CCB Press Conference on Benghazi Largely Ignored by Mainstream Media

By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media


On June 29, the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB) held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington to discuss the release of its new report on the events surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the Special Mission Compound and CIA Annex, resulting in the deaths of four Americans. As usual, the liberal media largely stayed away. Apparently, if The New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and NBC don’t cover a story, no matter how important, it isn’t really news. So instead, the only representative from the mainstream media was The Washington Post’s designated hit man, Dana Milbank, who regularly trolls conservative gatherings to heap scorn, sarcasm and peddle misinformation to his waiting readers. That is the sad state of journalism in this country today.

Mr. Milbank’s penchant for playing fast and loose with the details has gotten him in trouble before, when he claimed that conservative speakers had “taunted” a young Muslim girl. These speakers had, in fact, thanked her for her presence. In the latest case, Milbank wrote an opinion piece, not a news story, with the online headline, “Benghazi Conspiracy Theorists Turn on Trey Gowdy.” The headline in the print edition of the paper was “Appeasing the far right? You’ll always end up wrong.”

During the course of Milbank’s article, he called the members of the CCB “a coalition of far-right ­foreign-policy types,” “conspiracy theorists,” and “agitators.” This is all part of the attempt to discredit the messenger, because Milbank can’t really dispute the message—although he has certainly tried. But at least he was there, and spelled the names correctly, though he was wrong about the number of members on the commission (it’s 14, plus two advisory, not 11). Apparently the Post’s Fact-Checker was busy on other stories that day. Maybe they should hire more.

Milbank found our report to be what he called “full of inventive accusations.”

“They found ‘troubling evidence that Obama and Clinton were deeply and knowingly involved in running guns to al-Qaeda in Libya,’” writes Milbank, “as well as ‘a clear case of official U.S. government submission to the Islamic Law on slander.’”

“They determined that the Obama administration ‘switched sides in what was then called the Global War on Terror’ and ‘benefited this country’s worst enemies,’” he continues. “They wrote that Clinton herself blocked U.S. military forces from attempting a rescue mission, and they attributed the decision to oust Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi in part to financial interests of the Clinton Foundation.”

When Milbank quotes from the CCB’s findings, the obvious inference is that he finds these points to be baseless—and believes they could only originate from the minds of right-wing conspiracy theorists. The findings in the CCB’s latest report are, indeed, very damning accusations. But we back them up in every case, and encourage people to read the report and judge for themselves. Our military and intelligence experts—former admirals, generals, colonels, congressmen and CIA officers—are people with vast service to this country and outstanding reputations.

In particular, we have repeatedly demonstrated that the Obama administration decided to send arms to the Libyan rebels, who themselves were affiliated with al Qaeda and other jihadists. This ultimately contributed to the death of our Ambassador at the hands of Islamic jihadists, and Libya’s transformation into a terror safe haven.

It is Milbank who is being played for the fool by not looking at the evidence.

Apparently he doesn’t believe that Hillary Clinton, or anyone else, for that matter, “blocked U.S. military forces from attempting a rescue mission.” Yet American military assets were not sent to aid those in Benghazi. The Americans in Benghazi were left to withstand multiple terror attacks on their own, lasting approximately 13 hours from start to finish .

That is why the testimony from Gen. Tom McInerney is so compelling. He led the air attacks into Libya in 1986. Admiral Ace Lyons, another member of the CCB, commanded more than 250,000 troops at one time as commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet of the U.S. Navy—while Dana Milbank was giving secret handshakes and who knows what else at Skull and Bones meetings at Yale.

If Milbank had wanted to actually read our report and challenge it on a factual basis, I could respect that. But all he wanted to do is make disrespectful, cutting comments that cast a slur on others while having no basis in fact. When it comes to knowing whether military assets could have been brought to Benghazi that night to attempt to save lives, whom are you going to trust—Milbank or McInerney? Does anyone really believe they couldn’t have gotten there if ordered to do so? And why, with multiple warnings of a terrorist attack in Benghazi in the weeks leading up to September 11, 2012, weren’t military assets on high alert, prepared for such an attack?

Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily did read the report, and he wrote a different sort of articleilluminating the dereliction of duty by the Obama administration.

