Here are the five key things
to take away from Wednesday’s Benghazi hearing:
5. State Department Official
Fingered Terror Group Day After Attack
One of the biggest points of
contention in the Benghazi investigation has been:
Why did the Obama
administration initially blame the terrorist attack on a YouTube video when
there was no apparent evidence to support that theory?
During the House Oversight
Committee hearing on the Benghazi attack, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) read from an
email sent by Beth Jones, the acting assistant secretary for Middle Eastern
affairs at the State Department, to Benghazi whistleblower Gregory Hicks and
other top administration officials. In it, she fingered Ansar al-Sharia, a
radical Islamic terror group, as the perpetrator behind the attack after the
Libyan government speculated that they might be ex-Gadhafi forces.
The email was sent the day
after the attack on Sept. 12, 2012 — well before the Obama administration
started pushing the YouTube video narrative.
“I spoke to the Libyan
ambassador and emphasized the importance of Libyan leaders continuing to make
strong statements,” the email read. “When he said his government expected that
former Ghadafi regime elements carried out the attacks, I told him that the
group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic
terrorists.”
Gowdy said the email was
previously unreleased, but not classified.
4. Who Is Lt. Col. Gibson?
Benghazi whistleblower
Gregory Hicks repeatedly brought up a man by the name of Lt. Col. Gibson. Other
than the fact that he was a Special Operations Command (SOC) Africa commander,
we don’t know much else about him.
But more importantly, we
don’t know what else he knows about the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2012. On the
night of the Benghazi attack, Gibson was “furious” when a stand down order was
given, preventing Special Forces from intervening in Libya, Hicks testified.
Hicks said Gibson wanted to
bring the Americans trapped in Benghazi home, but was unable to act. Does
Gibson know who personally issued the stand down order? Does he know how far up
the chain of command the order originated?
These are questions to keep
in mind as the investigation proceeds.
3. Benghazi Witness Told Not
to Speak With Congressional Investigator Alone
Hicks on Wednesday also
revealed that he was told by Obama administration officials not to talk with
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) unsupervised.
A State Department lawyer
accompanied the delegation and tried to be in every single meeting he was
involved in, Hicks claimed.
Chaffetz, who traveled to
Benghazi after the attack to investigate, also claimed back in October that the
administration assigned a State Department attorney to follow him in his every
“footstep” during his investigative trip.
2. Whistleblower
‘Effectively Demoted’ After Questioning Benghazi Talking Points
Gregory Hicks told members
of Congress that he has been “effectively demoted” from his position as deputy
chief of mission shortly after he questioned United Nations Ambassador Susan
Rice’s explanation that the Benghazi attack was the result of a spontaneous
protest sparked by a YouTube video.
Hicks, the former deputy
chief of mission under murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, now holds the
title of foreign affairs officer in the Office of Global Intergovernmental
Affairs.
“In hindsight I think it
began after I asked a question about Ambassador Rice’s statement on the TV
shows,” Hicks said, after being asked what the “seminal” moment had been in all
of his new professional criticism.
1. There Was a Stand Down
Order
Though some the details are
still fuzzy, someone issued a stand down order that prevented Special Forces
from traveling to Benghazi to intervene after the attack.
Hicks, the former deputy
chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya and the highest ranking official in the
country at the time of the Benghazi attacks, testified that either AFRICOMM or
SOCAFRICA issued the stand down order, though he didn’t have a name or where
the command originated.
Hicks said Lt. Col. Gibson,
a Special Operations Command (SOC) Africa commander, was “furious” after
receiving the stand down order. “Lt. Col. Gibson was furious. I had told him to
go bring our people home. That’s what he wanted to do,” he said.
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