US spy agencies heard Benghazi attackers using State Dept. cell phones to call terrorist leaders

The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News.

The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks.

Eric Stahl, who recently retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force, served as commander and pilot of the C-17 aircraft that was used to transport the corpses of the four casualties from the Benghazi attacks – then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods – as well as the assault’s survivors from Tripoli to the safety of an American military base in Ramstein, Germany.

In an exclusive interview on Fox News’ “Special Report,” Stahl said members of a CIA-trained Global Response Staff who raced to the scene of the attacks were “confused” by the administration’s repeated implication of the video as a trigger for the attacks, because “they knew during the attack…who was doing the attacking.” Asked how, Stahl told anchor Bret Baier: “Right after they left the consulate in Benghazi and went to the [CIA] safehouse, they were getting reports that cell phones, consulate cell phones, were being used to make calls to the attackers’ higher ups.”

A separate U.S. official, one with intimate details of the bloody events of that night, confirmed the major’s assertion. The second source, who requested anonymity to discuss classified data, told Fox News he had personally read the intelligence reports at the time that contained references to calls by terrorists – using State Department cell phones captured at the consulate during the battle – to their terrorist leaders. The second source also confirmed that the security teams on the ground received this intelligence in real time.

Major Stahl was never interviewed by the Accountability Review Board, the investigative panel convened, pursuant to statute, by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the official body reviewing all the circumstances surrounding the attacks and their aftermath. Many lawmakers and independent experts have criticized the thoroughness of the ARB, which also never interviewed Clinton.

In his interview on “Special Report,” Stahl made still other disclosures that add to the vast body of literature on Benghazi – sure to grow in the months ahead, as a select House committee prepares for a comprehensive probe of the affair, complete with subpoena power. Stahl said that when he deposited the traumatized passengers at Ramstein, the first individual to question the CIA security officers was not an FBI officer but the senior State Department diplomat on the ground.

“They were taken away from the airplane,” Stahl said. “The U.S. ambassador to Germany [Philip D. Murphy] met us when we landed and he took them away because he wanted to debrief them that night.” Murphy stepped down as ambassador last year. A message left with Sky Blue FC, a private company in New Jersey with which Murphy is listed online as an executive officer, was not immediately returned.

Stahl also contended that given his crew’s alert status and location, they could have reached Benghazi in time to have played a role in rescuing the victims of the assault, and ferrying them to safety in Germany, had they been asked to do so. “We were on a 45-day deployment to Ramstein air base,” he told Fox News. “And we were there basically to pick up priority missions, last-minute missions that needed to be accomplished.”

“You would’ve thought that we would have had a little bit more of an alert posture on 9/11,” Stahl added. “A hurried-up timeline probably would take us [an] hour-and-a-half to get off the ground and three hours and fifteen minutes to get down there. So we could’ve gone down there and gotten them easily.”

Bret Baier currently serves as anchor of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report with Bret Baier” (weeknights 6-7PM/ET), the top-rated cable news program in its timeslot. Based in Washington, D.C., he joined the network in 1998 as the first reporter in the Atlanta bureau. Click here for more information on Bret Baier

Fact Check: Hillary came up with Benghazi video explanation

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Hillary Clinton’s newly released memoir leaves little doubt she was the first member of the Obama administration to publicly link an anti-Islam video to the 2012 Benghazi terror attack – though she does not explain what intelligence she relied on to make the faulty connection. The former secretary of … Read more

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Trey Gowdy brings ‘zeal for the truth’ as head of House’s Benghazi panel

Rep. Trey Gowdy‘s rise from obscure South Carolina backbencher to chairman of the House‘s new special Benghazi committee took a quantum leap last October, when he stole the show at an otherwise mundane Republican news conference about the terrorist attacks.

While only in his second term, the conservative Gowdy rushed to the podium and — with the conviction of a preacher and the erudition of a prosecutor — launched into a passionate yet disciplined plea for “justice” that mesmerized those watching, including his GOP colleagues on the dais.

“No one has been arrested, no one has been prosecuted, no one has been brought to justice,” he said soberly. “I am not surprised the president of the United States called this a phony scandal, I’m not surprised [former Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton asked what difference does it make?… I’m just surprised a lot of people bought it.”

His three-minute address skillfully summarized Republican frustration over the Obama administration’s response to the attacks like no one had before, and was a seminal moment in the party’s push to raise public awareness about the scandal. And it instantly transformed Gowdy into a cult hero in conservative America (a clip of his remarks has generated 3.4 million views on YouTube).

Also impressed was House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, who in May tabbed Gowdy to lead the new House select committee to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which claimed the lives of four American diplomats, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Gowdy, with less than four years in the House, lacks seniority. But his appointment came as little surprise to those who know and work with the 49-year-old lawyer.

“He is cerebral, deeply studied and actually one of the most intelligent members I’ve served with. And I don’t say that lightly — this is not an empty compliment,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

“If he can’t get to the bottom of [Benghazi] then this will be lost to history, because he has a great capacity to work through an investigation and come to a fair conclusion.”