“[Clare] Lopez charged Clinton’s role in the Benghazi debacle was ‘pivotal,’” writes Corsi. “She said that under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department ‘changed sides’ in the war on terrorism in Libya.”

Far from a baseless accusation, Clinton’s pivotal role can be seen in her aide, Jake Sullivan’s email that Clinton had “leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country’s Libya policy from start to finish.” Yet somehow we are supposed to believe that Mrs. Clinton ignored Libya after Qaddafi’s death, and missed 600 requests for additional security. That’s what she told the House Select Committee on Benghazi when she testified last October.

The military dereliction of duty in Benghazi is shocking, as well. “So we had no pre-planning of the possibility of a terrorist attack in the region on that day and while the attack was underway no U.S. military assets were moved into action,” said McInerney. “At least a fly-by over Benghazi could have been arranged, with F-16s using full after-burners that could have dispersed the terrorists and ended the attack.”

Corsi recounts how Charles Woods, the father of Ty Woods, spoke at the June 29 press conference, and asked to know who is “responsible” for his son’s death. Ty was a former Navy SEAL who was part of the CIA Annex Security Team. In fact, I hope every American will get the chance to watch the movie “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.” It is available on demand on most cable TV services. I attended the premiere last January in Dallas.

Jennifer Harper of The Washington Times also highlighted the new report from the CCB.

Regrettably, without even attending the event, MSNBC repeated some of the lies perpetuated by Milbank. “This is what it’s come to: Benghazi conspiracy theorists are so creative, and so unmoved by evidence or reason, that they can convince themselves that congressional Republicans are in on the conspiracy,” writes Steve Benen for MSNBC (emphasis in original).

As my colleagues and I explained at the press conference, Select Committee on Benghazi Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) had an unparalleled opportunity to explain the attacks, connect the dots and hold people accountable. Instead, he and the remainder of the GOP members largely acted as stenographers rather than investigators. Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mike Pompeo (R-KS) provided a supplemental report more willing to place blame, and at the press conference on June 28 when their report was released, Pompeo called Mrs. Clinton’s actions “morally reprehensible.” But when it came to passing judgment, Gowdy took a pass.

This has allowed the mainstream media to claim that despite an exhaustive investigation, no new revelations have been found that implicate Hillary Clinton. For Benen, his headline reads that Clinton has been “exonerated.” But no new revelations were necessary to demonstrate the ongoing Benghazi cover-up.

You can read our new report or watch our entire June 29 press conference here:


#SCPrimary: Trey Gowdy misleads in anti-Cruz robo-call

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Trump and Rubio speak during commercial break at GOP Debate via statesman.com

Trump and Rubio speak during commercial break at GOP Debate via statesman.com

Since when do allegations count as fact? Yet that is exactly what is happening in the mainstream media with the relentless attacks on Ted Cruz.

The latest is concerning a “push poll” that allegedly came from the Cruz camp, as reported at the Washington Post. The charge is that Remington Research, a consulting firm started by Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, is behind telephone polls that bash Trump and Rubio.

But Chris Wilson, Cruz’s director of research denied that the campaign is engaged in any robo-polls in South Carolina. And after the story broke, resulting in Trump freaking out on Twitter, Politico reported that Ted Cruz told reporters, “[W]e had nothing to do with them….” and additionally, Brian Phillips, the Cruz team’s rapid-response director tweeted:

Read more here…


Crazy Town: More silly accusations aimed at Ted Cruz reported as fact

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Former Speaker John Boehner meeting with Rep. Trey Gowdy

Former Speaker John Boehner meeting with Rep. Trey Gowdy via speaker.gov

Lies are regularly being attributed to Ted Cruz for the flimsiest of reasons, without evidence. Some ill-informed people shockingly accept these accusations as fact, nodding and cheering along the most baseless of charges with enthusiasm.

The most recent example of this can be found at the Wall Street Journal. Using an all-too-common tactic of subtle language manipulation, an outrageous charge becomes a news story in a once-respectable publication. The title alone, “Rubio Camp Accuses Cruz Backers of Dirty Facebook Tricks,” is an indicator that evidence of anti-Cruz allegations will be sorely lacking.

