05/6/15

Showdown with Hillary Clinton Over Benghazi

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

The liberal media remain derelict in their duty to vet presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s record on Benghazi, just as they have abandoned any pretense of holding the Obama administration accountable for the many “phony” scandals including the IRS scandal, Fast & Furious, or even the VA scandal. We at Accuracy in Media have repeatedly exposed the mainstream media’s reluctance to question the Obama administration narrative on issues that might threaten their agenda.

Recent offenders circumventing the need to vet Mrs. Clinton’s and President Obama’s Benghazi record include CNN, Reuters and The New York Times—all of which consider themselves premier sources of information.

Rather than waiting for the process of sifting through and then reporting the details of the approximately 30,000 emails that former Secretary of State Clinton has submitted to the State Department—only about half the reported total 62,320 emails on her private email server—CNN instead turned to anonymous government sources for its alleged scoop. CNN’s Elise Labott wrote on April 27 that “the sources who described the emails said they offer no ‘smoking gun’ on Clinton’s actions in the days and weeks leading up to the attack or while the siege on the U.S. facility was ongoing.”

The next day Reuters published a very similar article by Mark Hosenball citing “two people familiar with the material” who made broad, sweeping claims about the information contained within those emails.

CNN’s Labott clearly stated that, like The New York Times’ Michael Schmidt, she was “not permitted to review the emails ahead of their release, but several government officials characterized them and offered detail on some of them on the condition of anonymity.”

But no “smoking gun” email from Mrs. Clinton is necessary to break this scandal wide open or prove that a Benghazi cover-up is still alive and well. And none may ever materialize from that corner, given her decision to wipe clean her private email server. Assertions by media organizations that releasing her emails, which were vetted by Clinton aides before being turned over to the State Department, will somehow clear her record are simply an attempt to throw sand in the eyes of the public.

In addition, Labott reports that “Several former Clinton staffers have told CNN [that Mrs. Clinton] did the vast majority of work in person or on the phone, which is evident by her emails.” Thus, evidence that could prove to be a smoking gun may not exist under those circumstances, even if Mrs. Clinton had directly influenced the security situation in Benghazi or participated in a post-attack cover-up.

Evidence has already been released demonstrating that the former Secretary of State’s aides became aware that this was a terrorist attack about a half an hour after the initial attack began on the Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. It strains credulity to presume that these aides did not inform then-Secretary Clinton of the known facts at that time.

“Mrs. Clinton actually issued a statement on the night of [the attack] stating, ‘Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet,’ a clear reference to the Internet video,” I noted in a recent column criticizing Schmidt’s reporting.

The public record has already established that President Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, AFRICOM’s Carter Ham, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey were all told that the assault in Benghazi was a terrorist attack almost immediately after they began. Yet the President and his administration still continued to blame a YouTube video titled “The Innocence of Muslims.”

As revealed in their book, 13 Hours, the Annex Security Team (AST) was also told by employees of the Central Intelligence Agency to stand down three times before they unilaterally left the CIA Annex one mile away and went to the aid of the beleaguered diplomatic personnel at the Special Mission Compound.

Labott continued, writing that CNN’s anonymous sources “added that contrary to charges by Republican lawmakers like McCain, there is no evidence that a ‘stand down’ order was given to prevent American forces from responding to the violence in Benghazi and none of the emails suggest Clinton was involved in any sort of cover-up regarding its response to the attack.”

Similarly, Hosenball writes that people “familiar with the emails” told him that the email cache “contains no support for Republican accusations that Clinton was involved in efforts to downplay the role of Islamic militants in the deadly 2012 attacks on U.S. installations in Benghazi” and “do not demonstrate that Clinton…was personally involved in decisions that resulted in weak security at the Benghazi outposts.”

“If the sources wouldn’t show them the documents, why are they so confident that what they are being told is the truth—especially if the information is self-serving to the administration, as these revelations clearly were,” I wrote regarding The New York Times.

The same standard should apply to CNN and Reuters.

