by Ben Shapiro
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, issued a statement repeating the notion that a YouTube video had caused terrorists to murder four Americans. “Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation,” the statement read. Hillary cut a video that was distributed in Pakistan condemning the YouTube video. It cost seventy thousand dollars to run on Pakistani television.92 Two days after the attack, according to Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Hillary screamed at members of Congress who suggested that Benghazi had been a terrorist attack.93
When Mitt Romney had the temerity to rip the Obama administration’s response—he called it “disgraceful” that the administration’s “first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks”—the media quickly pounced on him, suggesting that he was politicizing the event. All of this was part and parcel of the Obama campaign’s effort to distract from the real issues at stake in Benghazi.94
The administration went whole hog in pushing the narrative that Benghazi had sprung from the YouTube video. At the event at Andrews Air Force Base greeting the bodies of the slain, Clinton approached Charles Woods, the father of murdered Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods. “She said we will make sure that the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted,” Woods describes.95 Obama, said Woods, couldn’t look him in the eye. On September 27, the YouTube filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was arrested and labeled a “danger to the community.”96
On the Sunday after the attacks, UN ambassador Susan Rice appeared on all five Sunday morning news shows in place of her unavailable boss, Hillary Clinton. It was one thing for Hillary to sit before the cameras to crow about Qaddafi; it was quite another for her to answer questions about Benghazi. Rice told ABC’s This Week, “[O]ur current best assessment, based on the information that we have at present, is that, in fact, what this began as, it was a spontaneous—not a premeditated—response to what had transpired in Cairo . . . folks in Benghazi, a small number of people came to the embassy to—or to the consulate, rather, to replicate the sort of challenge that was posed in Cairo. And then as that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that as you know in—in the wake of the revolution in Libya are—are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there.” A spontaneous protest that appears in precisely zero of the cables or phone calls from Benghazi suddenly became the source of the terrorist assault.97 Rice repeated this language on CBS’s Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union.98
There was only one big problem for the Obama administration: it was obvious to everyone with half a brain that the terrorist attacks in Benghazi had nothing to do with a YouTube video. Almost immediately, reports began surfacing that there was no spontaneous demonstration, and that this had been a precalibrated terrorist action. So how did Rice end up on television as the mouthpiece for such lies?
The administration manipulated the talking points handed to Rice. More specifically, Hillary Clinton’s State Department changed the talking points. The talking points went through twelve revisions; one version, which contained CIA warnings about mission insecurity, so upset State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland that she emailed back that the warnings “could be used by Members [of Congress] to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings so why do we want to feed that? Concerned . . .” After another round of changes, Nuland wrote, “These don’t resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership.” Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs David S. Adams agreed with Nuland: “That last bullet especially will read to members [of Congress] like we had been repeatedly warned.”
All twelve versions of the talking points said that the Benghazi attacks were “spontaneously inspired by protest in Cairo”—that language came from the CIA, the same entity allegedly responsible for administration-approved gunrunning in Libya. But then the administration morphed the talking points further to mislead the American people, removing language stating that Ansar al-Sharia was involved in the attack and that the CIA had warned of the attack. Another line removed from the talking points: “The wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya almost certainly contributed to the lethality of the attacks.”99 As the House Oversight Committee found, “The Administration’s talking points were developed in an interagency process that focused more on protecting the reputation and credibility of the State Department than on explaining to the American people the facts surrounding the fatal attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel in Libya. . . . This process to alter the talking points can only be construed as a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the American people.”100 Jay Carney, however, would later label the talking points manipulation apolitical.101
It took more than a week before the administration began calling the attacks in Benghazi terrorist attacks.102 Even then, President Obama continued to blame the YouTube video for what had happened in Benghazi. On September 25, 2012, in an attempt to put a lid on the Benghazi scandal, Obama appeared at the United Nations. He did not label the Benghazi attacks terrorist in nature. He reemphasized America’s new pro-Islamist “lead from behind” strategy—the same strategy that brought about Benghazi in the first place: “Just as we cannot solve every problem in the world, the United States has not and will not seek to dictate the outcome of democratic transitions abroad. We do not expect other nations to agree with us on every issue, nor do we assume that the violence of the past weeks or the hateful speech by some individuals represent the views of the overwhelming majority of Muslims, any more than the views of the people who produced this video represents those of Americans.” He equated the violence of the Muslim world with the YouTube video: “The future must not belong to those who target Coptic Christians in Egypt. . . . The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Over the course of the speech, he mentioned the YouTube video six times.103
In the end, of course, the YouTube video had nothing to do with anything. The administration essentially knew that all along. When push came to shove, however, the administration’s perspective on its lies about the YouTube video was simple: push Benghazi beyond the election, blame it on a YouTube video, then pretend it made no difference anyway. Even before the election, President Obama derided Benghazi as a “bump in the road” to CBS News’ Steve Kroft and deigned to admit that the death of four Americans was “not optimal” in an interview with Jon Stewart.104 The administration truly didn’t care all that much. As Hillary Clinton put it when testifying before a Senate committee in May 2013, “Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night and decided they’d go kill some Americans. . . .What difference—at this point, what difference does it make?”105
It made a hell of a lot of difference, considering that the nature of the attack meant the difference between involuntary manslaughter and simple negligence: if the attack had been a spontaneous black swan, the administration could credibly claim no one could have stopped it. But the administration knew full well the situation on the ground in Benghazi, and for base political reasons, decided to do nothing.
