Islamist DHS Adviser Fired Amid Allegations of Cover Up

Mohamed Elibiary, an avowed Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood enabler has 'resigned' from his position as senior member of DHS’ Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC).

Elibiary has been a fairly controversial figure at the DHS. Among other things, he was busted for tweeting about the “inevitable” return of the Muslim “caliphate” something that was used as propaganda by ISIS. This was part of a series of posts deemed inappropriate for a senior government adviser, including one where he said he considered the United States to be an "Islamic country" and another where he suggested that national security "uber hawks camp misread 9/11."

But the real kicker was his purported access of confidential DHS databases on several occasions and his attempt to leak them to a far Left site, something I've written about before. Once this became known, it sparked a number of congressional inquiries, many of them from Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX).

 

Exactly what Elibiary used his security clearance to access is unknown, simply because the DHS found it expedient not to delve too deeply, even with the existing evidence and testimony from the site Elibiary attempted to leak documents to. There were numerous instances of various officials providing murky and even contradictory answers about whether DHS ever fully investigated the allegations that Elibiary inappropriately accessed classified documents from the DHS database.

Judicial Watch finally asked for details via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit, citing the exact documents that Elibiary allegedly leaked...only to be informed they suddenly don't exist!

“We conducted a comprehensive search of files within the DHS Enterprise Correspondence Tracking System (ECT) for records that would be responsive to your request. Unfortunately, we were unable to locate or identify any responsive records,” DHS informed Judicial Watch in a Sept. 16, 2013, letter.

DHS couldn't find “investigative records regarding the alleged mishandling and any records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the Department of Homeland Security and any member of Congress, congressional staff member, congressional committee, and/or congressional committee staff member regarding the alleged mishandling.”

In other words, since the documents didn't exist, neither did any documentation regarding an investigation!

Rep. Gohmert felt that the Judicial Watch documents proved that the DHS simply swept this under the rug.. “There was no legitimate investigation. They didn’t say these documents are classified or secure, they said no such documents exist.”

And of course, neither does the investigation.

What happened here is that DHS likely tried to stonewall the investigation into illegally accessing the database in hopes it would blow over. But they got tired of continued digging and congressional inquiries, and Elibiary's radical social media posts made him a liability they couldn't afford anymore. So he's gone.

But you have to wonder how many other Islamist moles who are a lot more careful and discreet exist in our national security establishment.

 

"Benghazi? What Difference Does it Make?"

Not as much as it would have made in September of 2012...which was apparently the whole point.

Thanks to a long and successful battle by Judicial Watch in federal court, a whole raft of new e-mails between the White House and the State Department concerning the deliberate lies and coverup over the fiasco in Benghazi have surfaced that definitively prove that the White House deliberately lied about the nature of the attack, and colluded with the State department to construct a false narrative and deceive the American people to protect President Obama's re-election.

Emails  sent by senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes to other top administration officials like David Plouffe and Jay Carney were sent out just a day before National Security Adviser Susan Rice hit 5 separate Sunday news shows to promulgate the lie about 'the video'.

Interesting fellow, Ben Rhodes. Officially, he's the current deputy national security adviser for strategic communication for President Barack Obama. Now, he has no real national security qualifications for the gig, although his degree, an MFA in creative writing from NYU probably helps a bit in crafting the sort of fanciful fiction we hear out of the president.

Oh, and just by chance, his brother is - wait for it - David Rhodes. The president of CBS News, the same network where award winning reporter Sharyl Attkisson has said since her resignation that she was actively discouraged from investigating stories like Benghazi and Fast and Furious in any depth and was thought of as a 'troublemaker' for doing so.

Speaking of Sharyl Atkisson, she's gone independent for now and she has a fine piece of reporting here that highlights what was in the recently released e-mails, and why the White House wanted them hidden so badly:

In the email, Ben Rhodes lists as a “goal” the White House desire “To ​underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”

The email is entitled, “RE: PREP CALL with Susan, Saturday at 4:00 pm ET” and refers to White House involvement in preparing then-U.S.Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice for her upcoming appearance on Sunday television ​ network political talk shows.

The Rhodes email states that another “goal” is “To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”

A court compelled the release of the documents, which were heavily-redacted, to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which has sued the government over its failed Freedom of Information responses. I have also requested Benghazi-related documents under Freedom of Information law, but the government has only produced a few pages to date.

Today, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called the Rhodes email the “smoking gun” showing the “political manipulation by the White House” after the attacks.

​“The political shop at the White House took over early on,” Graham told me. “They understood it was a terrorist attack, that they had a political problem, and were going to handle it politically. They weren’t going to entertain anything other than what they wanted the public to hear.”

USA Today quotes a spokesman for the White House National Security Council reacting to the Rhodes’ email by stating that it contains general talking points on unrest spreading throughout the region in response to an offensive video, and also made clear that "our primary goals" included the safety of U.S. personnel in the field and bringing those responsible for the attacks to justice.

Since the deadly attacks on the U.S. missions in Benghazi, there have been persistent allegations that the Obama administration developed a false political narrative to downplay or hide the fact that terrorists had struck. The President had campaigned by stating that al Qaeda was “on the run,” and Republicans have argued that news of a terrorist attack eight weeks before the election could have decimated his re-election campaign. Four Americans were killed in the assaults, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

White House officials copied on the Rhodes “goal” email include Press Secretary Jay Carney, then-Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Senior Advisor David Plouffe, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri and Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest. Earnest has failed to respond to more than a year’s worth of my emails and phone calls in my effort to obtain official White House photographs taken the night of the Benghazi attacks. The White House photo office had told me that Earnest’s personal approval was needed for the photos to be released. 

 

Attkisson doesn't mention it here, but regular readers of this site know that State Department spokesmouth Victoria Nuland was involved in the coverup process as well, 'managing' how the phony narrative was presented publicly in order to protect her superiors - like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

So was then-CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell, who heavily edited the fact sheet and the original talking points.

Attkisson also found out how the White House tried to hide this document:

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told me today that the government apparently tried to keep the Rhodes email out of Congress and the public’s hands by classifying it after-the-fact.

“They retroactively changed the classification,” Chaffetz says. “That was an unclassified document and they changed it to classified.”

In the past month, the government has supplied 3,200 new Benghazi-related documents under Congressional subpoena. In some instances, Congressional members and their staff are only permitted to see the documents during certain time periods in a review room, and cannot remove them or make copies.

Chaffetz says that the State Department redacted more material on the copies provided to Congress than on those that it was forced to provide to Judicial Watch.

One of the most heavily-redacted email exchanges is entitled, “FOX News: US officials knew Libya attack was terrorism within 24 hours, sources confirm.” The Fox News article was circulated among dozens of officials including Rhodes and then-Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough but the content of their email discussion is hidden.

She has more at the link, showing how the White House had a reasonable degree of advance warning and that they knew almost immediately that the attack on Benghazi had nothing to do with any video.



So, where do we go from here?

Anyone who's been following the Benghazi story knows by now just from their behavior that the White House deliberately set out to deceive the American people to protect President Obama's re-election chances, after all that 'al-Qaeda is on the run' bluster. This simply formalizes it. Normally, just as with IRS-gate, an ethical attorney general abiding by his oath of office would have appointed a special prosecutor long ago, but that's not what we're dealing with here.

Congress, of course could use this as a springboard to vote funds and authorization for their own prosecutor, followed by formal impeachment charges that wouldn't get President Obama out of office but would publicize this stuff to the American people and force Democrats to take a position they'd be stuck with.

