an email exchange between [Eric] Holder and his wife. . . . A person familiar with the exchanges between Holder and his wife, Sharon Malone, said that one involves Malone forwarding a news article related to the case. In the email thread, the couple went on to discuss family matters not related to the Fast and Furious investigation.”
Let’s just say that particular document dump wasn’t helpful.
Another common tactic is to produce a document and then to redact or black out close to 100 percent of the page. A classic instance played out during “Fast and Furious.” CBS News ran a story on April 27, 2012, showing their viewers documents they received more than a year after requesting them through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The CBS FOIA request got the same kind of response Congress was getting on document subpoenas. The response, said CBS, included “mostly-blank pages.”