Hicks told Congress that the administration’s decision to blame everything on the YouTube video—a decision he said made his “jaw hit the floor”—completely undercut relations with the government of Libya. Libya had claimed immediately that this was a terrorist attack. “President [Mohamed] Magariaf was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world,” Hicks said. “His credibility was reduced. His ability to lead his own country was damaged. . . . He was angry. A friend of mine who ate dinner with him in New York during the UN sessions told me he was still steamed about the talk shows two week
s later.” That anger, Hicks said, led to an eighteen-day delay in the FBI’s access to Benghazi.106
THE COVER-UP CONTINUES
While the Obama administration was trotting out lies about YouTube and obscuring any hint of gunrunning in Libya, they had to keep everyone quiet. They accomplished this in two ways. First, following a pattern established in every major Obama scandal, the administration appointed a group of flunkies to perform an investigation—an investigation that naturally exculpated the administration. Second, the administration actively worked to silence witnesses who knew anything.
First, the investigation. White House press secretary Jay Carney did admit shortly before the election that Obama didn’t care too much about the investigation; Carney said, “He has not participated in the investigation.”107 But the State Department, led by Hillary, quickly announced an Accountability Review Board (ARB) led by Hillary allies. Four were picked directly by Hillary: former UN ambassador Thomas Pickering, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, Catherine Bertini, and Richard Shinnick. The fifth was selected by the intelligence community—the CIA. Clinton, needless to say, was never interviewed by the ARB. And the report did not even bother trying to lock down President Obama’s timeline during the attacks.108 Pickering later defended the decision not to interview Hillary by stating that there was no need to do so: “We knew where the responsibility rested.” And they did: anyplace but Hillary.109
Whistle-blowers including Mark Thompson, the deputy assistant secretary in charge of coordinating the deployment of a multiagency team for hostage taking and terrorism attacks, were not interviewed. Even those who were interviewed were not allowed to review their comments afterward, and the interviews were not performed with a stenographer. And those performing the ARB were obviously biased in favor of Hillary—when Hicks was interviewed and informed the ARB that Stevens was in Benghazi at Hillary’s direct behest, Pickering “visibly flinched and said; ‘Does the 7th floor know about this?’ ” Hillary’s office was on the seventh floor of the building. The ARB ignored Hicks’s remarks and instead wrote, “The Board found that Ambassador Stevens made the decision to travel to Benghazi independently of Washington, per standard practice. Timing for his trip was driven in part by commitments in Tripoli, as well as a staffing gap . . . in Benghazi.”110
The ARB did find plenty of blame to go around. “Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place,” the ARB stated. But all of the blame could be relegated to low-level employees. And those low-level employees were not to be punished: “the Board did not find that any individual U.S. Government employee engaged in misconduct or willfully ignored his or her responsibilities, and, therefore did not find reasonable cause to believe that an individual breached his or her duty so as to be the subject of a recommendation for disciplinary action.”111 A congressional report would later find that the ARB report was not independent, and that it was designed to exculpate those in charge: “The ARB blamed systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies within two bureaus, but downplayed the importance of decisions made at senior levels of the Department. Witnesses questioned how much these decisions influenced the weaknesses that led to the inadequate security posture in Benghazi. . . . The ARB’s decision to cite certain officials as accountable for what happened in Benghazi appears to have been based on factors that had little or no connection to the security posture at U.S. diplomatic facilities in Libya.”112
Nonetheless, Jay Carney said the report was the gold standard in investigations: “The Accountability Review Board which investigated this matter—and I think in no one’s estimation sugarcoated what happened there or pulled any punches when it came to holding accountable individuals that they felt had not successfully executed their responsibilities—heard from everyone and invited everyone. So there was a clear indication there that everyone who had something to say was welcome to provide information to the Accountability Review Board.”113 Mullen and Pickering released a statement: “From the beginning of the ARB process, we had unfettered access to everyone and everything, including all of the documentation we needed. Our marching orders were to get to the bottom of what happened, and that is what we did.”114 The White House continued to refuse to release photos of the Obama team during the Benghazi attack, though the White House had been all too eager to trot out pictures of the entire Obama crew in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden.115
Throughout all of this, Hillary claimed ignorance: ignorance about the security situation, ignorance about what was really going on on the ground. “I have made it very clear that the security cables did not come to my attention or above the assistant secretary level, where the ARB placed responsibility. Where, as I think Ambassador Pickering said, ‘the rubber hit the road,’ ” she told Congress. She added, “You know . . . it was very disappointing to me that the ARB concluded there were inadequacies and problems in the responsiveness of our team here in Washington to the security requests that were made by our team in Libya. And I was not aware of that going on, it was not brought to my attention. . . . 1.43 million cables a year come to the State Department. They are all addressed to me. They do not all come to me. They are reported through the bureaucracy.” But she had signed a cable herself approving a drawdown in April, and Stevens had sent her a signed cable in August.116 Perhaps all of this got lost in the shuffle. Or perhaps, and more likely, it was part of an administration policy not to up security lest they offend the locals by doing so.
