"Benghazi Panel" Reveals CIA Asset, Then Tries To Cover It Up!

[Nickdfresh]

Witch-hunting smear campaign goes to new lows of hypocrisy!

Benghazi panel outs CIA source, then tries to cover its tracks
Michael IsikoffChief Investigative Correspondent
October 19, 2015
Michael Isikoff

Benghazi panel outs CIA source, then tries to cover its tracks

House Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington in September. (Photo: Cliff Owen/AP)

The Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi hastily deleted the name of a high-level Libyan defector from one of its public releases on Monday shortly after Yahoo News reported the panel had inadvertently revealed the defector’s name in an effort to embarrass Hillary Clinton.

The disclosure, followed by the quick wiping out of the name of ex-Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa (who had defected and become a source for the CIA on Libya), once again put the panel on the defensive on the eve of Thursday’s slated testimony from Clinton.

The incident was especially awkward for GOP chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy because just two weeks ago he had sought to make an issue over Clinton’s handling of an email that contained Koussa’s name.

At the time, Gowdy said, an email sent to Clinton on March 18, 2011, by her longtime friend and adviser Sidney Blumenthal contained the “name of a human source” for the CIA and was therefore “some of the most protected information in our intelligence community.”

“Armed with that information, Secretary Clinton forwarded the email to a colleague — debunking her claim that she never sent any classified information from her private email address,” wrote Gowdy in an Oct. 7 letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel’s ranking Democrat, that he released publicly.

But over the weekend, the CIA undercut Gowdy’s assertion by informing the committee it did not seek any redactions in that or 126 other Blumenthal emails sent to Clinton, a sign that the panel did not view the information as classified.

Gowdy quickly pushed back on Sunday, countering that the Blumenthal email still contained “sensitive” information that should have been protected. He then publicly released the full text of the Blumenthal email with the name of the CIA source redacted.

But, as Yahoo News pointed out in a story published this morning, Gowdy’s release included Blumenthal’s subject line — which had Koussa’s name in it. Shortly after the story appeared, the committee then redacted Koussa’s name from the subject line. (You can read the original Gowdy release here and the current version, with the Koussa redaction, here.)

A portion of the email originally released by the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

Today, Jamal Ware, a spokesman for committee Republicans, blamed the State Department for the apparent screw-up. He said the department had “failed to redact” Koussa’s name from the subject line of the 2011 email, even though it was redacted elsewhere, before it had forwarded it to the committee.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner today acknowledged the mistake, calling it “human error” in the course of its review of Clinton’s emails. (The State Department’s position to the committee was that Koussa’s name should be redacted on privacy grounds, not that it is classified.)

But Ware did not address why the panel had not fully vetted the email for its contents before publicly releasing it.

Koussa was for years a top official in ex-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s government, serving as intelligence chief before becoming foreign minister. He was widely suspected for years of having been a mastermind behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

But his later relationship with the CIA —even prior to his defection to the United Kingdom at the end of March 2011 — was hardly a secret. Former CIA Director George Tenet revealed how Koussa had provided agency officials with vital information about Gadhafi’s chemical and nuclear weapons programs as well as details that helped the agency unravel A.Q. Khan’s nuclear smuggling network.

And by March 2003, as the Libyan revolt against Gadhafi gained momentum, aided by U.S. and European air power, Koussa was widely reported to have been a “back channel” for Western diplomats seeking information about what was going on inside Libya.

YaPoo LINK

[Kristy]

***Beating Dead Horse Alert***

[FORD]

Gowdy cut the tail off that dead horse and put it on his head, apparently.....

[Nickdfresh]

Well, we're about to begin Clinton's testimony in this huge bullshit fake "investigation"...

[DONNIEP]

The whole situation was a cluster fuck of enormous proportions. When you have an ambassador request additional security, State should have guys on a plane that day. It's easy - one phone call would have gotten him the additional security he requested and that may have kept him alive. All this talk of limited resources and protecting the airport is bullshit. One call and State could have had a small army surrounding the ambassador and shoring up airport security.

[Nickdfresh]

The whole situation was a cluster fuck of enormous proportions. When you have an ambassador request additional security, State should have guys on a plane that day. It's easy - one phone call would have gotten him the additional security he requested and that may have kept him alive. All this talk of limited resources and protecting the airport is bullshit. One call and State could have had a small army surrounding the ambassador and shoring up airport security.

There's been seven investigations and that have all come to the same conclusion that mistakes were made but you can't protect everyone. Four guys died? I'm sorry for their families but I knew more than four guys that died in Iraq (out of over 4,000 service personnel). Where are their seven investigations?

It's a big waste of resources and nothing but a witchhunt meant to ding Hillery.

[FORD]

They didn't spend this much time and money investigating 9/11, for fucks sake. And a whole Hell of a lot more people died there. And no, that's not an invitation to reopen arguments on that bullshit, just making a comparison on how the teabaggers in Congress handle it when their own guys fuck up.

And the fact that Chris Stevens requested additional security, but didn't get it. That puts the blame directly on the teabagging imbeciles in Congress themselves, as they would be the ones who refused to fund such a request. So maybe Howdy Gowdy should be investigating himself, and his predecessor Joe McCarthief Issa.

[Nickdfresh]

They didn't spend this much time and money investigating 9/11, for fucks sake...

Or Watergate...

[Nitro Express]

They didn't spend this much time and money investigating 9/11, for fucks sake. And a whole Hell of a lot more people died there. And no, that's not an invitation to reopen arguments on that bullshit, just making a comparison on how the teabaggers in Congress handle it when their own guys fuck up.

