State Dep’t vows to work with House Benghazi probe

By BRADLEY KLAPPER June 18, 2014 4:52 PM WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department promised Wednesday to cooperate with the House special committee looking into the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, expressing hope the new investigation is conducted in a fairer and more bipartisan manner than previous Republican-led probes. In a letter to the … Read more

Five questions Hillary Clinton still needs to answer

By Michael Ingmire Published June 17, 2014 FoxNews.com Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Welcome to the Hillary Clinton soft focus “Hard Choices” book tour, tales of post-White House struggle soothed by $200,000 speaking fees, her dubious accomplishments seen and justified through rose-colored glasses. Isn’t the making of an American myth grand?  We now have … Read more

Still plenty of questions for Hillary Clinton on Benghazi

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knows her presidential campaign is threatened before it begins by the mountain of wreckage left along her trail of tears tenure at State. Her failed and embarrassing “reset” with Russia, her mismanagement of Egypt so that all parties now hate the U.S. and President-elect Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is accepting Vladimir Putin‘s embrace, the horrors ofSyria escalating, Iran poised … Read more

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

MAY: A road map to get to the bottom of Benghazi

CNN President Jeff Zucker says his network may not bother to report on the House select committee hearings looking into the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi. The New York Times has pre-emptively dismissed them as “partisan.” Eugene Robinson, a columnist for The Washington Post, predicted they will be a “show trial,” a “farce,” and a “new low” for Republican “inquisitors” who could not “locate Benghazi on an unlabeled map.”

Here’s a reasonably compelling counterargument: “It is our job to figure out what happened and prevent it from ever happening again.”

That statement was made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a January 2013 Senate hearing on Benghazi — the same hearing where she more notoriously asked: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” (That the two statements appear inconsistent goes without saying.)

With this in mind, a little unsolicited advice to the Republicans on this committee: Do not bloviate. Do not posture. Check your opinions at the door. Ask questions. Establish facts and don’t get ahead of those facts. Throw no red meat to conspiracy theorists in the peanut gallery. Prior to the hearings, consult a map.

Chairing the committee will be Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, by all accounts a skilled prosecutor. That’s a double-edged sword since, as suggested above, the purpose of these hearing should be fact-finding — not prosecution.

At a news conference earlier this month, Mr. Gowdy challenged the notion that there is nothing further to learn about Benghazi, asking reporters if they knew why Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi on the Sept. 11 anniversary, why requests for additional security were denied him, who originated the false narrative that the attacks were “a spontaneous reaction to a video,” and how that got to be the “official position of the administration”? No hands shot up.

More gratuitous counsel, this for the Democrats who are only reluctantly participating in the hearings: Your constituents did not elect you to be defensive lineman for the administration. You should regard this inquiry as the U.S. military would; namely, as a “post-action review” of a battle lost — which is what Benghazi was. Take Mrs. Clinton’s useful counsel: Make it your mission to figure out what happened so that measures can be taken to prevent it happening again.

Among other things, that means ditching the talking point that Benghazi is ancient history with no continuing policy relevance. Or, as former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor phrased it: “Dude, this was like two years ago.”

Over that incomprehensibly long span of time, not one of the individuals responsible for the attacks has been captured or killed. Why not? Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last fall that he was not authorized to target the Benghazi attackers because they were not considered “al Qaeda” or “associated forces” and therefore not covered by the Sept. 14, 2001, Authorization for the Use of Military Force against those involved in the attacks.

That’s very strange: As one of my colleagues, Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow Thomas Joscelyn, and The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes reported in January, a Senate Intelligence Committee report — one “prepared under the supervision of Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, and signed by every Democrat on the panel” — concluded that terrorists “affiliated” with al Qaeda took part in the Benghazi attack.

Mr. Hayes and Mr. Joscelyn also have noted that two of the groups responsible are al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — official branches of the organization founded by Osama bin Laden and today led by Ayman al-Zawahri.

The leader of a third group, Muhammad Jamal, has sworn an oath of allegiance to al-Zawahri. The fourth group identified in the Senate report is Ansar al Shariah. Mrs. Clinton, in her January 2013 testimony, said: “Whether they call themselves al Qaeda or Boko Haram or Ansar al Shariah, they are all part of the same global jihadist movement.”

According to Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn, the original draft of the CIA’s talking points stated unequivocally that “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.” The intelligence community also knew that exactly one day prior to the attacks, al-Zawahri called on his followers in Libya to avenge the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda operative from Libya, who had been killed in a U.S. drone attack in June. “His blood is calling you and is urging you and is inciting you to fight and kill the crusaders,” al-Zawahri implored.

Then why did Gen. Dempsey believe his hands were tied — and does he still? Why, despite all this solid intelligence, did administration spokesmen blame the attack on an obscure video made by a Coptic Christian in California which, they further claimed, set off spontaneous demonstrations of aggrieved Muslims that spiraled out of control?

One explanation is that the president and his advisers sincerely believed they had al Qaeda on the ropes, and so they tuned out evidence to the contrary. Also possible: With an election coming up in two months, the president and his advisers did not want to give Republicans an opening.

In his new book, “Faithless Execution,” former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy argues that if “the president and his subordinates” did in fact engage in “fraudulent misrepresentations to improve his prospects for wining re-election,” that would constitute a high crime and misdemeanor.

Though impeachment seems unlikely, strong evidence suggesting not just spin, but outright deception of the public, would at least place an asterisk on the 2012 election results.

More unasked-for advice for members of the select committee, Republicans and Democrats alike: Seek the truth, and let the chips fall where they may. Do anything else and, in the history books of the future, your name will carry an indelible stain.

Rules show Benghazi committee intends to break new ground

House Republicans on the Benghazi select committee aren’t waiting for Democrats to make up their mind about joining, moving quickly to exercise the panel’s expanded powers to review evidence. While Democrats still mull whether to fill the five slots reserved for them, the seven Republicans appointed by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, are scheduled to convene later this … Read more

Trey Gowdy Names Former NRCC Aide As Director Of Benghazi Committee

WASHINGTON — Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Thursday named lobbyist and former Republican aide Phil Kiko as staff director for the newly created House select committee tasked with investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Kiko most recently served as vice chairman of the Smith-Free Group, a D.C.-based government affairs firm, and has extensive experience … Read more

Rep. Trey Gowdy: Ex-prosecutor to head GOP’s Benghazi probe

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner on Monday chose Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican and former federal prosecutor, to head a special committee that will investigate the deadly September 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, and the Obama administration’s response. Gowdy has been an outspoken critic of how President Barack … Read more