 But it's a reasonable assumption that Speaker John Boehner doesn't want to go there because he lacks the stones to deal with the political fallout from the actions that would probably be needed if an investigation revealed that the president was indeed or other high ranking regime figures were as involved in these things as they appear to be.

Even more damaging would be what would come out if we get into the question of exactly what Ambassador Stevens was doing in an unprotected consulate in Benghazi, an al-Qaeda hotbed even the International Red Cross had moved its people out of because it was too dangerous.

What actually happened in Benghazi is bad enough even without the coverup and I revealed the true story here about a year ago. If that ever came out, we 'd be talking about  criminal indictments.

 

Senate Intel Committee: Benghazi Was Preventable,Al Qaeda Was Involved, And The White House Knew It

The bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee finally issued its long-delayed report on the Benghazi attack, and based on what it said, it's pretty understandable why some of the Democrats on the committee strung things out as long as they could and fought over the wording. But some things simply give off too foul a stench for any perfume to make a difference.

The committee’s minority Republicans criticized the White House for obstructing the report, which the committee had wanted to complete much earlier, and openly accused Patrick Kennedy, U.S. undersecretary of State for Management of shielding the Obama administration from Congressional oversight.

Of course, Kennedy was also concentrating on covering his own behind. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) who normally votes with the Democrats an dis the very epitome of bi-partisanship angrily made a point of saying that Kennedy “failed to ensure that a facility he personally approved in December 2011 had the necessary security to match the heightened threat environment.”

The committee's report said that Benghazi was entirely preventable, and that the State Department failed to increase security at the Benghazi consulate in spite numerous warnings. As I've mentioned on these pages before,even the Brits and the International Red Cross had pulled their people out because Benghazi, thanks to President Obama's timely intervention had become a major headquarters for al-Qaeda and other Islamists. Anyone who knows anything about Ansar al Shariah and its connections to al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) understood that a long time ago.

The report states, unequivocally: “Individuals affiliated with terrorist groups, including AQIM, Ansar al-Sharia, AQAP, and the Mohammad Jamal Network, participated in the September 11, 2012, attacks.”



The very fact that mortars and other heavy weapons were used points to long time planning. A mortar isn't like a Kalishnikov. It takes training, and it takes time to scope out ranges and angles of fire.

Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss summarized the report, saying,

“In spite of the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi and ample strategic warnings, the United States Government simply did not do enough to prevent these attacks and ensure the safety of those serving in Benghazi.”

Another thing that came out is that the entire 'protest over a video' narrative pushed by the president, Mrs. Clinton, Jay Carney, Susan Rice and goodness knows how many others was an outright lie...and just like ObamaCare, they lied knowingly, although the report doesn't put it in such blunt terms.

What we were told - conveniently after the 2012 elections- is that the original fairy tales about the video and a spontaneous protest occurred because the situation 'was developing.'

It wasn't.

In fact, the FBI interviewed the Benghazi survivors over a three-day period right after the attack, when they were still being prevented from speaking to anyone. None of them reported a protest or a demonstration.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (SC) said that “The FBI confirmed to me that when they interviewed the survivors on the 15th the 16th and the 17th [of September], not one person ever mentioned anything other than a terrorist attack. No one mentioned a protest outside the consulate.”

“So, how could the Obama administration come up with a protest story if everybody on the ground during the attack said it was a terrorist attack and there was no protest?” he asks.

As for what the Obama team know and when the knew it, newly declassified transcripts show that General Carter Ham, then the head of AFRICOM, spoke directly to then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and JCS head General Martin Dempsey and told them directly that Benghazi was a terrorist attack that night. When he testified before Congress he said, “Again, sir, I think, you know, there was some preliminary discussion about, you know, maybe there was a demonstration. But I think at the command, I personally and I think the command very quickly got to the point that this was not a demonstration, this was a terrorist attack”.

Panetta was quite emphatic that he briefed the president directly early in the evening Washington time,before the President went to bed to rest for his fundraiser in Chicago the next day. And certainly Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others knew exactly what was going on within a very short time. We also know that the CIA Head of Station in Libya reported within 24 hours that the attack on Benghazi was carried out by al-Qaeda and associated groups, that it was a planned operation, and that it had nothing to do with any protest or unrest over a video. Yet for 9 days, the president and his team kept the fiction going that this was a spontaneous protest over an obscure video.

Greg Hicks, a career diplomat and Ambassador Chris Steven's Deputy testified before Congress that he called Hillary Clinton at 8PM EST the same night of the assault to tell her that the consulate was under attack by al-Qaeda terrorists and that Ambassador Stevens was now missing.He called again at 9PM EST after he received a call from the then–Libyan prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Ansar al-Sharia had brought Stevens' mutilated body into a hospital and that the ambassador was dead. Hicks immediately called DC, but Secretary Clinton wasn't available..just not taking calls. And not only didn't she call Hicks back that evening, but she didn't even bother getting in touch with him the following day.

So they knew, they all knew. But they huddled together like witches around a cauldron to create talking points to protect themselves and a clueless amateur of a president in an election campaign who was more interested in an upcoming fundraiser than in doing the job he was supposedly elected to do.

They even lied to the families of the 4 men that died, face to face, literally over their coffins.

Richard Nixon was forced to resign for doing far less.And no one died because of the third rate breaking and entering known as Watergate, or Nixon's hapless effort to shield his subordinates after the fact.

60 Minutes On Benghazi: "Yes, They Were Left To Die and You Were Lied To"

60 minutes pulls off a surprising and devastating act of random journalism, courtesy of ace reporter Lara Logan. CBS says they spent almost a year investigating what happened that night in Libya, and it proves beyond a doubt the Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, President Obama, Jay Carney and the rest of the White House crew knowingly lied about Benghazi to the American people.

Not only that, but the report shows the White House and the State Department were fully aware that an attack was being planned (they even knew that one of the former Guantanamo inmates we kicked loose for no good reason was instrumental in planning the attacks). They did absolutely nothing before the attack and nothing afterwards, even though the assault went on for over nine hours. Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty held off the numerically superior jihadis for hours virtually alone before dying on a rooftop while waiting for back-up that never came.

In the case of the president and Secretary Clinton, they actually stood by the caskets perpetuating that lie to the families of the men who were murdered by al-Qaeda thanks to their negligence, so as not to jeopardize President Obama's re-election.





One thing the report doesn't get into is exactly what our Ambassador was doing stationed in an indefensible compound in the middle of al-Qaeda territory with zero security when even the Red Cross had pulled its people out. For those of you with an interest, I believe you'll find the answer here.


I'm curious as to whether our media's going to ask President Obama and Hillary Clinton why they deliberately lied to the American people and blamed an obscure video for Benghazi while standing  in front of those flag draped coffins of the men they left to die.

The ghosts of the four men who died in Benghazi that night are restless, and they continue to demand justice.We owe them that.

Turns Out AG Holder Judge Shopped To Get Warrant To Snoop On FOX Reporter

What a surprise, eh?

It took three judges before Attorney General Eric Holder could find one partisan enough to OK the Obama Department of Justice request for a secret warrant. Two judges separately ruled that the Justice department was required to notify senior FOX News Washington correspondent James Rosen of the warrant even if there was a delay..upon which they looked around and found Judge Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia who signed off on it.

Holder's story that there was nothing unusual or wrong in the request for a secret warrant in this case would seem to be just a wee bit....dishonest.

More here at the New Yorker.