The point is, how can all these reporters be certain they are getting the facts, sight unseen?

More information regarding the truth about the Benghazi scandal could become available in the near future. Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) requested that Mrs. Clinton appear publicly before the Select Committee in May and June, and has now “received more than 4,000 pages of documents and notes from the State Department’s Benghazi Accountability Review Board” investigation, according to USA Today. Rep. Gowdy offered for Mrs. Clinton to testify under oath that all the necessary documents had been submitted to the Select Committee, testimony which he says “would probably shut off that line of inquiry.” He was referring to the issue of how the emails were turned over from her private server to the State Department.

Mrs. Clinton, through her attorney David Kendall, stated this week that she is willing to take questions from Rep. Gowdy’s Select Committee—but only one time, and only in public. She is refusing the committee’s request to meet twice: once in private to discuss her controversial email usage while at the State Department, and once in public to talk about Benghazi. She has also refused to turn over her email server to the committee, but said that she did turn the rest of her emails over to the State Department. Whether any of the more than 30,000 emails that she destroyed contained communications about Benghazi, or any business of the Clinton Foundation that might reveal coordination over donations, may never be revealed. The public is instead being asked to blindly trust Hillary’s claims that the emails were all personal and had nothing to do with either one of these situations.

Both Labott and Hosenball reported last week that the State Department could be releasing Mrs. Clinton’s emails to the public very soon. With the deadline getting closer, why not just wait until the emails are released and review their actual contents? Instead, these three news organizations published “scoops” which only serve to reiterate and perpetuate the Obama administration’s Benghazi narrative.

Although certain mainstream media organizations refuse to acknowledge the facts about the ongoing Benghazi scandal, turning a blind eye to the truth is no excuse for taking the administration’s word about documents which will soon become public. Not that there are likely to be any smoking guns in these soon-to-be-released emails. The decision to publish articles based on the word of unnamed administration officials instead of demanding to see Mrs. Clinton’s emails first has perpetuated the image of these news outlets as little more than propaganda mouthpieces for the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton.

02/11/15

Will Saudi Prince Thwart Terror Probes?

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

CNN has a problem: one of its hosts, Michael Smerconish, is uncovering evidence about the Saudi role in 9/11. But a CNN analyst, Frances Townsend, has been rubbing elbows with one of the alleged Saudi financiers of al-Qaeda. Perhaps they ought to get together and compare notes.

The strange story begins with Smerconish on his CNN show last Saturday interviewing attorney Sean Carter, who recently took a sworn statement from 9/11’s so-called 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui.

Convicted terrorist Moussaoui, speaking from behind federal prison walls, had told Carter and other attorneys suing Saudi Arabia over its role in 9/11 that three major Saudi figures, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Prince Turki al-Faisal, were on a list of donors to al-Qaeda prior to 9/11. The Saudi regime flatly denied the allegations and dismissed Moussaoui as a lunatic.

Alwaleed stands out as the Saudi on the list who could most be affected by the disclosure. He is the largest individual foreign investor in the United States, with investments in 21st Century Fox, the parent company of Fox News; TimeWarner, the parent company of CNN; Citigroup; Twitter; and Apple. He has close personal relationships with corporate America’s CEOs, including, and especially, Rupert Murdoch.

Carter told Smerconish that he had confidence in the veracity of the allegations made by Moussaoui. “We actually brought some subject matter experts, counterterrorism experts with us so that we would be able to sort of gut check what he was saying throughout the testimony. And he provided incredibly detailed testimony about al Qaeda’s operations during that period, the organizational structure and who was responsible for certain activities, the nature of al Qaeda’s facilities within Kandahar [Afghanistan] at that time, and everything he said when he was providing this very detailed, directly responsive testimony checked out for us.”

Showing no deference to the prince, known as “His Royal Highness,” Smerconish said on his CNN show that the 28 classified pages of a congressional report on the role of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks should be released to the public. These pages reportedly concern Saudi financing of al-Qaeda, and may even name the top Saudis implicated in the 9/11 attacks.