The latest fake accusation is so mind-numbingly stupid that this author is at a loss how few are calling out the Wall Street Journal. In a nutshell, someone claiming to be Trey Gowdy on a Facebook page said he switched his allegiance from Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz. It was not Trey Gowdy.

Read more here…


Getting Around Protected Rights

Constitution 03BY T.F. STERN

This past week many sites, to include The Federalist Papers Project, linked to a video of Congressman Trey Gowdy’s public hearings.  Acting on behalf of the American public he carefully and methodically destroyed Deputy Assistant Secretary Ms. Burriesci, representing the Department of Homeland Security, as government officials attempted to explain the ‘process’ by which American citizens could petition the government to restore rights which had been removed, those who’d been denied their right to own and purchase firearms, these same individuals who’d been placed on the Do Not Fly List.

Congressman Gowdy wanted to know more about the ‘process’; but what he really wanted was to remind Ms. Burriesci about a different ‘process’, one which was being ignored completely…

Congressman Gowdy thoughtfully explained his use of the word ‘process’ as he originally referred to it, to be more specific, the term is Due Process.  He reminded the witness that our constitution limits government’s ability to infringe on any individual’s God given inalienable rights without Due Process.

For clarification purposes, Ryan Williams’s entry to the 2010 Yale Law Journal defined this term and concept more precisely:

“In United States constitutional law, substantive due processis a principle which allows courts to protect certain rights deemed fundamental from government interference under the authority of the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which prohibit the federal and state governments, respectively, from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” That is, substantive due process demarcates the line between acts by persons that courts hold are subject to government regulation or legislation and those acts that courts place beyond the reach of governmental interference. Whether the Fifth and/or Fourteenth Amendments were intended to serve this function continues to be a matter of scholarly as well as judicial discussion and dissent.”

Timothy Sandefur recorded in, The Right to Earn a Living: Economic Freedom and the Law, as published via the Cato Institute in 2010:

“In contrast, substantive due process aims to protect individuals against majoritarian policy enactments that exceed the limits of governmental authority—that is, courts may find that a majority’s enactment is not law, and cannot be enforced as such, regardless of how fair the processes of enactment and enforcement actually are.”

Trey Gowdy Congressman South CarolinaIn short, there are laws being enforced (far too many) which are outside of restrictions placed on government, restrictions intended to safeguard individual God given rights (or Natural rights) and it is important to remind those in government that they are not above the Constitution and have no such powers.   We are, after all, a nation dependent on the Rule of Law.

Let me insert a partial transcription of Congressman Gowdy’s efforts…

“What process is afforded a United States citizen before that person’s Constitutional right is infringed. That [The President] is fine with doing it with the Second Amendment.

My question is, how about the First? How about we not let them set up a website, or a Google account?

How about we not let them join a church until they petition Government to get off the list? How about not get a lawyer? How about the 6th amendment?

How about you can’t get a lawyer until you petition the government to get off the list? Or my favorite, how about the 8th amendment?

We’re going to subject you to cruel and unusual punishment until you petition the government to get off the list?

Is there another Constitutional right that we treat the same way for American citizens than we do the Second Amendment? Can you think of one?”

“The No-Fly List itself is a violation of Constitutional rights all by itself, but to use that illegal list as a way to snatch other rights away from the people is abhorrent and sets a dangerous precedent for the future.”

When our government tries to get around the Rule of Law as if it were outside of restrictions placed on it by the Constitution, at that time we can say without equivocation that tyranny has replaced our representative form of government.

Dan Riehl wrote an article the day after the San Bernardino premeditated attack in which Muslim Terrorists proudly admitted their association with ISIS and then murdered 14 Americans.  Riehl pointed out that Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, on behalf of the Department of Justice was more concerned about anti-Muslim rhetoric’s effect on those of that faith than the threat posed to the American public.

“Loretta Lynch, at a press conference yesterday, termed the San Bernardino shootings a “wonderful opportunity” to change the nature of police work: “We’re at the point where these issues have come together really like never before in law enforcement thought and in our nation’s history and it gives us a wonderful opportunity and a wonderful moment to really make significant change.”

The Obama administration continues to use any gun related tragedy as a means to launch additional gun control measures.  They went to extreme measures to cover this event, as with other shootings as if guns walked in and shot all those folks without a Muslim Terrorist holding those guns.