(H/t Breitbart.com)

AG Holder Perjures Himself Under Oath On Press Surveillance Scandal

Here's a smoking gun for you. Attorney General Holder is speaking to Democrat Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia of the oversight committee about the AP scandal...and at 5:00 Holder says clearly, under oath that he never had anything to do with signing off on spying on the press:

"In regard to potential prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material. This is not something I’ve ever been involved in, heard of, or would think would be wise policy."

Today, it came out that it was Eric Holder who personally signed off on the warrant to spy on FOX News senior correspondent James Rosen...and who knows how many others.

Not only that, but it was Holder's decision to keep the warrants secret for years.

Can you say 'fishing expedition'? Can you say clear violation of the First Amendment?

Sure you can.

And who was the DOJ attorney who filed in district court to keep the illegal surveillance ongoing and secret for years even though they hadn't found anything? That would be U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen - the same attorney who was charged with deciding whether to pursue the House’s contempt citation against his boss, Eric Holder, over Fast and Furious.And - what a coincidence - he just happens to be leading the FBI investigation into the leak that involved the DOJ subpoenaing AP reporters’ phone records.

And who appointed him to that position? None other than James Cole, Holder's deputy, who took over after Holder recused himself.

Even more disgusting, President Obama acted socked, just shocked about all this and proclaimed yesterday in that faux sincere baritone of his that he had  ordered the Attorney General to review the DOJ’s guidelines for spying on reporters.

In other words, Eric Holder will be in charge of investigating what Eric Holder did. And in the areas where he recused himself , he has a couple of loyal, dependable  soldiers to take care of things.

Yet the fact remains that Holder committing perjury and likely obstruction of justice, and that particular cat is now out of the bag.

Obama Blames WH Counsel For Benghazi And IRS-Gate

 

It looks like we now know why Ezra Klein and a number of other Lefty media types made a special trip to the White House yesterday.

They were briefed that this 'leak' was coming and to spread this narrative around like manure.

The new fall-person (to keep things politically correct)for both Benghazi and IRS-Gate is none other than the president's own lawyer, White House Counsel to the President  Kathryn Ruemmler.

The reliably Left wing site BuzzFeed 'leaked' statements by 'White House Advisers' blaming her for both scandals...one scapegoat for both debacles, you might say:

BuzzFeed has learned that key members of President Obama’s national security team, including deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, pushed to release a comprehensive timeline of events documenting the attack that would also synthesize the views of the various government agencies into one report. The CIA also wanted the White House to put out such a timeline, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

Those plans were quashed, however, when the White House Counsel’s office, which is led by Kathryn Ruemmler, advised the officials to not release any information to the public out of fear it could be used against them in any subsequent investigations and other legal complications. {...}

“It was aggravating,” one administration official said. “It comes back to Kathryn Ruemmler, Kathyrn Ruemmler, Kathryn Ruemmler. I hate to say it, as it sounds like piling on, but it’s on her doorstep too.”

Ruemmler has also come under fire this week for not making the president and others aware of the IRS investigation.

You see, it was Kathryn Ruemmler, Kathyrn Ruemmler, Kathryn Ruemmler who was responsible for everything. President Obama really, really would have come clean about IRS-Gate before the election, even woulda apologized to the Tea Party, Evangelicals and Pro-Israel groups on national TV.But his nasty, evil lawyer stopped him.

Same with Benghazi.It was Kathryn Ruemmler, Kathyrn Ruemmler, Kathryn Ruemmler who forced those brave souls in the White House to edit those talking points twelve times. She made everyone go on the Sunday news shows and push the lie about how this was all due to a video.It was Kathryn Ruemmler, Kathyrn Ruemmler, Kathryn Ruemmler who forced Hillary Clinton to lie her head off in front of Congress to protect Mrs. Clinton's reputation. Hillary, truthful soul that she is fought it tooth and nail, but Kathryn Ruemmler, Kathyrn Ruemmler, Kathryn Ruemmler overruled her and made her say those things.She made all of them say those things..the president, Susan Rice, Victoria Nuland, Jay Carney.She threatened to whip them if they didn't.

 

Give them another week and they'll probably be saying that it was Kathryn Ruemmler, Kathyrn Ruemmler, Kathryn Ruemmler who ordered Ambassador Stevens to Benghazi in the first place, took away his security and ordered the Special forces twice to stand down and not rescue the Americans there after the attack. Hillary and President Obama wanted to save them, but she just wouldn't let them.

I know that some single women voted for this president because they thought he was cool, and because they bought the bogus 'Republican War On Women' schtick.

Ask yourselves this. Do you think Mitt Romney, for all his faults would act this cravenly towards a female subordinate and make her a scapegoat for his own mistakes? George W. Bush, whom I have very little good to say about at least had that level of manly behavior, and goodness knows Condi Rice screwed up enough that he could have shoveled the blame for a lot of things he caught hell for on her.

I bet you can't even imagine Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan or Marco Rubio doing it..in fact, there are probably a lot of Democrats you can't imagine doing it either.

Not only is it moral cowardice, but this kind of behavior shows a deeply engrained contempt for all of us. This president and his team think we're all stupid, that we would buy that his lawyer had this kind of power over him and the rest of the White House.

Think about it.

And while you're at it, check out Twitchy on this..among other things, there are some tweets that are too good to miss.

BREAKING:Issa To Haul Lerner Back Before Committee,Says She Waived 5th Amendment Rights With Opening Statement

Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Darrell Issa has instructed to committee to subpoena IRS official Lori Lerner to appear again before his committee, saying that her opening statement waived her Fif the Amendment rights against self-incrimination. If you listen to it, he appears to be entirely correct:



You're not allowed to place a self-serving statement on the record and then claim the Fifth - you have to do it from the outset.

“When I asked her her questions from the very beginning, I did so so she could assert her rights prior to any statement,” Issa told POLITICO. “She chose not to do so — so she waived.”

“The precedents are clear that this is not something you can turn on and turn off,” he told POLITICO. “She made testimony after she was sworn in, asserted her innocence in a number of areas, even answered questions asserting that a document was true … So she gave partial testimony and then tried to revoke that.”

He said he was not expecting that.

“I understand from her counsel that there was a plan to assert her Fifth Amendment rights,” he continued. “She went ahead and made a statement, so counsel let her effectively under the precedent, waive — so we now have someone who no longer has that ability.”

That's why Issa had Lerner look at a transcript of the previous fairy tales she told the committee under oath and acknowledge that these were her statements.

In other words, her tits are in the wringer, to use a quaint Southernism I've always liked.

Issa doesn't want Lerner, or at least not Lerner alone. He wants to put the fear of G-d into her so that she'll see the wisdom of cutting a deal by selling out some of the other rats above her in the pecking order on the SS Obama.

All roads on this one lead to the White House.

IRS-Gate Update- Stonewalling And Denials As The Fiction Falls Apart

Aside from Senior IRS official Lori Lerner taking the Fifth and refusing to answer any questions, there are a number of other disturbing developments taking place on IRS-Gate.

For starters, the IRS has defied congress's request for all communications between the agency and the White House about targeting conservative, evangelical and pro-Israel groups.

In a May 14 letter signed by Rep. Dave Camp and Sander Levin, Chairman and Ranking Member respectively of the House Ways and Means Committee, the IRS was given a deadline of Tuesday, May 21 to comply with their committee’s demand for the information and records, including records of any communications between IRS and the Treasury on the matter.

The IRS missed the deadline and has apparently decided to stonewall...and we all know they didn't make that decision without guidance from the White House. No federal agency would.