And the fact that Chris Stevens requested additional security, but didn't get it. That puts the blame directly on the teabagging imbeciles in Congress themselves, as they would be the ones who refused to fund such a request. So maybe Howdy Gowdy should be investigating himself, and his predecessor Joe McCarthief Issa.

The whole damn problem with the country is it's become so partisan that if your guy or gal breaks the law or fucks up in a major way they get a free ride because they are part of the big club. It used to be it didn't matter what party you were in, justice was justice. Probably because the public demanded it. They have us so divided now nobody cares.

[DONNIEP]

Yeah I get that mistakes were made. But it really would have been as simple as making a phone call. And if it was a matter of funding being denied then Hill Dawg should have called a press conference and raised hell. That's what I would do. But I find it kinda hard to believe State was strapped for cash. We're only talking a few million bucks here.

[Nitro Express]

I'm just going to have a good laugh when the day comes that the Federal Reserve system no longer can run the economy by printing more money. The US is broke and the only thing keeping all this shit going is cheap loans from the Fed. It's all credit. When a bubble pops somewhere and the shock ripples around the world and this papered over system can't take it no more, the whole dog and pony show in Washington crashes as well. The only reason all them windbags are inside the beltway is they are making money being there. Right now let them babble. They have no solutions and most of them have no idea the hammer is going to fall. They can bring their own demise sooner though. Ha! ha!

[Nitro Express]

Yeah I get that mistakes were made. But it really would have been as simple as making a phone call. And if it was a matter of funding being denied then Hill Dawg should have called a press conference and raised hell. That's what I would do. But I find it kinda hard to believe State was strapped for cash. We're only talking a few million bucks here.

Oh come on. You know Hillbilly let it all happen on purpose because she was running weapons from Libya to the rebels in Syria because she wanted to oust Asaad so her buddies in Qatar could run their gas pipeline through. Then this would give Putin competition to the lucrative European gas market and Putin loses his naval port on the Med as well. You know it's true. I read it on the internet. The US ambassador threatened to expose what was going on so no protection for you. No money for security? Please.

[Nickdfresh]

Yeah I get that mistakes were made. But it really would have been as simple as making a phone call. And if it was a matter of funding being denied then Hill Dawg should have called a press conference and raised hell. That's what I would do. But I find it kinda hard to believe State was strapped for cash. We're only talking a few million bucks here.

Or if Hill Dawg weren't running for President, then no one would give a flying fuck about any of this...

[Nickdfresh]

I'm just going to have a good laugh when the day comes that the Federal Reserve system no longer can run the economy by printing more money. The US is broke and the only thing keeping all this shit going is cheap loans from the Fed. It's all credit. When a bubble pops somewhere and the shock ripples around the world and this papered over system can't take it no more, the whole dog and pony show in Washington crashes as well. The only reason all them windbags are inside the beltway is they are making money being there. Right now let them babble. They have no solutions and most of them have no idea the hammer is going to fall. They can bring their own demise sooner though. Ha! ha!

[DONNIEP]

Or if Hill Dawg weren't running for President, then no one would give a flying fuck about any of this...

Yeah. The bottom line is does State have adequate funding for security at our facilities around the world and personal security for the staff. And is there a process in place to ensure additional security will be sent upon request. Should be a simple matter. Obviously there was a problem, fix the problem.

[Nitro Express]

The gold bugs are going to lose their shirts.

[Nitro Express]

Yeah. The bottom line is does State have adequate funding for security at our facilities around the world and personal security for the staff. And is there a process in place to ensure additional security will be sent upon request. Should be a simple matter. Obviously there was a problem, fix the problem.

Obama doubled our national debt in eight years. Maybe we should ask him where the money went. I doubt it all went to golf and buying Moochelle some new shoes.

[Nitro Express]

Or if Hill Dawg weren't running for President, then no one would give a flying fuck about any of this...

Pretty much. The American public don't give a ratt's ass about people dying in the service of their country anymore. They really don't. So fuck the American public and fuck the politicians and fuck everyone. Oh and they all deserve a good fucking and it's coming.

[Nickdfresh]

The gold bugs are going to lose their shirts.

If they've bought gold in the last 5-8 years, they already have!

[DONNIEP]

If they've bought gold in the last 5-8 years, they already have!

William Devane says buy gold! And if you can't trust William Devane who can you trust?? He shoulda ran for president.

[Nitro Express]

If they've bought gold in the last 5-8 years, they already have!

Gold goes up if there is inflation. We don't have inflation we have deflation. Sure the central banks are printing money like crazy but they are smart enough to not give it to the average dolt. It goes to the big investment banks and they rally the stock market with it. That's why there are booming equity markets while the real economy sucks donkey nuts. Now if they threw all those trillions of dollars on the street nobody would want a dollar. They would want gold. In theory. They would want it if the whores and bars accepted gold coins.

[Satan]

[DONNIEP]

This guy tells me to buy gold - I'm buying gold!

[Nickdfresh]

Well the consensus is that the Panel succeeded: IN MAKING HILLERY LOOK GOOD!! LMFAO

How those poll numbers now?

[jacksmar]

[Kristy]

Lame. Wonder what the mother's fee was for going on a shit psy-op show like Andrea Snitch Bitch Mitchell. $5-10 grand to crocodile cry..? She can't even read her script right. Lame, asscrack, really lame.

Strange how she says zero about Bush and all the sons he killed in Iraq