Senator Rand Paul questions whether Clinton is as ignorant as she claims. He wrote in August 2013, “Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton, said to be the leading supporter of arming the Islamic rebels, did not know of the CIA operation?”117
If the administration was not guilty of a cover-up, they certainly did an excellent job looking guilty. On August 1, 2013, CNN reported that “dozens of people working for the CIA were on the ground” the night of the Benghazi attack, and that the CIA had been systematically attempting to shut them up ever since. According to CNN sources, “the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.” Those lengths reportedly included polygraph examinations on a monthly basis, with the purpose of finding out if anybody had leaked to the media or Congress. “It is being described as pure intimidation,” CNN observed, “with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.” One CIA insider told CNN, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.” Naturally, the CIA denied that it had exerted any pressure on agents.118 Meanwhile, in September 2013, one year after the initial attacks, CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson reported that the State Department had decided not to “honor the request to make Benghazi survivors available for questioning.”119
In July 2013, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told CBS News that officials within the military and intelligence echelons had been barred from taking action on pursuing leads in the Benghazi case.120 Meanwhile, Hicks was barred for months from speaking with Congress or the media. “I was instructed to allow the RSO [Regional Security Officer], the acting Deputy Chief of Mission, and myself to be interviewed by Congressman [Jason] Chaffetz [of the House Oversight Committee],” Hicks testified. Hicks said that he had never experienced a higher-up telling him not to speak with Congress. Hicks also testified that a State Department lawyer attempted to enter a classified briefing Hicks attended with the congresspeople visiting Libya; Hicks tried to bar the lawyer because the lawyer didn’t have the proper security clearance. That prompted a screaming phone call from Hillary Clinton’s right-hand woman, Cheryl Mills. Hicks said Mills was “very upset” about the lawyers being excluded,” and “demanded a report on the visit.” Hicks wryly concluded, “A phone call from that near a person is
generally not considered to be good news.”121 Hicks was called back from Libya. As of September 2013—a year after the attacks—he had not been reassigned to a post in the State Department. “I don’t know why I was punished,” Hicks told ABC News. “I don’t know why I was shunted aside, put in a closet if you will.”122
The administration also attempted to throw White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler under the bus, suggesting to Obama-favored outlet BuzzFeed that Ruemmler had told “senior Obama officials to keep quiet about the attack in Benghazi during the two weeks preceding last year’s November presidential election.”123
Reporters who asked serious questions about Benghazi were castigated by the administration. Hillary henchman Philippe Reines told BuzzFeed reporter Michael Hastings to “f— off” and called him an “unmitigated a—hole” after Hastings emailed him asking about the administration’s angry reaction to release of details about Ambassador Stevens’s diary.124 The rest of the media quickly got the hint. CBS News, which has a habit of reading the Obama administration’s tea leaves (see Steve Kroft’s cut to the Obama interview about Benghazi above), began signaling that intrepid reporter Sharyl Attkisson had sinned against the Obama administration by asking questions about Benghazi. Politico, another favored Obama outlet, reported that CBS News execs had “grown increasingly frustrated with Attkisson’s Benghazi campaign. CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue.” Politico reported that Attkisson’s increasing marginalization was one reason she might leave before her contract expired.125 Overall, the media’s coverage of Benghazi was so scanty before the election that it can only be labeled shilling for a campaign. Even the New York Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, later recognized the problem: “I agree that The Times seemed to play down the story originally, placing it inside the paper and emphasizing the second-day angle of the [embassy] apology rather than the misconduct itself. . . . Many on the right—as noted last week in my blog posts about Benghazi—do not think they can get a fair shake from The Times. This coverage won’t do anything to dispel that belief.”126