Benghazi Report Badly Flawed – CIA Talking Points “Useless”

Posted by Tina

Victoria Toensing writes an informative article this morning that describes the shoddy methods used by the Accountability Review Board to investigate and create the Benghazi report.

The White House has characterized the ARB report as, “led by two men of unimpeachable expertise and credibility that oversaw a process that was rigorous and unsparing.”

Ms. Toensing begs to differ:

The two men in charge of the ARB, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Thomas Mullen, a diplomat and military man respectively, have no meaningful investigative experience. Instead of letting the facts lead the direction of the investigation, the report appears designed to protect the interests of Hillary Clinton, the State Department higher ups, and the president.

A most obvious question is: why was Secretary Clinton never interviewed for the investigation? She is mentioned only once in the report, as the person who convened the Board. If, as Clinton herself has said, she took full responsibility for what happened in Benghazi, her decisions and decision-making process are materially relevant for investigating what happened before and during the night of September 11, 2012, and preventing what went wrong from ever happening again.

Other relevant questions the report does not answer are: How often did Clinton and President Obama speak during the attack? What decisions did the president make, and what orders did he give? What was the hour by hour participation of the president during the attack?

Hillary Clinton apparently doesn’t think any questions about what happened in Benghazi matter. The President appears to be acting as if he’s simply an innocent bystander to the event. But, according to Toensing, the whistleblowers, people involved on that terrible long night, have disturbing testimony to give:

Mark Thompson, my husband’s client, testified that he asked twice to be interviewed by the ARB and was not. Mr. Thompson was the deputy assistant secretary in charge of coordinating the deployment of a multi-agency team for hostage taking and terrorism attacks. Yet, he was excluded from all decisions, communications, and meetings on September 11 and 12, 2012. Why? Others asked to be interviewed and were not. Until they see how my client, Gregory Hicks, former chargé and deputy chief of mission (DCM) in Libya, and Mr. Thompson fare after their testimony, they will not step forward.

In other news today Jonathan Karl of ABC reported that David Petraeus, then head of the CIA, called the revised talking points “useless”. He further reports:

We already knew that Petraeus was stunned by the revisions; now we know he rejected them personally. “I would just as soon not use them, but it’s their [the White House] call.”

John McCain is asking for a select committee to investigate the cover-up. House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers told Fox News Sunday that more whistleblowers are asking to step forward