Benghazi: Clinton Kept News From State Dept. Counter Terrorism Unit

Beginning on Wednesday Congressman Issa's house oversight committee will be hearing from the "Benghazi Whistle-blower," people who have not been interviewed before and who's careers have been threatened if they testify.

As the subject of their testimonies begins to leak out, it is becoming more clear that we have been lied to by our leaders.


Fox News' James Rosen is reporting one of the whistle blowers will testify that during the attack on our mission in Benghazi, Secretary of State Clinton made sure that the state department's own counterterrorism bureau was kept in the dark about the attack and was not allowed to participate in any of the decision making on Sept. 11th.

That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau. Sources tell Fox News Thompson will level the allegation against Clinton during testimony on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Fox News has also learned that another official from the counterterrorism bureau -- independently of Thompson -- voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October.

Extremists linked to Al Qaeda stormed the American consulate and a nearby annex on Sept. 11, in a heavily armed and well-coordinated eight-hour assault that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans.

Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson's lawyer, Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.

Thompson will testify that on Sept. 11 that Clinton and Kennedy tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials weighed how to respond to -- and characterize -- the Benghazi attacks.

"You should have seen what (Clinton) tried to do to us that night," the second official in State's counterterrorism bureau told colleagues back in October. Those comments would appear to be corroborated by Thompson's forthcoming testimony.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the counterterrorism officials' allegation "100 percent false." A spokesman for Clinton said tersely that the charge is not true.

It gets worse.  There will be testimony from people who were in Benghazi during the attack, that there was never a protest, no one mentioned an anti-Muslim video, only that they were being attacked. It seems the "official story" we were given during the first weeks after the Benghazi attack was an Obama Administration fairy tale.

Documents from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, first published in the May 13 edition of "The Weekly Standard," showed that senior officials from those agencies decided within days of the attacks to delete all references to Al Qaeda's known involvement in them from "talking points" being prepared for those administration officers being sent out to discuss the attacks publicly.

Those talking points -- and indeed, the statements of all senior Obama administration officials who commented publicly on Benghazi during the early days after the attacks -- sought instead to depict the Americans' deaths as the result of a spontaneous protest that went awry. The administration later acknowledged that there had been no such protest, as evidence mounted that Al Qaeda-linked terrorists had participated in the attacks. The latter conclusion had figured prominently in the earliest CIA drafts of the talking points, but was stricken by an ad hoc group of senior officials controlling the drafting process. Among those involved in prodding the deletions, the documents published by "The Weekly Standard" show, was State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, who wrote at one point that the revisions were not sufficient to satisfy "my building's leadership.

Congressman Issa and member of his committee keep explaining that the reason for these hearings is to find out what happened and to set up systems to ensure another attack such as the one on Sept. 11 in Benghazi never happens again.  That is only one of the reasons.  Americans deserves to know if they were lied to by their leaders.  Administration officials keep implying the only reason for these hearings is politics.  I would suggest that the only reason we were lied to was politics, Obama's reelection campaign and Hillary Clinton's candidacy in 2016.

Americans are very forgiving, but the one thing they will not forgive is being lied to...it will be interesting to see what happens to Obama's ratings and Clinton's candidacy after these Benghazi hearings.