Time-line of State Department & Clinton responses to congressional investigation on Benghazi
In the wake of the revelation that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept a secret email system the House Select Committee on Benghazi has released a timeline detailing their subpoenas and requests for information from the thoroughly corrupt, lawless Obama administration, and the responses.
More accurately, non-responses, to official, lawful requests by your representatives for information about the September 11, 2012 attack that killed four Americans. The timeline gives Americans an idea of what congressional investigators have been up against as they've tried to uncover the story of Benghazi. What follows is based on information from committee sources, as compiled by the Washington Examiner's Byron York. Click to read the whole thing--I've edited it below.
September 11,2012 — Statements by Hillary Clinton and other Administration officials claim the attack was "a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim video on the Internet."
Nine days after the attack the chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations sends a document request to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking for all information the Department has about the attack.
The request specifies "any written, recorded, or graphic matter of any nature whatsoever, regardless of how recorded, and whether original or copy, including, but not limited to...electronic mail (e-mail), cables, notations of any type of conversation, telephone call, meeting or other communication…" There was no way anyone at State could fail to realize that the request covered Clinton's email. Yet none are handed over.
August 1, 2013 — Almost a year after the attack, State has essentially produced nothing in response to the congressional request, so the Oversight committee issues two subpoenas, one for documents previously requested but not produced.
April 17, 2014 — Eight months after the subpoenas--and more than a year and a half after the first request, the State Department makes what it says is its final submittal to congress in response to the subpoenas. It's essentially either a sworn declaration that nothing else responsive exists, or else it's perjury. Amazingly, the submittal doesn't contain a single email either to or from Clinton.
Members of the committee are incredulous: How could the Secretary of State have avoided both sending and receiving a single email about the attack--either during or in the months later?
May 8, 2014 — The House creates a new "Select Committee on Benghazi," which inherits the subpoenas sent by the Oversight committee.
August 11, 2014 — The State Department sends its first group of documents to the new Benghazi committee, in response to the subpoena served on State over a year earlier. The submittal contains less than 10 emails either to or from Clinton. Committee staffers immediately notice that the emails are from a previously unknown address, hdr22@clintonemail.com. Obviously this isn't an official "dot-gov" account.
Investigators are stunned: Did Clinton--like many other Obama administration agency heads--conduct official business using a hidden email account specifically to avoid having to disclose embarrassing or criminal acts in response to a subpoena? Did she never use an official, encrypted .gov email address? If so, how could she ensure emails to her phone were securely encrypted?
October 2014 — The State Department sends a request to all former secretaries of state, including Clinton, asking them to provide records from their time in office. Months later State would admit that the request to all former secretaries was actually a result of the Benghazi committee's push for information from Mrs. Clinton.
November 18, 2014 — The committee sends another request to the State Department asking for emails to and from Clinton relating to the attack--but this time committee staffers include instructions specifically asking for all emails either sent or received on any @clintonemail.com account.
December 2, 2014 — The committee sends a request to Clinton's personal lawyer, David Kendall — the man who in the 1990s helped President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton fight through the various scandals of Bill Clinton's presidency. The request specifically asks for emails to or from the @clintonemail.com account that relate in any way to Libya.
December 29, 2014 — Kendall responds with a blow-off, telling the committee he has "referred [the request] to the State Department, which will be responding to your request, as it is in a position to produce any responsive emails."
February 13, 2015 — 30 months after the initial congressional request, State sends the committee 850 pages of Hillary Clinton emails from two different clintonemail.com accounts.
February 27, 2015 — During a staff meeting between State Department employees and committee staffers, State admits for the first time that the only Clinton emails it has are those provided by Hillary Clinton herself. They also reveal that Clinton used her secret email system exclusively and did not use a government account. When the committee asks how many emails Clinton has given to State, officials decline to answer.
March 2, 2015 — Three days later the email story breaks in the New York Times. The paper reports Clinton provided 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department. This is of significant interest to the Benghazi committee, since State has only turned over 850 pages in response to the request for all emails from any clintonemail.com account.
March 3, 2015 — The committee sends "preservation letters" to Clinton and to her email hosting company ordering them not to destroy any records. ["Oooh, if only you'd told us earlier that you wanted these, we wouldn't have deleted 'em and crushed the drive they were stored on!"]
March 4, 2015 — The committee issues two new subpoenas, one to Clinton "for all communications related to Libya" and the second to the State Department for other individuals who have information pertinent to the investigation.
March 10, 2015 — Clinton holds a brief news conference at the United Nations, announcing that she had about 60,000 emails on her secret system. She says she deemed about half to be private, and destroyed them.