Acting unconcerned, Alwaleed seems to be proceeding with business as usual. In fact, it was recently revealed that Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, participated in a business meeting with Alwaleed in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) reported that the meeting was about “political, business and economic issues.”

What is also astonishing about the meeting was the participation of CNN National Security Analyst Frances Townsend, who previously served as Assistant to President George W. Bush for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and chaired the Homeland Security Council from May 2004 until January 2008.

If anyone should be aware of the role of Alwaleed and other Saudis in financing al-Qaeda, it is Townsend.

In addition to serving as an analyst for CNN, Townsend is currently Executive Vice President for Worldwide Government, Legal and Business Affairs at MacAndrews and Forbes Holdings. The firm is wholly owned by billionaire financier Ronald O. Perelman and maintains investments in cosmetics, entertainment, biotechnology and military equipment.

Townsend’s involvement in the meeting with Alwaleed assumes even more significance because she serves as president of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), which is currently demanding that Twitter “immediately take action and adopt policies to stop extremists from misusing the social network.”

CEP President Townsend and CEP Chief Executive Officer Ambassador Mark Wallace co-authored a letter to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo “seeking an opportunity to discuss solutions to the growing crisis we face from extremists seeking to weaponize Twitter and commit cyber-jihad. Twitter rebuffed CEP’s invitation.”

But it was Alwaleed who invested $300 million in Twitter in late 2011. “Twitter is a very strategic investment for us,” he said at the time. Awaleed’s KHC even posted a video of the meeting. “During the meeting,” KHC reports, “Mr. Costolo thanked the Prince for giving him the opportunity to meet with him.”

It appears that the Townsend/Wallace letter that went to Costolo, and was copied to four different Twitter executives, should have gone to Alwaleed personally.

In 2005, Townsend, then Homeland Security Adviser to President George W. Bush, praised what she said was Saudi Arabia’s increasingly effective response to terrorism. “The Saudis really are making substantial progress,” she said.

A transcript from a counterterrorism conference in Saudi Arabia quoted her as praising “the leadership and commitment the Saudis have shown towards finding practical and effective ways to fight terrorism…” She said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were engaged in a “critically important strategic partnership.”

But it appears that Townsend and other U.S. officials may have been privy to other information that cast doubt on Saudi Arabia’s counter-terrorism efforts.

In 2007, according to a leaked cable, The New York Times reported that Townsend had “told her Saudi counterparts in Riyadh” that President Bush was “quite concerned” about the level of cooperation the U.S. was getting from the Saudis.

It has, of course, been widely reported that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis and that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was a Saudi as well. The bulk of the terrorists detained at Guantanamo Bay were from Saudi Arabia. What’s more, numerous reports implicate Saudi Arabia in funding the Islamic State, known as ISIS.

Former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the co-chairman of the official inquiry into 9/11, told Patrick Cockburn of the British newspaper The Independent, “I believe that the failure to shine a full light on Saudi actions and particularly its involvement in 9/11 has contributed to the Saudi ability to continue to engage in actions that are damaging to the U.S.—and in particular their support for ISIS.”

After the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi regime launched a public relations strategy in the U.S. that was analyzed in the academic paper, “Message strategies of Saudi Arabia’s image restoration campaign after 9/11.” The analysis notes that Saudi Prince Alwaleed’s donation of $10 million to a fund for 9/11 victims and their families was part of this campaign. But the donation was rejected by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani after Alwaleed blamed the attacks on U.S. foreign policy.

The Alwaleed donation was described in the academic paper as part of the Saudi regime’s “Good Intentions” ploy to repair its battered image as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In the wake of Moussaoui’s allegations, it would appear that Alwaleed may be counting on his status as “the largest individual foreign investor” in the United States to discourage any more investigations into his financial activities.

As President Obama seeks Congressional support for a war against ISIS, with Saudi Arabia as an alleged ally in the fight, it would seem that the Saudi role in funding the Global Jihad Movement should take center stage.

But it appears that major American news organizations are compromised by their financial ties to the Saudis.