It's also come out that the IRS' own internal investigation ended May 12th, 2012, six months before the election but was deliberately hidden from Congress.I wonder who gave that order:

Rep. Darrel Issa, the committee's chairman, said that the committee learned just yesterday that the IRS completed its own investigation a year before a Treasury Department Inspector General report was completed.

But despite the IRS recognizing in May 2012 that its employees were treating right-wing groups differently from other organizations, Issa said, IRS personnel withheld those conclusions from legislators.

'Just yesterday the committee interviewed Holly Paz, the director of exempt organizations, rulings and agreements, division of the IRS,' Issa said. 'While a tremendous amount of attention is centered about the Inspector General's report, or investigation, the committee has learned from Ms. Paz that she in fact participated in an IRS internal investigation that concluded in May of 2012 - May 3 of 2012 - and found essentially the same thing that Mr. George found more than a year later.'

'Think about it,' he continued: 'For more than a year, the IRS knew that it had inappropriately targeted groups of Americans based on their political beliefs, and without mentioning it, and in fact without honestly answering questions that were the result of this internal investigation.'

Moreover,the Administration's claim that the wrongdoing was limited to 'a few low level agents' is falling apart like a paper in the rain.

In fact, the IRS' own system makes a few low level IRS employees conducting as jihad on groups selected for their ideology impossible:

When an application for tax exempt status comes into the IRS, agents have 270 days to work through that application. If the application is not processed within those 270 days it automatically triggers flags in the system. When that happens, individual agents are required to input a status update on that individual case once a month, every month until the case is resolved.

Keep in mind, at least 300 groups were targeted out of Cincinnati alone. Those applications spent anywhere from 18 months to nearly 3 years in the system and some still don't have their non-profit status. 300 groups multiplied by at least 18 months for each group, means thousands of red flags would have been generated in the system.

So who in the chain of command would have received all these flags? The answer, according to the IRS directory, one woman in Cincinnati, Cindy Thomas, the Program Manager of the Tax Exempt Division. Because all six of our IRS workers have different individual and territory managers, Cindy Thomas is one manager they all have common.

It turns out Cindy Thomas' name is one we have heard before. The independent journalism group ProPublica says in November of 2012 they had requested information on conservatives groups that had received non-profit status.

Cindy Thomas, says Swann, is the highest-ranking employee in the Tax Exempt and Government Entities Department in Cincinnati.

Even the Washington Post is saying that a Special prosecutor is not a matter of if but when.

Personally, I think the president is just arrogant enough to try and brazen this out.

Midnight In Benghazi - What Really Happened

The recent Benghazi hearings before the House Oversight Committee were extremely valuable in that America (or at least that part of America that was paying attention) heard three courageous whistle blowers testify as to the events on the ground as they happened. Even if it merely confirmed what a lot of us knew beforehand,it had value that these unimpeachable witnesses confirmed it. And also let the nation know the kind of pressure they were subjected to by the State Department and the Obama Administration to keep their mouths shut.

It's been said that the problem with Benghazi is that the whole affair is now so convoluted that the average person has trouble following all the threads. There's some truth in that, and the lack of dinosaur media coverage that would have been wall to wall if this were a Republican administration involved has aided and abetted that confusion. The one most honorable exception has been Sharyl Attkisson at CBS, and her honesty and conviction is likely to cost Ms.Attkisson her job, because she's been a little too good at it.

Perhaps what's really needed is a short summary that tells exactly what happened in Benghazi, to make it easier to follow.

What happened is that an American ambassador, Chris Stevens was stationed in the Benghazi consulate for some unknown reason, even though the British and the International Red Cross had already pulled their people out because it was too dangerous. The consulate was left without adequate security, even though Ambassador Stevens begged for it. On September 11th, 2012, that consulate was attacked by al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood forces armed with heavy weapons from Libyan government arsenals that the attackers obtained thanks to American aid in overthrowing Libyan dictator Moamar Khaddaffi. Four Americans died in the attacks, which were spread over nine hours. Even though there were ample security resources on the ground who could possibly have saved those four dead Americans, someone gave them the order to stand down. Instead, carefully edited talking points were concocted by the Obama Administration and an entire narrative was fed to the nation via a cooperative media that the attacks were a spontaneous protest over an obscure YouTube video, and that nothing could have been done to save the ambassador and the others whom were murdered.

The Obama Administration deliberately lied about what happened and has been trying to cover that up ever since.

That's essentially the basic summary of what happened. Or for those of you whom need a slogan to chant , here's an even simpler one:

"Obama Slept and Hillary Lied
About how four Americans died"

The media is still very much involved in trying to bury this. Here's the amazing testimony of Greg Hicks, a career diplomat and Ambassador Chris Steven's Deputy. This is probably the biggest national scandal since Watergate, yet wasn't carried on any major news outlet in full except FOX:



Among other things, Greg Hicks revealed that he called Hillary Clinton at 8PM EST that night to tell her that the consulate was under attack by al-Qaeda terrorists and that Ambassador Stevens was now missing.He called again at 9PM after he received a call from the then–Libyan prime minister, Abdurrahim el-Keib, informing him that Ansar al-Sharia had brought Stevens' mutilated body into a hospital and that the ambassador was dead. was dead. Hicks immediately called Washington. Secretary Clinton wasn't available..just not taking calls. And not only didn't she call Hicks back that evening, but she didn't bother getting in touch with him the following day. And President Obama? He dropped out very early in the proceedings, after he was briefed 5 PM EST by Leon Panetta. He had a campaign fundraiser to attend and decided to go to bed early.

It's important to remember the time frame here. The attack was spread over nine hours, and no one in Washington knew how long it was going to last. We're not talking about a game of basketball here, where the clock runs for a certain period and the action stops.The Obama Administration made a conscious decision not to get involved, so the nonsense peddled  about  'not having security assets who could get there in time' is a despicable lie.

As Hicks testified and others have confirmed, Lieutenant Colonel Gibson had a special forces team in Tripoli that twice suited up to go to Benghazi to rescue the Americans under siege and twice got stand down orders. Meanwhile, back in Benghazi, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty held off the numerically superior jihadis for hours virtually alone before dying on a rooftop while waiting for back-up that never came.

Again, this is not some DC-based functionary. This is Ambassadors Stevens' deputy, his second in command, the man who took over the Libya station after Ambassador Stevens was murdered before he was demoted for not keeping his mouth suitably shut. And he says his jaw literally dropped when he heard Hillary and Susan Rice blaming this on a video.

No one should be under the assumption that this ends with Secretary Clinton either. One of President Obama's first acts as president was to remove the post of UN Ambassador from the authority of the Secretary of State and to make it a full cabinet post under his direct orders that reported to him.So if Ambassador Susan Rice was making the rounds of the Sunday shows lying about how the attack on our embassy was caused by an obscure video, she was not doing it without President Obama's full knowledge and consent.And someone gave the orders to our military not to go in. That ordinarily would be a presidential prerogative - unless President Obama was AWOL again.

One of the most despicable scenes in American history was played out at the funerals of the murdered men, where the president and Mrs. Clinton acted as though 'Chris' was their best friend. This was the same woman who lied repeatedly about 'Chris's' death, who denied she'd received cables from him desperately asking for more security and even had the heartlessness to lie to the the Woods family about how Tyrone Woods died, telling them at the funeral that “we’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video.'

Okay, that's the what, at least so far. Some aspects of 'who' are still in the process of being discovered. So let's get to the far more important question, 'why'.

I fully admit that here we get into some elements that are difficult to source on record. And I  also wanted to dig a little bit further and get some additional information, which is why I've been content not to write about this in depth yet. But at this point, given what I've learned, what follows holds together quite well.