Okay, let's review: Sad as it was for four Americans to be killed in Benghazi--and for their devastated families--bad things happen every day. For those who didn't have loved ones killed that day, a far bigger issue--an explosive issue, with huge national implications--is the brazen Fuck You by Hillary and the emperor's administration of State Department employees in response to the attempt by congress to find the truth about what happened.
If you or I failed to comply with a lawful subpoena we'd be looking at jail time. But both Hillary and employees of the emperor's State department can ignore subpoenas and still laugh all the way to the bank.
You may wonder what black magic allows them to flout subpoenas when you and I would have to comply. It is this: This nation has ceased to become a nation of laws--at least for the elites. Of course the law is still vigorously enforced on "common people" like us, but not on the elites.
Even that perennial demon of Democrats, Richard Nixon, complied with congressional subpoenas. But both Team Obama and the Clintons ignore subpoenas and laugh all the way to their next fundraiser. Because they believe--and under this administration, know--that they're above the law.
Can anything get them to obey the law? Threat of jail time? Somehow I don't think they'd take that threat seriously. Threat of something more dire? They'd laugh. Because they're better than you are. Entitled.
Yeh, dat's it.
One last thing: You wanna know what a Hillary Clinton presidency would be like? Well you're looking at it. This is exactly how she'd run things. Break laws and then split hairs or lie outright to wave it away, counting on her army of media fans to make it happen.
Haven't you had enough of this with Obama? Didn't you get enough when Hillary literally told the House committee trying to find out why four Americans--including our ambassador--were killed by Islamists in Benghazi, "What difference, at this point, can it possibly make?"
How much more evidence of her complete, thorough unfitness for the presidency do you need to see?
Apparently a lot more, because the latest polls (for whatever you think that's worth) allegedly show that a full 48 percent of Americans either don't think Hillary did anything wrong in using a private email account for every bit of her official State Department business, or else they don't think it was "seriously wrong."
God love that 48 percent. My siblings are in there, and a couple of people from grad school, and even a couple of generals--which just proves that if you have the right politics you can get promoted.
I don't know whether that 48% figure is accurate or bullshit, but if it's close, there's no way we can recover to anything like a functional, solvent, responsible nation again. But it's been a good run. And for the 20th time, I'm sure glad I don't have kids. My heart aches for today's young Americans. But then they won't be able to compare life to anything before, so I guess they won't miss what they never had.
==
Kudos to Byron York and the Examiner for a great summary.
More accurately, non-responses, to official, lawful requests by your representatives for information about the September 11, 2012 attack that killed four Americans. The timeline gives Americans an idea of what congressional investigators have been up against as they've tried to uncover the story of Benghazi. What follows is based on information from committee sources, as compiled by the Washington Examiner's Byron York. Click to read the whole thing--I've edited it below.
September 11,2012 — Statements by Hillary Clinton and other Administration officials claim the attack was "a spontaneous reaction to an anti-Muslim video on the Internet."
Nine days after the attack the chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations sends a document request to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking for all information the Department has about the attack.
The request specifies "any written, recorded, or graphic matter of any nature whatsoever, regardless of how recorded, and whether original or copy, including, but not limited to...electronic mail (e-mail), cables, notations of any type of conversation, telephone call, meeting or other communication…" There was no way anyone at State could fail to realize that the request covered Clinton's email. Yet none are handed over.
August 1, 2013 — Almost a year after the attack, State has essentially produced nothing in response to the congressional request, so the Oversight committee issues two subpoenas, one for documents previously requested but not produced.
April 17, 2014 — Eight months after the subpoenas--and more than a year and a half after the first request, the State Department makes what it says is its final submittal to congress in response to the subpoenas. It's essentially either a sworn declaration that nothing else responsive exists, or else it's perjury. Amazingly, the submittal doesn't contain a single email either to or from Clinton.
Members of the committee are incredulous: How could the Secretary of State have avoided both sending and receiving a single email about the attack--either during or in the months later?
May 8, 2014 — The House creates a new "Select Committee on Benghazi," which inherits the subpoenas sent by the Oversight committee.
August 11, 2014 — The State Department sends its first group of documents to the new Benghazi committee, in response to the subpoena served on State over a year earlier. The submittal contains less than 10 emails either to or from Clinton. Committee staffers immediately notice that the emails are from a previously unknown address, hdr22@clintonemail.com. Obviously this isn't an official "dot-gov" account.
Investigators are stunned: Did Clinton--like many other Obama administration agency heads--conduct official business using a hidden email account specifically to avoid having to disclose embarrassing or criminal acts in response to a subpoena? Did she never use an official, encrypted .gov email address? If so, how could she ensure emails to her phone were securely encrypted?
