Yet another setback for Benghazi conspiracy theorists

The House Intelligence Committee is among the many congressional panels to investigate the deadly attack on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi in 2012, and its findings are reportedly complete. The committee’s report is not yet available, but Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) talked to the San Francisco Chronicle about the results of the inquiry.

The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee. […] 

Thompson said the report “confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given.”

The committee agreed Thursday to declassify its report, nearly two years in the making, and the findings will reportedly be available to the public once it’s cleared by intelligence agencies.

Just so we’re clear, this is a Republican-led committee, with GOP members outnumbering Democrats, 12 to 9.

Benghazi Ringleader Ahmed Abu Khattala Claims Attack Was About the Anti-Islam Video

To listen to conservatives, the attack on Benghazi was meticulously coordinated, planned, and orchestrated with surgical precision, while the State Department, working carefully with the Muslim Brotherhood/Al-Qaeda/The Taliban/”they’re all the same, okay?”, stood by and did nothing in an attack that killed four American citizens. It’s also one of the worst attacks on America in the History of Dick Cheney’s memory. This was followed by a transparent cover up that’s worthy of impeachment.

But if you listen to one of the people who were behind the attack — in fact, if you listen to the ringleader himself — you get a different story. Ahmed Abu Khattala was captured by US personnel Sunday in response to an indictment for murder in connection with his role as the suspected ringleader in the Benghazi attacks. According to the New York Times, Khattala told the Libyans the night of the attack “that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.” The Times reports that:

What he did in the period just before the attack has remained unclear. But Mr. Abu Khattala told other Libyans in private conversations during the night of the attack that he was moved to attack the diplomatic mission to take revenge for an insult to Islam in an American-made online video.

An earlier demonstration venting anger over the video outside the American Embassy in Cairo had culminated in a breach of its walls, and it dominated Arab news coverage. Mr. Abu Khattala told both fellow Islamist fighters and others that the attack in Benghazi was retaliation for the same insulting video, according to people who heard him.

In an interview days after the attack, he pointedly declined to say whether he believed an offense such as the anti-Islamic video might indeed warrant the destruction of the diplomatic mission or the killing of the ambassador. “From a religious point of view, it is hard to say whether it is good or bad,” he said.

Conservatives in general, but FOX and the Tea Party in particular, have said numerous times that the talking points the administration gave shortly after the attacks were obscuring the real cause of the terror attacks, and being used to bolster Obama during an election year.

According to Media Matters, “The Times article is consistent with media reports from the scene of the attack that suggested the anti-Islam video had been a motive for at least some of the attackers. That video triggered anti-American protests across the Muslim world.”

The conservatives screaming about #Benghazi were wrong. Imagine that. Do you think they’ll stop wasting millions of tax dollars on witch hunts, now?

On Tuesday, the House Republican leadership formally announced it’s chosen Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) to lead the latest in a series of Benghazi committee investigations. On Wednesday, Gowdy made a “telling slip.”

Asked by MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough about the possibility that his panel’s work would continue into the 2016 election campaign, Gowdy replied that “if an administration is slow-walking document production, I can’t end a trial simply because the defense won’t cooperate.”

 

A trial? And the Obama administration is the defense? So much for that “serious investigation” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) promised; his new chairman intends to play prosecutor, proving the administration’s guilt to the jury – in this case, the public.

It was no small admission. Publicly, GOP leaders insist their election-year charade is actually a credible search for the facts, wherever they may lead. They’re going into this process, not on a partisan witch hunt, but as responsible public officials. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) assured reporters this week that this is going to be “a serious investigation.”

 

Except Gowdy accidentally told the truth on national television – he’s already convinced, before the process even starts, that the White House is guilty of wrongdoing, and the far-right congressman believes it’s his job to prosecute administration officials.

 

In other words, Gowdy effectively admitted that everything his own party is saying about the select committee is wrong.

When Republican fundraising goes too far

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the head of the Republicans’ new Benghazi committee, appeared on msnbc this morning and said the terrorist attack “transcends politics,” and should therefore not be used for partisan fundraising.