The 'why'  is the key to understanding what really happened.

The first thing we have to look at is why a U.S. Ambassador was there in Benghazi in the first place. He was there as an envoy to Ansar al Sharia and the other jihadist groups that ruled Benghazi, and his assignment, according to what I've been able to find out, was to make a deal over the heavy weapons they had pilfered from Khaddaffi's armories thanks to President Obama's ill advised intervention in favor of the rebels. Stevens, who was intimately familiar with Libya, was there to purchase as many of these arms as he could outright to ship them to Ansar al-Sharia's al-Qaeda comrades in arms in Syria without the president having to inform congress. The idea was to help take out Basher Assad's regime covertly without the necessity of committing US forces, and as a secondary goal to dispose of as many of the arms as possible, buy off the Benghazi rebels if possible  and cover up what a huge mistake the Obama Administration had made by getting involved in Libya. There was absolutely no other reason for Ambassador Stevens to be in such a dangerous location virtually unprotected, except as an envoy to the jihadist forces controlling Benghazi.

An envoy in the Arab world has a very carefully defined position. He relies on the age old rules of Arab hospitality, comes unarmed to his enemy and throws himself on their protection. And if the negotiations fail, especially if a state of war exists, his life can be forfeit. That's why not only was Stevens denied more security, but most of what he had was taken away, even when it became plain to him (if not to the Obama Administration) that the deal had failed and he and the rest of the Americans were in mortal danger.

Needless to say, the approach to Ansar al-Sharia and the other Muslim Brotherhood groups involved had to be off the radar. For it to come out publicly during an election that the Obama Administration was dealing with one al-Qaeda affiliate as a middleman to ship arms to another al-Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood group in Syria was not something that would have gone down well with either the American electorate or with the Russians, with whom the president was working on a diplomatic solution - at least officially.

The Saudis and the Qataris are the ones bankrolling the jihadi Sunni rebels in Syria, so it was their money that was involved.

 The murder of Stevens and the subsequent mutilation of his body (something that  was carefully hidden and unreported by the U.S. press, but was widely reported overseas) was the classic Arab negative response to the deal the Obama Administration was trying to achieve. It was an unmistakeable message. When Ansar al-Sharia was finished with him, it was they who took the body to a hospital under their control. And those Libyan arms wound up being used in places like Mali, Algeria and Sinai, as well as helping Ansar al-Shariah and their friends keep control of Benghazi.

Stevens likely wasn't rescued for two reasons. First,because the president was AWOL and no one else wanted to take responsibility for giving the order to send our forces in. It was Mrs. Clinton's '3 AM phone call' ad on steroids. And second because the way things went down,  it would almost certainly have raised a number of awkward questions in the middle of an election campaign that had President Obama's supposed foreign policy expertise as a major talking point.

In the end, Ambassador Stevens was far more useful as a dead martyr and photo-op than as a live ambassador subject to inconvenient congressional questioning.The talking points, of course, had to be constructed in such a way to lead as far away from the real story as possible, a story we now know they were fully aware of. The Obama Administration  was primarily concerned with protecting the president politically in the middle of his re-election campaign, and felt that by sequestering the survivors under pain of prosecution, classifying all the documents, videos and phone logs as top secret and relying on a compliant media to spread the narrative the Administration came up with they could make it work.

Even if we give the people in Washington responsible a pass  and say they simply weren't sure what to do, just fumbled badly and then worked to cover it up for political purposes, (which is what I personally think happened) it is a disgraceful and dishonorable performance that ought to at the very least lead to the firing or impeachment of every one involved, if not worse.

If nothing else, the ongoing strategic fallout is intense.

As one of my notorious Lil' Birdies who is definitely in a position to know told me, among other things the attempt by the Obama Administration to buy Libyan arms and ship them to jihadis in Syria  was seen as  a major double cross of Israel. The weapons included shoulder fired missiles not only capable of taking out Basher al-Assad's Russian-built helicopters but commercial airliners, including those landing in Israel. When the Israelis found out about a plot to have weapons like this shipped to their northern border without their knowledge, they were absolutely livid. So were the Iranians, who use commercial airliners to ship fighters and weaponry to Syria to bolster Basher Assad's forces.

The Israelis and the Iranians know the true story, and both have their own reasons for keeping quiet about it. The Iranians would rather not take the risk of embarrassing Obama and forcing him into taking real action against their illegal nuclear program, and the Israelis have apparently made a decision to use this as leverage for a quid pro quo in other areas while helping both their own interests and that of the Obama administration by doing some of the heavy lifting in Syria so the president needn't be tripped up by his usual chest pounding rhetoric about 'red lines' and chemical weapons.

The Russians, for their part,  were outraged at what they considered Obama's duplicity and have doubled down on their support for Assad, even moving substantial naval assets into the Eastern Mediterranean to prevent any attempts at establishing a no fly zone or otherwise intervening. More and more it appears that Syria will eventually end up fracturing along ethnic lines after a prolonged struggle, as I predicted some time ago.

In the end,  I think  it's doubtful the whole story on Benghazi is going to go public for a long time, if ever. While Mrs. Clinton and others may end up suffering some damage, not even Rep. Darrel Issa  or the Senate Republicans are going to want to take this to the ultimate end and reveal this as the major fiasco of U.S. foreign policy that it is. Nor, for various reasons are they going to want to cripple  a sitting U.S. president, particularly this one, for reasons that I'm sure are obvious.

In the end, this has turned out to be another sleazy, ill thought out gun running scandal... Fast and Furious, the Middle East edition, with less deaths involved but much greater strategic consequences.

IRS official Lois Lerner To Plead the Fifth At Congressional Hearing Tomorrow

Lois Lerner, the IRS head of the tax exempt organizations division is going to plead the Fifth tomorrow in front of Darrel Issa's committee rather than answer questions on the IRS scandal:

Lois Lerner, the head of the exempt organizations division of the IRS, won’t answer questions about what she knew about the improper screening – or why she didn’t reveal it to Congress, according to a letter from her defense lawyer, William W. Taylor 3rd.

Lerner was scheduled to appear before the House Oversight committee Wednesday.

“She has not committed any crime or made any misrepresentation but under the circumstances she has no choice but to take this course,” said a letter by Taylor to committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa, R-Calif. The letter, sent Monday, was obtained Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times…

Since Lerner won’t answer questions, Taylor asked that she be excused from appearing, saying that would “have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her.” There was no immediate word whether the committee will grant her request.

Obviously someone from the White House has spoken to her about how Presidential pardons work and what you need to do to earn them.

Let's remember what we're talking about here.No matter what Lerner's attorney says, the Fifth Amendment is only used to guard against self-incrimination for criminal acts. For starters, aside from the applicable civil-rights laws there's the Hatch Act, plus some of the IRS’s own regulations for employee conduct.She obviously has been implicated in illegal acts.

Meanwhile, Rep. Issa quite properly said no, and issued a subpoena for Lerner anyway.

This is exactly the right tactic. Let this foul government apparatchnik earn her pardon. Let her sit there sweating from every corrupt pore while Issa and the committee members grill her on the obvious lies she told when this started two weeks ago. Let her refuse to answer each question on grounds that she might incriminate herself and let the American people see.

Aside from the political theater benefits, this will set the stage for Congressman Issa to have a little chat with Lerner and her attorney afterwards about what could happen if her part in this disgraceful business comes to light from other sources, and why now might be a smart time to protect herself and make a deal.


Lest you feel sorry for Ms. Lerner's deer-in-the-headlights demeanor, keep in mind that this is not the first time she's abused an official position to try to bully and intimidate her fellow Americans for daring to exercise their constitutional rights.