Obama has threatened to implement extreme gun control actions via Executive Order, effectively bypassing Congress.  If you put these two thoughts together we have a totalitarian effort (tyranny) to eradicate the 2nd Amendment; but also destroy freedom of speech as protected by the 1st Amendment.

So, back to Congressman Gowdy’s questions regarding our government’s attempts to get around the constitution, to get around inalienable God given rights and deny any American their right to own and bear arms, to express their thoughts without fear of government interference or imprisonment… to get around Due Process…

What part of Due Process, more specifically, what part of substantive due process do these department heads not understand?  (Really, you actually consider that a possibility?)   No, under the Obama administration there is a willful and calculated effort to get around the constitution.

David A. Patten, along with almost every other political correspondent, recordedBarrack Hussein Obama’s comments regarding the Constitution back when he was running for the presidency.

“Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama described the U.S. Constitution as having “deep flaws” during a September 2001 Chicago public radio program, adding that the country’s Founding Fathers had “an enormous blind spot” when they wrote it.

Obama also remarked that the Constitution “reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.”

Obama’s promise to America has been, and continues to be a great Transformation, to make it what (he thinks) it should be.  His actions support his promise.

America will no longer be a land of liberty; but instead will become a totalitarian communist state where your constitutional republic, your God given inalienable rights as set down by the Founding Fathers, and without question, Due Process and the Rule of Law will become a faded memory.



Questions to Watch for at Thursday’s Benghazi Hearing

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to testify on Thursday before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Despite her new attitude of defiance—acting as if recent statements by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) have somehow proven that this has been a political witch-hunt all along—they prove nothing of the sort. I spoke about this last night on The Blaze, with Dana Loesch.

Last Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the committee, made clear that the committee will be looking at several aspects of the Benghazi scandals:

“Thursday is about the three tranches of Benghazi: what happened before, during and after. And, frankly, in Secretary Clinton’s defense, she’s going to have lot more information about the before than she is the during and the after.”

While the failure to either provide sufficient security for Ambassador Chris Stevens, or to remove him before the attacks occurred on September 11, 2012, is an important issue, it is certainly not the only one that Mrs. Clinton must answer for. So it’s important that Gowdy is planning to focus on all three periods.

Two new articles out in the last day present powerful arguments and lines of questioning that should be pursued. One is from The Washington Times, whichlays out new evidence showing how the U.S. facilitated the flow of arms to militia groups in Libya, many of which went to al-Qaeda linked groups. This violated both American law and a U.N. resolution.

The other article is by Nancy Youssef in The Daily Beast, where she questions the wisdom, motives and strategy that led the U.S. and NATO into the war in Libya in the first place. She points out that while President Obama may have been reluctant at first, with no stated plans to remove Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, that is exactly what happened, with no plans in place for what would come after Qaddafi. And what has followed is a failed state.

Both of these points were made in the Interim Report by our Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB) a year and a half ago, and received little attention at the time. But we are glad to see that even the liberal Daily Beast makes the case that this war was waged under false pretenses, with disastrous results, including the death of four Americans in Benghazi.

Many in the media keep asking, what more is there to learn. We at the CCB have compiled a list of questions that we hope are asked during Thursday’s High Noon showdown between Mrs. Clinton and the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Using Rep. Gowdy’s breakdown of the three tranches, this is a good start:


When, how and why did the Obama administration and the State Department decide to back the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime?

Why did you refuse Saif Qaddafi’s phone call about the willingness of his father to negotiate a truce rather than subject his country and himself to the impending attack by NATO forces?

When and how was the decision made that the administration officially would facilitate the delivery of weapons to known Libyan al-Qaeda militias like the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)?

Did you and the Obama administration believe that the Presidential Intelligence Finding of March 2011 was legally sufficient to overcome the otherwise felonious provision by the U.S. government of material support to terrorism? Which legal authorities by name provided this advice to you?

Exactly when and specifically which Congressional members were briefed on the administration’s decision to overthrow Qaddafi, back the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood-led rebels, and facilitate the delivery of weapons to Libyan al-Qaeda-linked militias?

Why did approximately half of your emails on Libya, that the committee has only recently received, come from Sidney Blumenthal, who President Obama had forbidden you to hire at the State Department?