Gowdy’s direct, no-nonsense and at times confrontational approach to politics is the hallmark of the South Carolina native.

He challenged incumbent Rep. Bob Inglis in the 2010 Republican primary for South Carolina’s 4th Congressional District, which includes Greenville and Spartanburg. During the campaign Gowdy ignored President Ronald Reagan’s “11th Commandment” — thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican — accusing Inglis, who had a 91 percent rating from the American Conservative Union, of not being conservative enough.

Gowdy’s decision to run frustrated some in the GOP Establishment but endeared him to the state’s burgeoning conservative Tea Party faction, which pushed the challenger to a 40-point runoff victory over Inglis.

Once in Congress, Gowdy continued his independent spirit, occasionally bucking the party leadership.

Only months into his first term in summer 2011, he opposed the Boehner-brokered debt limit bill, a measure that eventually passed and allowed the federal government to keep paying its bills by raising the nation’s borrowing limit.

The South Carolinian was accused of stubbornly holding to Tea Party principles at the risk of damaging the national and global economies. But Gowdy bristled at the notion, saying at the time that he and other backers of the movement are “not a bunch of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing Neanderthals.”

“We’re interested in answering what we perceive to be the mandate, which is to stop the spending and change the way Washington handles money,” he said.

The pragmatic Boehner apparently hasn’t held a grudge, calling Gowdy “as dogged, focused and serious-minded as they come.”

Boehner added that Gowdy’s background as a federal prosecutor fuels “his zeal for the truth” and makes him a good fit to head the latest in a series of Republican-led Benghazi probes.

After earning an undergraduate history degree from Baylor University and a law degree from the University of South Carolina, Gowdy briefly worked as a lawyer before becoming a federal prosecutor in 1994. He prosecuted a range of high-profile crimes, including narcotics traffickingrings, bank robberies, child pornography cases and murder — never losing a case.

In 2000 he ran for South Carolina’a 7th Circuit Solicitor, the equivalent of a district attorney. He defeated the incumbent in the GOP primary and was re-elected twice. During his eight-year tenure he was interviewed on TV shows such as “Forensic Files” and “Dateline NBC,” giving him vital experience in dealing with the national media.

His time as a prosecutor was so important that the three dogs he and his wife Terri own are named Judge, Jury and Bailiff. They also have a son in college and a daughter in high school.

“If you ask him [Gowdy will say] the best job he’s ever had was to be a local prosecutor,” McHenry said. “So he’s got a different approach.”

Not everyone is convinced a prosecutorial approach to the special committee is a good idea.

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, repeatedly has accused Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., of treating the panel’s Benghazi investigation as a kangaroo court — not an impartial, neutral effort. And with Gowdy serving as a chief Issa acolyte on the panel, Cummings says he is concerned the select committee will evolve in similar fashion.

“I do consider [Gowdy] a great prosecutor, I’ve seen him in a prosecutorial mode in our committee … but as far as this committee is concerned, I think we have to go in and be finders of the fact,” said Cummings, one of five Democrats appointed to the 12-member special panel.

“I don’t think we need to be making accusations before we even get in the room to hear the facts.”

To read the original article, visit http://washingtonexaminer.com/trey-gowdy-brings-zeal-for-the-truth-as-head-of-houses-benghazi-panel/article/2549042

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Hillary Clinton Still Blames ‘Hateful’ Youtube Video For Benghazi Attack

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has released the chapter of her new memoir Tough Choices dealing with the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.
In an exclusive preview to Politico’s Maggie Haberman, a defensive Clinton challenged her critics but offered very little new information about where she was and what she did during the attacks.
“[T]here will never be perfect clarity on everything that happened,” she wrote, “…But that should not be confused with a lack of effort to discover the truth or to share it with the American people.”
Clinton still insisted that the anti-Islamic YouTube video did have some role in motivating the attacks, pointing to a report in the New York Times.
“There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives,” she wrote. “It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well.”
She also defended President Obama, who she insisted gave the order to do “whatever was necessary” to support the Americans under attack.
“When Americans are under fire, that is not an order the Commander in Chief has to give twice,” she wrote. “Our military does everything humanly possible to save American lives — and would do more if they could. That anyone has ever suggested otherwise is something I will never understand.”
Clinton defended Susan Rice’s appearance on Sunday talk shows, pointing out that she did “the best she or anyone could do” with the current information from the intelligence community.
She also expressed contempt for the Sunday shows, deriding her critics for not appearing on the programs herself.
“I don’t see appearing on Sunday-morning television as any more of a responsibility than appearing on late-night TV,” she writes. “Only in Washington is the definition of talking to Americans confined to 9 A.M. on Sunday mornings.”
Clinton also addressed her controversial “what difference does it make” line, explaining that her words have been misinterpreted to appear that she was trying to minimize the tragedy.
“Of course that’s not what I said,” she wrote. “Nothing could be further from the truth. And many of those trying to make hay of it know that, but don’t care.”