Another faux "scandal" ends with a whimper ~ ~ Sooz

House intel panel debunks many Benghazi theories
By KEN DILANIAN | Nov. 21, 2014 5:22 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.

Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people.

The House Intelligence Committee report was released with little fanfare on the Friday before Thanksgiving week. Many of its findings echo those of six previous investigations by various congressional committees and a State Department panel. The eighth Benghazi investigation is being carried out by a House Select Committee appointed in May.

The attacks in Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith, and two CIA contractors, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty. A Libyan extremist, Ahmed Abu Khatalla, is facing trial on murder charges after he was captured in Libya and taken to the U.S.

In the aftermath of the attacks, Republicans criticized the Obama administration and its then-secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is expected to run for president in 2016. People in and out of government have alleged that a CIA response team was ordered to "stand down" after the State Department compound came under attack, that a military rescue was nixed, that officials intentionally downplayed the role of al-Qaida figures in the attack, and that Stevens and the CIA were involved in a secret operation to spirit weapons out of Libya and into the hands of Syrian rebels. None of that is true, according to the House Intelligence Committee report.

The report did find, however, that the State Department facility where Stevens and Smith were killed was not well-protected, and that State Department security agents knew they could not defend it from a well-armed attack. Previous reports have found that requests for security improvements were not acted upon in Washington.

"We spent thousands of hours asking questions, poring over documents, reviewing intelligence assessments, reading cables and emails, and held a total of 20 committee events and hearings," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the committee's chairman, and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the ranking Democrat, in a joint statement.

"We conducted detailed interviews with senior intelligence officials from Benghazi and Tripoli as well as eight security personnel on the ground in Benghazi that night. Based on the testimony and the documents we reviewed, we concluded that all the CIA officers in Benghazi were heroes. Their actions saved lives," they said.

Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who serves on the intelligence panel and the Benghazi select committee, said, "It's my hope that this report will put to rest many of the questions that have been asked and answered yet again, and that the Benghazi Select Committee will accept these findings and instead focus its attention on the State Department's progress in securing our facilities around the world and standing up our fast response capabilities."

Some of the harshest charges have been leveled at Rice, now Obama's national security adviser, who represented the Obama administration on Sunday talk shows the weekend after the attack. Rice repeated talking points that wrongly described a protest over a video deemed offensive to Muslims.

But Rice's comments were based on faulty intelligence from multiple agencies, according to the report. Analysts received 21 reports that a protest occurred in Benghazi, the report said —14 from the Open Source Center, which reviews news reports; one from the CIA; two from the Defense Department; and four from the National Security Agency.

In the years since, some participants in the attack have said they were motivated by the video. The attackers were a mix of extremists and hangers on, the investigation found.

"To this day," the report said, "significant intelligence gaps regarding the identities, affiliations and motivations of the attackers remain."

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ecc3a300383445d5a90dd6ca764c9e15/house-intel-panel-debunks-many-benghazi-theories

I wouldn't count out several re-runs of Benghazi investigations over the next two years.

they should investigate the Republican committtee that produced this report!

Seems that one immediate response is to insist that the report says the opposite of what it actually says:
http://currenteventsii.yuku.com/topic/2 ... HDor-lxnL8

Yeah, it's amazing what these ultra rightwing nutjobs come up with!

mind if i don't go there? thanks.

Lindsey Graham seems to have a problem with reality ~ ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
Lindsey Graham Won't Accept New Benghazi Report: It's 'Full Of Crap'
By Caitlin MacNeal Published November 23, 2014, 11:55 AM EST

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday refused to accept that the new House Benghazi report cleared the Obama administration of any wrongdoing in its response to the Benghazi attack.

"I think the report is full of crap," Graham said on CNN's "State of the Union."

The senator insisted that members of the administration altered the Benghazi talking points after the attack.

"I'm saying that anybody who has followed Benghazi at all knows that the CIA deputy director did not come forward to tell Congress what role he played in changing the talking points," he said. "And the only way we knew he was involved is when he told a representative at the White House, I'm going to do a hard review of this, a hard rewrite."

CNN host Gloria Borger then told Graham that the House report concludes that the administration received bad information at first and did not lie.

"That's a bunch of garbage," Graham shot back. "That's a complete bunch of garbage."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/graham-benghazi-report-full-crap

I stand corrected ~ this thread title, altho intentionally mild, was obviously overly optimistic ~ ~ Sooz

The Benghazi Report Truthers: Even The GOP Can't Get To The Bottom Of It
By Daniel Strauss Published December 3, 2014, 6:00 AM EST

When in late November the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a report finding that there was no direct wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, it seemed like the case might finally be closed. After all, this was a panel controlled by a Republicans.

But that's not quite what happened.

Some of the loudest torch-and-pitchfork wielding Benghazi investigation enthusiasts weren't satisfied. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on CNN he thought the report "is full of crap" and that the House Intelligence Committee had done a "lousy job of policing their own."

"I'm saying that anybody who has followed Benghazi at all knows that the CIA deputy director did not come forward to tell Congress what role he played in changing the talking points," Graham said. "And the only way we knew he was involved is when he told a representative at the White House, I'm going to do a hard review of this, a hard rewrite."