Why did we maintain the Special Mission Compound in Benghazi when others, such as the British and the Red Cross had pulled out because of the security situation?

Why did you ignore an internal State Department audit on the compound when it first opened which concluded that they should either beef up the security or close it?

Please name and identify by affiliation the top Libyan rebel commanders with whom Christopher Stevens, the official U.S. government envoy to those rebels, collaborated during the 2011 Libyan revolution and explain how these commanders were selected.

Please describe in detail the weapons procurement and delivery process by which arms were acquired, funded, transported and distributed to the Libyan rebels in 2011.

Please describe in detail the weapons buy-back and collection program in Libya in 2012, including which U.S. agency had the lead for that program, how funds were disbursed for such weapons, where and how they were stored, their transport on exactly which/whose ships, and where those ships and their weapons cargo went after they departed from Libya.

By allowing the flow of arms to groups in Libya that we knew were affiliated with al Qaeda, weren’t we in effect switching sides in the War on Terror?

Were you personally aware of multiple warnings that indicated an Islamic terror attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was likely or in potential planning stages?

Why were all of Stevens’ requests for increased security turned down and in-country security forces drawn down?

Did you see, or were you made aware of the Ayman al-Zawahiri video-taped warning, issued on jihadi websites on 10 September 2012, that apparently gave the green light for the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi? If so, when? If not, why not?

What action did you take when you received word of a 10 day advanced notice that an attack on our facilities in Benghazi was going to take place?

What additional security measures did you as Secretary of State order for missions across North Africa and/or elsewhere once the American Embassy in Cairo warned that Muslim anger was building over the airing on Egyptian TV on 9 September 2012 of a clip from the YouTube video “Innocence of Muslims?”

Why was an order given to Ambassador Stevens’ Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) personnel to store their weapons in a separate location in the compound?


What about your 10 p.m. phone call with President Obama on the night of the attack? Why did the State Department proceed to issue a statement shortly thereafter citing the video as the likely cause of the attack?

Who was responsible for making sure the car was parked outside the safe room window as a key part of the escape plan for the ambassador?

Why were the Marine Fast teams at Rota held up and made to put on civilian clothes?

What classified equipment and material were taken from the compound?

Please describe in chronological detail where you were, Secretary Clinton, throughout the night of 11-12 September 2012.

Exactly when and by what process did you, Secretary Clinton, receive command authority over U.S. military units that might have responded to the Benghazi mission attack during the night of 11-12 September 2012?

Who made the decision that no U.S. government military response would be ordered to come to the rescue of the Americans under terrorist assault the night of 11-12 September 2012 in Benghazi?

Were any military assets ordered to turn back or stand down the night of 11-12 September 2012 rather than continue to the rescue of Americans in Benghazi?

If so, which were they, by whom and for what reason?

Was there a plan for Ambassador Stevens to be kidnapped and later exchanged for the Blind Sheik, who is in prison in the U.S. for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?


Please describe the consultative process by which you, Secretary Clinton, the President, and anyone else involved decided to blame the Benghazi terror attacks on the YouTube video, “Innocence of Muslims?” Please describe those orders in detail.

Why did you choose this narrative to disseminate to the American public—and the world—when you knew within 15 minutes of the beginning of the Benghazi attack that the perpetrators were Islamic terrorists?

Why did you send then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice out that weekend to talk about Benghazi on the Sunday talk shows, when it should have been you?

Who gave the orders to Rashad Hussain, envoy to the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), and to Huma Abedin, to coordinate (respectively) with international and domestic Muslims the narrative about the YouTube video being the cause of the Benghazi terror attacks?

Why did you tell the parents of the dead in Benghazi that you would get the man who made the video, as if you believed that was the cause of the attack on the compound?

How was it determined that you wouldn’t testify to the State Department appointed Accountability Review Board?

Why did your aide Cheryl Mills tell Deputy Ambassador to Libya Greg Hicks not to talk to Republican congressmen who came to Libya to investigate what had happened?


Email Dumps Continue to Undermine Clinton Candidacy

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media




































The Clinton Record on Libya

By: Kenneth Timmerman
Accuracy in Media

Exclusive to Accuracy in Media
The emails show more than you might think




But that’s not the only reason.








