Oops.

Minutes earlier, the National Republican Congressional Committee sent out a fundraising email tied to Gowdy’s role leading a select committee to investigate the attacks.

 

The timing of the two events points to a problem that Republican leadership will likely encounter as it looks into the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead. The temptation to rev up the base and raise money from it too could end up damaging the investigation’s credibility even before it starts.

On msnbc, Gowdy was unequivocal. “I have never sought to raise a single penny on the backs of four murdered Americans,” he said, adding, “Even in a culture of hyper-partisanship, [there are] certain things that ought to be above politics.”

 

And just as far-right lawmaker was making these on-air comments, his party’s House campaign committee used Gowdy’s name as part of a new fundraising pitch.

 

Indeed, as Sam Stein noted, the National Republican Congressional Committee put together quite an appeal for cash: ”In the email, the NRCC linked to a contribution page that alerted those who clicked through that they were ‘now a Benghazi Watchdog’ and asked them for donations ranging between $25 and $500.”

 

Wait it gets worse.

 

Eric Hananoki added:

A Media Matters review of fundraising emails and websites found that conservatives have routinely invoked Benghazi to ask followers for money. The fundraising solicitations accuse the Obama administration of “lies,” “cover-ups,” a “dereliction of duty,” and crimes worse than Watergate. […]

 

Like their counterparts in the media, the main Republican Party campaign apparatuses are actively fundraising off of Benghazi. The Republican National Committee has a donation page asking Republicans to demand “the truth about Benghazi” by contributing money. The National Republican Senatorial Committee asks Republicans to “donate today” because of Benghazi.

The Media Matters report also highlighted similar Benghazi-related fundraising pitches from Fox News host Mike Huckabee, Fox News contributor John Bolton, Fox News contributor Allen West, and far-right groups like Accuracy In Media and the American Center For Law And Justice.

 

It seems likely they would have preferred Gowdy not use the phrase “raise a single penny on the backs of four murdered Americans.”

Democrat CRUSHES GOP’s Benghazi Fixation: ‘Colossal Waste of Time’ ON FOX NEWS!

“Chris, I think it’s a colossal waste of time. We’ve had four bipartisan investigations of this already, and I think it’s driven by a couple of things. The Republican conference is so fractured, there’s really only two things they agree on: they don’t like Obamacare… and they do like talking about Benghazi, so we’ve had four investigations on that. But I don’t think it makes sense, really, for Democrats to participate. I think it’s just a tremendous red herring and a waste of taxpayer resources, so I hope the speaker will reconsider, but it looks like he has bowed again to those from the farthest right of his conference. … I don’t think it makes sense for us to give this select committee any more credibility than it deserves, and frankly, I don’t think it deserves very much.”

It is a colossal waste of time, effort, and energy. But as long as reality denies the Republicans what they want to hear, they’ll continue pushing the issue — until they’re thrown out of office, anyway.

You can watch Representative Schiff slam the “special committee” below:

Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur blasts GOP and Fox over Benghazi: ‘F*ck you, move the f*ck on

Young Turks host Cenk Uygur angrily denounced Republicans and Fox News on Friday for continuing to paint the September 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya as a conspiracy.

“Why don’t we talk for eight years about the gross incompetence of the f*cking Republicans George g*ddamn W. Bush and Dick Cheney? They sit in f*cking Crawford for a month as they’re about to attack us,” Uygur said. “You got a memo that said, ‘[Osama] bin Ladin determined to attack inside the United States of America,’ you didn’t do anything about that. Three-thousand Americans died and you want to talk about Benghazi and four Americans, ‘Oh, and you changed it from ‘attacks’ to f*cking ‘demonstrations.’ F*ck you, move the f*ck on.”

The attack — which caused the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans — was reignited as a conservative talking point this week after the conservative group Judicial Watch released emails it said suggested that President Barack Obama’s administration misled the country for the sake of protecting both his re-election bid and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s chance at a 2016 presidential campaign.