October 2014 — The State Department sends a request to all former secretaries of state, including Clinton, asking them to provide records from their time in office. Months later State would admit that the request to all former secretaries was actually a result of the Benghazi committee's push for information from Mrs. Clinton.
November 18, 2014 — The committee sends another request to the State Department asking for emails to and from Clinton relating to the attack--but this time committee staffers include instructions specifically asking for all emails either sent or received on any @clintonemail.com account.
December 2, 2014 — The committee sends a request to Clinton's personal lawyer, David Kendall — the man who in the 1990s helped President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton fight through the various scandals of Bill Clinton's presidency. The request specifically asks for emails to or from the @clintonemail.com account that relate in any way to Libya.
December 29, 2014 — Kendall responds with a blow-off, telling the committee he has "referred [the request] to the State Department, which will be responding to your request, as it is in a position to produce any responsive emails."
February 13, 2015 — 30 months after the initial congressional request, State sends the committee 850 pages of Hillary Clinton emails from two different clintonemail.com accounts.
February 27, 2015 — During a staff meeting between State Department employees and committee staffers, State admits for the first time that the only Clinton emails it has are those provided by Hillary Clinton herself. They also reveal that Clinton used her secret email system exclusively and did not use a government account. When the committee asks how many emails Clinton has given to State, officials decline to answer.
March 2, 2015 — Three days later the email story breaks in the New York Times. The paper reports Clinton provided 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department. This is of significant interest to the Benghazi committee, since State has only turned over 850 pages in response to the request for all emails from any clintonemail.com account.
March 3, 2015 — The committee sends "preservation letters" to Clinton and to her email hosting company ordering them not to destroy any records. ["Oooh, if only you'd told us earlier that you wanted these, we wouldn't have deleted 'em and crushed the drive they were stored on!"]
March 4, 2015 — The committee issues two new subpoenas, one to Clinton "for all communications related to Libya" and the second to the State Department for other individuals who have information pertinent to the investigation.
March 10, 2015 — Clinton holds a brief news conference at the United Nations, announcing that she had about 60,000 emails on her secret system. She says she deemed about half to be private, and destroyed them.
Okay, let's review: Sad as it was for four Americans to be killed in Benghazi--and for their devastated families--bad things happen every day. For those who didn't have loved ones killed that day, a far bigger issue--an explosive issue, with huge national implications--is the brazen Fuck You by Hillary and the emperor's administration of State Department employees in response to the attempt by congress to find the truth about what happened.
If you or I failed to comply with a lawful subpoena we'd be looking at jail time. But both Hillary and employees of the emperor's State department can ignore subpoenas and still laugh all the way to the bank.
You may wonder what black magic allows them to flout subpoenas when you and I would have to comply. It is this: This nation has ceased to become a nation of laws--at least for the elites. Of course the law is still vigorously enforced on "common people" like us, but not on the elites.
Even that perennial demon of Democrats, Richard Nixon, complied with congressional subpoenas. But both Team Obama and the Clintons ignore subpoenas and laugh all the way to their next fundraiser. Because they believe--and under this administration, know--that they're above the law.
Can anything get them to obey the law? Threat of jail time? Somehow I don't think they'd take that threat seriously. Threat of something more dire? They'd laugh. Because they're better than you are. Entitled.
Yeh, dat's it.
One last thing: You wanna know what a Hillary Clinton presidency would be like? Well you're looking at it. This is exactly how she'd run things. Break laws and then split hairs or lie outright to wave it away, counting on her army of media fans to make it happen.
Haven't you had enough of this with Obama? Didn't you get enough when Hillary literally told the House committee trying to find out why four Americans--including our ambassador--were killed by Islamists in Benghazi, "What difference, at this point, can it possibly make?"
How much more evidence of her complete, thorough unfitness for the presidency do you need to see?
Apparently a lot more, because the latest polls (for whatever you think that's worth) allegedly show that a full 48 percent of Americans either don't think Hillary did anything wrong in using a private email account for every bit of her official State Department business, or else they don't think it was "seriously wrong."
God love that 48 percent. My siblings are in there, and a couple of people from grad school, and even a couple of generals--which just proves that if you have the right politics you can get promoted.
I don't know whether that 48% figure is accurate or bullshit, but if it's close, there's no way we can recover to anything like a functional, solvent, responsible nation again. But it's been a good run. And for the 20th time, I'm sure glad I don't have kids. My heart aches for today's young Americans. But then they won't be able to compare life to anything before, so I guess they won't miss what they never had.
==
Kudos to Byron York and the Examiner for a great summary.
posted by SF at
1:41 PM
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