Mark Hemingway at the Weekly Standard has a great piece on Lerner's behavior while she was working for the FEC. She viciously targeted the Christian Coalition, and while they were cleared eventually of any wrongdoing, they had to spend huge amounts in legal fees and expenses to fight what amounted to a jihad against them. It was so bad and so biased that according to Hemmingway's story, when the Christian Coalition's lead attorney heard she'd moved over to the IRS, he claims he remembers thinking, “Wow, this means the not for profit division is gearing up politically.”

He certainly had that right.

CBS Reporter On Benghazi, Fast And Furious Reveals Her Computers Were Hacked

 

Emmy-award winning CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson,noted for her in depth reporting of the Obama Administration scandals of Fast and Furious and Benghazi has revealed that her work and personal computers were hacked:

"I can confirm that an intrusion of my computers has been under some investigation on my end for some months but I'm not prepared to make an allegation against a specific entity today as I've been patient and methodical about this matter," Attkisson told POLITICO on Tuesday. "I need to check with my attorney and CBS to get their recommendations on info we make public."

In an interview, Attkisson told WPHT Philadelphia that she first realized she'd her computers were compromised back in February of 2011, when she was reporting on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal and on the Obama administration's crony capitalism green energy scandals, which she said "the administration was very sensitive about."

Attkisson also said she thought there might be some relationship between what happened to her computers and "what's happened to James [Rosen]," the FOX News Senior White House correspondent whose phone records, computers and private e-mails were accessed when he was spied on by the Justice Department.

Hillary's Benghazi 'Scapegoat' Speaks Out

 

The only State department official to lose his job in the wake of the Benghazi scandal was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs Raymond Maxwell, a mid-level official who had no role in security decisions or in any of the decisions surrounding the Benghazi debacle. After the internal State department review, he was placed on administrative leave and told to clean out his desk and leave the building, without anyone telling him the charges against him.

A career diplomat who served from August 2011 until his removal last December including tours in Iraq and Syria,Maxwell gave an exclusive interview today to the Daily Beast's Josh Rogin,speaking out for the first time about how he was scapegoated:

“The overall goal is to restore my honor,” said Maxwell, who has now filed grievances regarding his treatment with the State Department’s human resources bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, which represents the interests of foreign-service officers. The other three officials placed on leave were in the diplomatic security bureau, leaving Maxwell as the only official in the bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), which had responsibility for Libya, to lose his job.

“I had no involvement to any degree with decisions on security and the funding of security at our diplomatic mission in Benghazi,” he said.

Maxwell was removed from his job on Dec. 18, the day after the ARB report was released, and subsequently placed on administrative leave, which is meant to give the State Department time to investigate whether Maxwell should be fired or return to work. Five months later, that investigation seems stalled and Maxwell sits at home, where he continues to be paid but is not allowed to return to his job.

Since administrative leave is essentially limbo, Maxwell can't appeal, since he wasn't officially fired. He sits home and collects his paycheck, but he's not allowed to go to his job. He claims that no one at the State Department has ever even told him what he's accused of doing or not doing.

“For any FSO being at work is the essence of everything and being deprived of that and being cast out was devastating,” he said.

The State Department also had an official visit him at home and order him to sign a letter acknowledging his administrative leave and forfeiting his right to enter the State Department. He refused and responded in writing that the way the letter was phrased, it read like an admission of wrongdoing. Also of interest is the way Maxwell was 'chosen':

The decision to place Maxwell on administrative leave was made by Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills, according to three State Department officials with direct knowledge of the events. On the day after the unclassified version of the ARB’s report was released in December, Mills called Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones and directed her to have Maxwell leave his job immediately.

"Cheryl Mills directed me to remove you immediately from the [deputy assistant secretary] position," Jones told Maxwell, according to Maxwell.

The decision to remove Maxwell and not Jones seems to conflict with the finding of the ARB that responsibility for the security failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi should fall on more senior officials.

“We fixed [the responsibility] at the assistant secretary level, which is in our view the appropriate place to look, where the decision-making in fact takes place, where, if you like, the rubber hits the road," Pickering said when releasing the ARB report.

The report found “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department,” namely the Diplomatic Security (DS) and Near East bureaus. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns testified in December that requests for more security in Libya, denied by the State Department, did reach the assistant secretaries and “it may be that some of my colleagues on the 7th floor saw them as well."

But Jones was not disciplined in any way following the release of the report, nor was the principal deputy assistant secretary of State at NEA, Liz Dibble, who is slated to receive a plush post as the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London this summer. In the DS bureau, the assistant secretary, principal deputy, and deputy assistant all lost their jobs. In the NEA bureau, only Maxwell was asked to leave.

Jones and Dibble were responsible for security in Libya, Maxwell and three State Department officials said.

Rogin claims one State Department source told him that 'Clinton’s people' made a deal with the leadership of the NEA bureau that Maxwell would be given another job at State when the Benghazi scandal blew over...but that Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff, simply reneged on the deal:

“The deal that NEA made with Cheryl Mills and the 7th floor was to keep Ray within NEA and just give him another portfolio. For whatever reason, it didn’t go down like that and that was a complete shock to Beth [Jones], because that was the deal that Beth made with Cheryl,” the official said. “Behind Beth’s back, Maxwell ended up being put on administrative leave.”

Rogin further reveals via another anonymous State Department source that Maxwell was being disciplined for 'not reading his intel memos'. Of course, if that's the criteria, President Obama ought to be on administrative leave too..permanently.

Maxwell responded that he'd never been allowed to read any charges against him, and not allowed to see the Review Board Report the report the charges reportedly appeared in since it's classified, so pretty much anything could have been written or added to the report to fit the need of finding a convenient patsy.

In any event, it would seem odd that a mid level official whom had nothing to do with security of Libya would get slapped while two others that did are still working for State in good standing...perhaps because disciplining them and taking a risk of their opening up their mouths in congress to Rep. Darrel Issa's committee would prove embarrassing.

Senior FOX News Correspondent Also Spied On By Obama Administration

The latest news reporter to surface whose First Amendment rights were violated when he was targeted by the Obama Administration is none other than the chief Washington correspondent for FOX News James Rosen. Not only did they illegally access his phone records, they tracked his movements, used security badge access records to track the reporter’s comings and goings from the State Department and accessed his personal e-mails.

In essence the Department of Justice signed off on this for the crime of basic news gathering and reporting by one of its perceived 'enemies'. Actually, FOX News has named 3 staffers that were similarly targeted by the Obama DOJ, including Rosen, reporter William La Jeunesse, and Producer Mike Levine.



Eric Holder’s Department of Justice took the unheard if step of portraying standard journalistic practices as “criminal conspiracy”. Then they shopped for a friendly judge to get a warrant.

This morning, Brit Hume appeared with Martha MacCallum on FOX's America’s Newsroom tand appeared cool and collected but visibly shocked.

Hume said this this means “That the Obama/Holder Justice Department is now prepared to treat the ordinary news gathering activities of reporters trying to seek information from government officials - as a possible crime. That is…. I’m not saying it’s unprecedented because I haven’t researched this, but I can’t think of a case in which that’s ever happened before. It kind of takes the whole AP thing and casts a new light on that - of the attitude of this Justice Department - toward the news gathering activities of 1st Amendment protected organizations.”

As we get into this, I'm certain we'll find other reporters who were targeted as well.