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) agreed, telling the Salt Lake Tribune that Graham "is probably right."

And then on Monday, an op-ed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) ran at Breitbart which skeptically said "a Congressional Committee chaired by Rep. Mike Rogers is telling us no one is responsible because there was no intelligence failure to begin with." Paul's argument was that the House Intelligence Committee's report omitted key details about Benghazi thanks to the Obama administration.

"The Obama Administration has tried to paint members of Congress who ask these questions as somehow being extreme or crazy — and perhaps the House Intelligence Committee will now follow suit."

Fox News also published a piece arguing that the "widely-cited" House Intelligence report "cited by the mainstream media" lacked key details about Benghazi.

These two arguments are at the core post-House Intelligence Committee report findings skepticism. To skeptics, the findings by the Republican-controlled Intelligence Committee clearly lacked key details if the conclusion was that there was no wrongdoing and, the thinking goes, that's probably thanks to the Obama administration.

"It' s a conspiracy between House Republicans and the White House," American Enterprise Institute congressional scholar Norm Ornstein said sarcastically to TPM.

There's reason for these Republicans to be skeptical, Ornstein said.

"Fox News, Talk Radio, plus all of the efforts by some of the members inside like Lindsey Graham to suggest something really dark here," Ornstein said, adding "you have a whole lot of people predisposed —and that's a mild term to use— to believe that the administration would do horrible things and then conspire to cover them up. So any thing that provides evidence to the contrary, after all of that buildup and hype, is going to be rejected by people who don't want to believe it."

In the case of Paul, there's also the fact that by criticizing the handling of Benghazi, he can easily segue to criticizing Hillary Clinton through an event that happened while she was secretary of State (which he happily did in his Breitbart piece).

"If you are a presidential candidate and you've got partisan base out there that believes that Obama's a Kenyan socialist that's trying to undermine American and work with our enemies, then you're going to gain much by saying 'Benghazi really was worth nothing' but you will by saying it all reinforces your worst fears about the president and his administration," Ornstein said.

The fact that a Republican-controlled committee released this report is beside the point for skeptics, Harvard University political scientist Theda Skocpol said.

"Republicans know that most Americans know nothing about the details of government or who produced this report. They are just continuing a sound bite beat implying something dirty from Obama and Clinton about Benghazi," Skocpol told TPM. "The real problem for them will come from media reporters who do know this was a GOP report and may not want to cover more hearings."

There's also one other important fact to keep in mind. Ornstein noted that other panels could release a report either confirming the House Intelligence Committee's or contradicting it which would surely add flame to the conspiracy fire. Ornstein noted there's the House Select Committee on Benghazi and a few of the Republican-controlled committees in the 114th Congress will likely look into Benghazi as well.

"There's very little doubt in my mind that you're going to see Benghazi investigations probably by John McCain and the Senate Armed Services committee and you're going to see some pressure by Ron Johnson on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations," Ornstein said.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/republican-criticism-benghazi-house-intelligence-committee-report

Who dat?

We need a commission to investigate the investigating commissions. All 459 of them.

Sounds like the GOP/TPers are now "eating their own" ~ that's what happens when made-up "conspiracies" go POOF! ~ ~ there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Republicans turn on each other over Benghazi conspiracy theories
12/05/14 04:53 PM
By Steve Benen

Once the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee issued its report on the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, there was a sense of finality to the process. GOP lawmakers on the panel themselves described the findings as “definitive.”

Every possible question has been answered. Every conspiracy theory has been discredited. Every wild-eyed allegation has been proven false. Every House committee, every Senate committee, every State Department investigator, and every inquiry launched by independent news organizations have reached the exact same conclusion. There’s a general feeling, even among many Republicans, that it’s time to just move on.

But that’s not going to happen. Not only is the House on track to spend at least another $1.5 million – of our money – on yet another committee, but many GOP lawmakers have decided to reject the findings of other GOP lawmakers.


He’s really not.

And while it’s certainly interesting to see Graham and Chaffetz reject the exhaustive findings prepared by their colleagues from their own party, no one seems quite as hostile to the evidence as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), arguably Congress’ most zealous conspiracy theorist.

The Kentucky Republican wrote an op-ed for a right-wing website this week, and I hope readers will take a moment to appreciate Rand Paul’s approach to logic in all its glory.


It’s important to appreciate Paul’s intellectual rigor: there are lots of allegations, and even though the evidence proves the allegations false, maybe, since there are so many of them, one of them is a little true?

As Simon Maloy noted, the Republican senator proceeded to suggest his own GOP allies may be “helping the Obama administration cover-up the truth about Benghazi.”

That’s right, it’s come to this: Republicans have uncovered a conspiracy so vast, it involves Republicans who went looking for evidence of a conspiracy.

I get the feeling that the Beltway media considers Rand Paul so “interesting” that his antics, no matter how ridiculous, simply cannot be disqualifying. But that’s a shame – his approach to Benghazi is itself a cringe-worthy embarrassment.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-turn-each-other-over-benghazi-conspiracy-theories

see post #3