E-Mails Reveal Problems With Clinton’s Testimony
In responding to the State Department’s failure to adequately secure the U.S. special mission compound in Benghazi, Hillary Clinton’s constant mantra has been that as secretary of state she oversaw a massive bureaucracy and could not have personally involved herself in specific security requests from diplomatic outposts.
“It’s just plain impossible for any secretary of any cabinet agency to take that on,” Clinton wrote in her memoir Hard Choices regarding the security requests, which she maintained rarely make it to the top of her department.
In January 2013, she further testified before the Senate and House committees probing Benghazi that she did not see the security requests, while stressing her larger role of managing “the nearly 70,000 people who work for the State Department.”
“I feel responsible for the nearly 70,000 people who work for the State Department,” Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “But the specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi, you know, were handled by the security professionals in the department. I didn’t see those requests. They didn’t come to me. I didn’t approve them. I didn’t deny them.”
However, one theme that emerges from this reporter’s full review of Clinton’s released emails is that she was continually briefed on events surrounding the Benghazi mission and took a particular interest in the U.S. diplomatic outpost.
Emails sent to Clinton pertain to the facility’s initial establishment in 2011 through security threats to both the mission and Ambassador Chris Stevens, to intelligence on the growing terrorist threat in Libya, including the arrests of jihadists and the establishment of jihadist cells in Benghazi.
Despite the escalating threats, the U.S. special mission remained woefully unprotected. The State Department pulled a special support team from Libya, and it denied numerous security requests, including one to erect guard towers outside the mission.
Meanwhile, in the year prior to the deadly 2012 Benghazi attack, Clinton used her private e-mail server to correspond about such highly sensitive national security matters as specific threats to the Libya hotel where Ambassador Chris Stevens was staying as well as his decision to remain at the hotel despite the threats.
The e-mails, released on May 22 by the State Department, also contained the exact movements of Stevens while he was stationed in arguably one of the most dangerous zones in the world for any American diplomat, a WorldNetDaily review has found.
Former NSA Official Says Snooping Will Continue Regardless Of Congressional Action
A former high-ranking official at the U.S. National Security Agency said the NSA will continue to spy on American citizens irrespective of any action taken by Congress on the Patriot Act.
William Binney, known to many as the architect of the NSA who became a whistleblower against the agency during the administration of George W. Bush, made this comment on Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.
Asked, “Do you see the NSA actually continuing with the collection of millions of Americans’ phone records and emails?” Binney said, “Yes I do. And, in fact, they’ll be doing it under Executive Order 12333, Section 2.3.c where it authorizes them to…collect [from] any device if their intention is to go for a terrorist or a dope smuggler or an international crime. Which means they can take any fiber-optic line…collect it all and say we’re going after terrorists, and oh by the way, we’re gonna keep all the data anyway, and it’s called coincidental collection of U.S. citizens.”
Binney, who served as NSA’s technical director, believes the NSA is now using its collected data to target Americans for their politics, including members of the Tea Party and the Occupy movement.
He thinks former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was among the victims in 2008, when he resigned from office in a highly publicized prostitution scandal. “They looked into his e-mail, phone calls,” said Binney.
“All that stuff was stored at NSA, and they found evidence to embarrass him to get rid of him. They appear to be using it against any number of other people, too, if you get in their way. This I saw as a totalitarian-state process, and that’s what totalitarian states do.”
When asked by a caller if the NSA has all the emails of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Binney said: “Of course, they have everybody’s e-mails.”
Were ISIS Allies Behind Rocket Attacks?
Islamic Salafists allied with ISIS were behind the firing of at least one rocket from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel last week, a senior Salafist in Gaza claimed in a phone call to WorldNetDaily.
The Salafist leader said three rockets were fired from Gaza last Tuesday, not just one, as was reported by the Israeli media.
No Gazan group has claimed official responsibility for the rocket firing. Israel says it is holding Gaza’s Hamas rulers responsible while indicating that the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad was behind it.
The Salafist leader’s claim of responsibility to this reporter could not be immediately verified. If accurate, though, it would mark an escalation of the militant capabilities of ISIS-aligned ideologues in Gaza who oppose Hamas rule.
The ISIS ideologues see Hamas as too pro-Western and believe the group sold out by holding elections and carrying out dialogue with members of the international community.
They may be seeking to embarrass Hamas and demonstrate their capabilities with the Hamas-ruled Gaza.