IRS Was Far Easier On Muslim Groups Than On Conservatives, Evangelicals

Corporate and tax attorney Maryam Khan Ansari who specializes in helping groups obtain tax exempt status from the IRS wrote an article in Illume magazine entitled "Do Muslim Nonprofits Have it Easier Than Tea Party Groups?" that sheds some interesting light on a few things. I'd provide a direct link which was here, except it's mysteriously disappeared into the memory hole:

Per the PJ Tater:

Having spent most of my legal career working with tax exempt entities, the IRS scrutiny on the Tea Party isn’t news to me. In my days at large law firms, I handled a portfolio of nonprofit Tea Party organizations and saw firsthand how the IRS treated them when it came to granting exemptions.

In many cases, the organizations fight tooth-and-nail to get through IRS scrutiny, often facing pages of questions from the IRS on their activities.

In some instances, the IRS went about it in a more roundabout way, calling into question the organization’s use of funds, its outside grants and operational issues.

Several of the applications were even sent up to the IRS’ National Office for elevated scrutiny.

The experiences mirror the allegations of the American Center for Law and Justice, who represented 27 organizations.

On the flip side, I’ve worked with numerous Muslim organizations as well. And every single application of a Muslim nonprofit has gone through the IRS, with less scrutiny. Of course, they still did get scrutiny– after all, Islamophobia is still pretty rampant everywhere and it’s inaccurate to say that they got a free pass. But truth be told, they never got a 10-page questionnaire on each and every one of their grantees.

And guess what?The IRS has also granted The Muslim Brotherhood front group  CAIR its tax-exempt status back  again despite their foreign-funding, status as an unindicted co-conspirator in terrorism  and numerous failures to report.

Some animals are very much more equal than others, especially when it comes to the Obama Administration and the IRS.

The IRS Scandal...Just The Tip Of The Iceberg

It says a great deal about the degenerate nature of our media that the above exchange, between Rep. Mike Kelly and outgoing IRS head Steve Miller is being aired on CSPAN and not on every network in America.

Note the respinse of the spectators once Rep. Kelly stopped speaking.

We now know that the IRS specifically targeted conservative groups seeking 501 C3 and 501c4 tax exemptions for invasive questioning and administrative delays in an attempt to deny them the same privileges many Left wing and Democrat advocacy groups have.

We now know that the top levels of the IRS (and almost certainly beyond the Agency) were fully aware of what was going on but made a calculated decision not to touch this until after President Obama's re-election:

The IRS commissioner "has known for at least a year that this was going on," said Myers, "and that this had happened. And did he share any of that information with the White House? But even more importantly, Congress is going to ask him, why did you mislead us for an entire year? Members of Congress were saying conservatives are being targeted. What's going on here? The IRS denied it. Then when -- after these officials are briefed by the IG that this is going on, they don't disclose it. In fact, the commissioner sent a letter to Congress in September on this subject and did not reveal this. Imagine if we -- if you can -- what would have happened if this fact came out in September 2012, in the middle of a presidential election? The terrain would have looked very different."

We now know that donors to Mitt Romney and to conservative cause like Frank VanderSloot, Hal Scherz and a host of others were audited, many for the first time once it became known they were backing conservative of Republican causes. In Frank VanderSloot's case, he hadn't been audited in over thirty years...until he donated almost a million dollars to conservative causes and to Mitt Romney.

We know that Lois Lerner, who was overseeing tax-exempt groups for the IRS, finally acknowledged, under pressure of a looming investigative report, some of what the IRS was doing...and unsuccessfully tried palming it off on what she described as a few low level employees in Cincinnati, Ohio. And we now know that she outright lie, because as Reuters reported, high-level IRS officials, including its chief counsel, knew in August 2011 about the targeting. And the entire corrupt operation reached its peak around May of 2012, in the midst of President Obama's re-election campaign.

In a particularly outrageous insult to our intelligence, President Obama made made some obviously ingenuous remarks of how shocking this all was to him, and the director of the agency, Steve Miller 'resigned'...except, as Miller himself revealed, he was scheduled to leave in June anyway!

We know, too, that the IRS outright lied about  the existence of  a large number of documents related to the policy of targeting, Pro Israel, Conservative, Republican and Tea Party organizations in response to a 2010 Freedom of Information Act request, even though the documents were later discovered by the IRS inspector general.

And we also know that Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive (and registered Democrat) in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 the targeting of conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment got bonuses and a raise during her tenure for a job well done:

Ingram received a $7,000 bonus in 2009, according to data obtained by The Washington Examiner from the IRS, then a $34,440 bonus in 2010, $35,400 in 2011 and $26,550 last year, for a total of $103,390. Her annual salary went from $172,500 to $177,000 during the same period.

Bonuses as large as those awarded to Ingram normally require presidential approval, according to the Office of Personnel official regulations.

Not only that, but Ingraham is being rewarded with a promotion. Thanks to her outstanding work in violating the rights of her fellow Americans, she's been promoted to - wait for it - head the IRS division enforcing ObamaCare.

Lois Lerner's bonus last year, by the way? a whopping $42,531 in 2012. Not bad for someone who works for the IRS but by her own admission 'isn't good at math'.

That's what we know so far.

What we don't know is how far up this goes.

It's obvious that the word was out from upstairs - 'get the Tea Party, get the Republicans, go after the opponents of the Democrats'.

Outgoing head Steve Miller says he used to know who was responsible for initiating these policies but he, um, forgot.

I think we're going to find out, and the question isn't going to go away...what did David Axelrod, Jim Messina and David Plouffe whop ran Obama's re-election campaign know? What did President Obama know? And when did he know it?

IRS Caught Red Handed - Admits It Targeted Conservative Groups

After lying about it for months, the Internal Revenue Service has finally admitted that it deliberately targeted 'conservative' and 'Tea Party' groups for special audits and reviews during the 2012 election season.

The IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, Lois Lerner, said in a telephone press conference that between 2010 and 2012, about 75 conservative groups were 'inappropriately treated' and received extra scrutiny when seeking tax exempt status. The IRS routinely flagged groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names, she said.

Ms. Lerner didn't mention it because no one brought it up at the press conference, but the IRS also targeted pro Israel advocacy groups as well. My friend Lori Lowenthal Marcus, an attorney and the president of Z Street could tell you a few things about that.

The IRS is a federal agency under White House control. Many groups whose politics or positions didn't agree with the Obama Administration's were repeatedly harassed and received lengthy forms to fill out asking for their list of donors and demanding information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.Many were ending up dropping their attempt to seek tax exempt status because it simply was made too onerous a process by the IRS - which was exactly what was intended. Needless to say, this is not only against federal law but against the IRS's own stated policies.

Ms. Lerner's press conference was, well, ludicrous. She and her surrogates were actually hit with real questions by the usually servile press corps, many of which they unable or unwilling to answer.

For instance, after Ms. Lerner asserted that there were Left wing groups targeted too, she was asked to name one. Ummm, she couldn't.

She contradicted herself repeatedly when she was asked if anyone at the IRS is being disciplined for breaking the agency's own rules, then said there was no disciplinary action, and finally ended up saying she wouldn’t comment.

She admitted that the only reason the IRS finally came clean was because 'someone told me' ( she wouldn't say who- that the story was going to break anyway on Friday morning.

"The Ways and Means Committee has persistently pushed the IRS to explain why it appeared to be unfairly targeting some political groups over others — a charge they repeatedly denied," said Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee.

"The IRS's 'too little too late' response is unacceptable, and I will continue to work to ensure there are protections in place so no American, regardless of political affiliation, has their right to free speech threatened by the IRS," Boustany said.