While acknowledging that the four deaths in the attack were tragic, Uygur criticized conservatives for ignoring Obama administration policies that have harmed and could harm a wider array of people, like the recent Federal Communications Commission proposals that activists have warned could endanger net neutrality, among others.House Oversight Committee chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) subpoenaed current Secretary of State John Kerry following Judicial Watch’s report, and House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has vowed to convene a special committee to conduct its own investigation.

“They do warrantless spying on all of us, on 300 million Americans,” Uygur said. “They do drone strikes on people — they kill people — [and] they don’t even know who they are. They kill American citizens without due process. There’s a mountain of problems with the Obama administration.”

By comparison, Uygur said, Benghazi was “a tiny little f*cking thing” that the rest of the media had allowed Fox News to turn into a leading topic.

“Stop talking about what Fox News is talking about,” he said. “Have you f*cking not caught on? They do it on purpose.”

Watch Uygur’s commentary, as posted online on Friday, below.

Not on Fox News: GOP Armed Services Chair Clears Obama, Hillary in Benghazi Investigation

It’s a good thing that Representative Buck McKeon (R-CA) has decided to retire after 11 terms in Congress. If he hadn’t, he would surely be facing a Tea Party primary challenge after announcing that he is satisfied that nothing more could have been done to prevent the deaths of 4 Americans in Benghazi.

McKeon is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, which just last month issued a contradictory report of its findings on the attack on the consulate September 11, 2012.  The report faulted the President and State Department for not having beefed up the military presence in Benghazi prior to the attack, while at the same time finding that there were no troops in a position to respond rapidly enough, no “stand down” order was given and that all that could be done had been done.

“I think I’ve pretty well been satisfied that given where the troops were, how quickly the thing all happened and how quickly it dissipated, we probably couldn’t have done more than we did,” McKeon told reporters on Thursday.  “Now, we’ve made changes since then. We’ve got more Marine fast teams that we built up security around the world.”

“We have been working on this for a long time. We issued a preliminary report,” he said.  “At some point, when we run out of people to talk to, or we run out of people to talk to two or three times, at some point, we think we’ll have as much of this story as we’re going to get and move on.”

Of course Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) does not agree with McKeon and says that the administration is still hiding the truth and should be made to admit to culpability.

“They owe the American people the truth. And when it comes to Benghazi, we’ve got four Americans who are dead. And their families deserve the truth about what happened, and the administration refuses to tell them the truth,” Boehner told reporters at a separate news conference.

NYT blockbuster: Anti-Islam video had role in Benghazi attack, Al Qaeda didn`t

A blockbuster new story in the New York Times by David Kirkpatrick looks at the fatal attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012 and finds no evidence to back up the GOP talking points.

Specifically, Kirkpatrick found no evidence that Al Qaeda played any role in the attack, but he did find evidence that that anti-Muslim video, “Innocence of Muslims,” played a role.

Republicans have been claiming from day one that it was Al Qaeda Al Qaeda Al Qaeda.

And their more general point was that it was a ABSOTIVELY POSALUTELY A TERRORIST ATTACK.  And in fact, there’s still no evidence that it was.

They’ve also been claiming that the anti-Islam video played no role. It would seem the Republicans, yet again, got it wrong on that account too.

Before we get to the Times, let’s take a quick look at that video that the Republicans have been so intent on defending. Here’s how Vanity Fair described “Innocence of Muslims”:

Actual scene from “Innocence of Muslims.”

Exceptionally amateurish, with disjointed dialogue, jumpy editing, and performances that would have looked melodramatic even in a silent movie, the clip is clearly designed to offend Muslims, portraying Mohammed as a bloodthirsty murderer and Lothario and pedophile with omnidirectional sexual appetites. “Is the messenger of God gay?” one character asks rhetorically. “Is the master dominant or submissive?”

“Amateurish” is too kind. You have to see this thing.  It looks like Team America, but without the cartoons. Here’s a trailer:

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GOP Can't Stop Riding a Dead Horse!