‘Surprised’ by claim she had no knowledge of arms deals
WorldNetDaily
4/22/2013
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., was “surprised” by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s sworn testimony in a Senate hearing in which she claimed that she did not know whether the U.S. mission in Libya was procuring or transferring weapons to Turkey and other Arab countries.
It was Paul who asked Clinton the question during the hearings. His inquiry focused on alleged weapons shipments out of Benghazi to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Speaking on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s WABC Radio, Paul was reacting to Clinton’s testimony in light of a New York Times report last month that claimed that since early 2012, the CIA has been helping Arab governments and Turkey obtain and ship weapons to the Syrian rebels.
The plan mirrors one the Times reported in February as being proposed by Clinton herself. The Times described Clinton as one of the driving forces advocating for arming the Syrian rebels via Turkish and Arab cut outs.
The New York Times reported Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus had concocted the plan, which called for vetting rebels and arming Syrian fighters with the assistance of Arab countries.
If Clinton knew about the arms transfers, she may have committed perjury during her Benghazi testimony…
…Regarding Clinton’s testimony, Paul stated: “I was surprised that she acted as if she never even heard of the whole concept of arms coming out of Libya through Turkey … since it had been reported in several mainstream media sources that this has been going on. So I was quite surprised that she acted as if she had never heard of any of this, because some of the reports said that she has been arguing for this.”…
The complete article, with video, is at WorldNetDaily.
…EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
An ongoing Congressional investigation across five House Committees concerning the events surrounding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya has made several determinations to date, including:
• Reductions of security levels prior to the attacks in Benghazi were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, up to and including Secretary Clinton. This fact contradicts her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on January 23, 2013.
• In the days following the attacks, White House and senior State Department officials altered accurate talking points drafted by the Intelligence Community in order to protect the State Department.
• Contrary to Administration rhetoric, the talking points were not edited to protect classified information. Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior Administration officials.
This is, as noted, still preliminary but it finds enough deceptions to justify a more in depth investigation…
Update: Congressional Panel Releases Report on Beghazi: Hillary Not Truthful In Claiming That She Was Unaware of Requests for Improved Security; White House Blamed Video In Order to Deflect Attention Away From State’s Refusal to Provide Security, at Ace of Spades HQ
….The issue is: Given that you were running a covert operation out of Benghazi which everyone knew about, shouldn’t you have put some goddamned security around your operatives, rather than leaving them to the wolves?
But the Administration will continue to lie to the press, that the only secret here is something unobjectionable (the covert arms mission), and that Republicans are Big Meanies for trying to expose that, in order to keep the press from asking about the real secret, which is the egregious decision-making and lackadaisical attitude towards our diplomats’ and covert operators’ security…
Also, Issa Tells CIA to Lawyer Up on Benghazi; Secretary of State Kerry: ‘More Important Things to Do’
Update 3: Kirsten Powers: Nobody is stopping Democrats from investigating Benghazi
Kirsten Powers isn’t buying the Democrat line that the new scathing House report on Benghazi is just a partisan hit job. In fact she says they could have contributed to this report and no one is stopping them from investigating Benghazi. She said they embarrassed themselves making excuses during the hearings for why the Obama administration dropped the ball on this…