“I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not underway at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Friday. “An apology won’t put this issue to rest.”

The Tea Party Patriots, one of the groups targeted and one of th elargest groups of its kind issued a statement rejecting the IRS’s explanation and demanded the resignations of the officials involved, as well as calling on President Obama to apologize for ignoring the continued complaints of the targeted groups.

“The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power,” said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach.”

It does, but just like President Obama's illegal campaign donations and his suppression of the active duty military vote, nothing much is going to come of this. The regime got away with it, and the election's over now. As Hillary Clinton might say, 'what does it matter?'

But this demonstrated contempt for American citizens is a continuing theme with this president and his administration, and that's something that bears remembering in 2014 and 2016.

BREAKING: US Special Forces were STOPPED from going to Benghazi to aid men on the ground

CBS reporter Sharyl Atkinson is all over this.

This is old ground to those of you whom read this site regularly, but it's nice to have it confirmed by someone whom was there on the ground.

According to diplomat Gregory Hicks, murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens deputy who was one of the Benghazi survivors now giving testimony to congress, a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks and save the Americans under attack was ordered not to do so.

Needless to say, this directly contradicts what we were told by President Obama, Secretary Clinton and other administration officials, that nobody was ever told to stand down and that that there were no resources available:

Hicks gave private testimony to congressional investigators last month in advance of his upcoming appearance at a congressional hearing Wednesday.

According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound "when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, 'you can't go now, you don't have the authority to go now.' And so they missed the flight ... They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it."

No assistance arrived from the U.S. military outside of Libya during the hours that Americans were under attack or trapped inside compounds by hostile forces armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 rifles.

Hicks told congressional investigators that if the U.S. had quickly sent a military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives. The U.S. Souda Bay Naval Base is an hour's flight from Libya.

Hicks recounts how we had F-15's in easy reach of Benghazi, and says point blank that had we sent a couple of fighter aircraft over the attack area, the Libyan attackewrs would likey have left and the mortar attack that killed two Americans the next morning would not have occurred.

Read more excerpts from his testimony here.

We knew before that the Americans whom died in Benghazi could have saved. We knew that before, but having it confirmed by someone who was on the ground here makes it a lot stronger.

So that leads to the heart of the matter, the real unanswered questions:

Why did this happen, and why did this president and his administration go to such lengths to lie and cover it up? Was it really because it could have proven embarrassing in the middle of the president's re-election campaign?

What was Ambassador Stevens doing in a dangerous unsecured location like Benghazi? And why was he meeting with the Turks just before the attack?

Why exactly was it in American interests not to rescue him and his associates when they came under attack?

Why were both of the two buildings being used by the Americans in Benghazi delibeately left unsecured, and why were Ambassador Stevens' repeated requests for more security repeatedly ignored?

Was the US, perhaps represented by the Ambassador Stevens himself involved in negotiating for weapons caches in Libya? If so, why?

Answer those questions and we'll find out what really happened that night - in Benghazi, and in Washington DC.

The ghosts of some brave men and the living whom remain, like Charles Woods deserve some answers.

Breaking! E-Mails reveal Hillary Lied On Benghazi

 

There's a good reason the White House is trying to downplay the upcoming hearings on Benghazi. There's a reason they have spokeshole Jay Carney saying 'Benghazi was a long time ago' . It's obvious why the White House is illegally threatening whistle blowers who want to come forward and testify.

The more that comes out, the worse this smells:

Fresh evidence in the form of newly released e-mails reveals that the State Department had its fingers all over the attempted coverup, with a senior apparatchnik managing the talking points and saying clearly that her superiors were 'unhappy with implications they'd ignored warnings.'

As intelligence officials pieced together the puzzle of events unfolding in Libya, they concluded even before the assaults had ended that al Qaeda-linked terrorists were involved. Senior administration officials, however, sought to obscure the emerging picture and downplay the significance of attacks that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The frantic process that produced the changes to the talking points took place over a 24-hour period just one day before Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her now-famous appearances on the Sunday television talk shows.

That senior apparatchnik, by the way, turns out to be State Department flack Victoria Nuland, who lied to reporters in claiming that Susan Rice's Sunday Talking Points accurately reflected the government's "initial assessment"...even though Victoria Nuland personally had the "initial assessment" changed to suit her "superiors'" political worries!

Election time, you know.

These e-mails were turned over to the House and Senate Intelligence committees as part of a deal in order to allow John Brennan, President Obama's choice for head of our CIA to be confirmed. Part of the agreement was that the committees would be allowed to just review the e-mails, not actually take possession of them..which is quite a giveaway right there:

If the House report provides an accurate and complete depiction of the emails, it is clear that senior administration officials engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments about Benghazi in order to mislead the public. [...]

Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts. The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Daylight Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels. The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.

The article goes on to give the seamy details on how the State Department and the White House cooked reports and intel to cover their culpability and come up with the 'it was the video' narrative that turned out to be such horse manure. It even shows how the drafts of the Talking Points were edited to reflect 'concerns'

And even more is going to come out during the hearings.





Gee, Mrs. Clinton...if it didn't make a difference, why did you and your pals in DC lie about it?

I'm sure we'd all like to know. Certainly the families of those dead Americans would.

A great piece of reporting by the Weekly Standard's Stephen F. Hayes.

The 'Lone Wolves' Theory On Bombing Explodes As Boston Police Arrest More Suspects

 

Yet another piece of the careful meme the Obama Administration put out about the Boston Bombing is apparently crumbling.

Boston police have arrested 3 more suspectsand charged them with aiding and abetting the Tsarnaevs and obstructing justice 'after the fact' :

Three college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were arrested and accused Wednesday of removing a backpack containing fireworks emptied of gunpowder from Tsarnaev’s dorm room three days after the attack to try to keep him from getting into trouble.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice. A third man, Robel Phillipos, was charged with lying to investigators about the visit to Tsarnaev’s room.

In court papers, the FBI said Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev agreed to throw the backpack in the garbage — it was later found in a landfill by law enforcement officers — after concluding from news reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was one of the bombers.

They also apparently knew that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had bomb making skills.

Actually 're-arrest' is the correct term. This trio hail from Kazakhstan, like the Tsarnaevs are also Muslims allowed into the U.S. on student visas and were originally picked up as associates of the Tsarnaevs. One of them drove the car with the license plate 'Terrorista #1' and all three violated their visas by not bothering to attend classes...I wonder why.

But wait, there's more.

The intelligence sent to the U.S also apparently referenced three Pakistanis, and pressure cooker bombs are a signature explosive device of the Pakistani Taliban. Not only are they common, but they're easily detonated remotely from, a cell phone.

It's not at all far fetched that Tamerlan Tsarnaev received training in manufacturing this kind of IED during the six months he was overseas before he returned to the U.S. to take advantage with the rest of his family of America's welfare system, attend a radical mosque and plan his jihad attack.

That's becoming apparent to a lot of people interested in finding out that happened rather than merely covering for some pretty obvious intel failures.

One of them is Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas and Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. who said on Fox News Sunday, “I think given the level of sophistication of this device, the fact that the pressure cooker is a signature device that goes back to Pakistan, Afghanistan, leads me to believe — and the way they handled these devices and the tradecraft — … that there was a trainer and the question is where is that trainer or trainers.”

And we haven't even fully investigated the possible connection to the Tsarnaevs of Saudi nationals with major ties to al-Qaeda.

That was important enough for DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to lie about to Congress.


Rep. McCaul is going to be holding hearings on the Boston Bombings, and no doubt some more useful information is going to be uncovered.