May 6, 2013

"For there to have been a demonstration on Chris Stevens's front door and him not to have reported it is unbelievable."

"I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate. Chris - Chris's last report, if you want to say his final report - is, 'Greg, we are under attack,'" said Greg Hicks, who was "the highest-ranking U.S. official in Libya after the strike." This was quoted on yesterday's "Face the Nation," where the guest was Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who chairs the the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, before which Hicks will testify this week.
"...I've never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day," Hicks continued in his interview with investigators. "The net impact of what has transpired is, [Rice,] the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world, has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar of doesn't know what he's talking about. ....My jaw hit the floor as I watched this....

"You can't insult a foreign leader in a greater way than happened literally here, just those few days later," Issa said. "Ambassadors know that the one thing you can't do is contradict your host, especially at a time when you need their cooperation. This was a fatal error to our relationship, at least for a period of time. And we can't find the purpose. [Secretary of State Hillary Clinton] should have been among - above all else - the person who was on the same sheet of music with the Libyan government, and she wasn't."
Watch this segment of the show:



Here's the very meaty transcript.

40 comments:

edutcher said...

Memo to trolls:

This is not going away.

No matter how hard you yell, "La la la la la, I can't hear you!".

Saint Croix said...

Boy do I have egg on my face. I was certain the media was going to bury this story (again!) I was even attacking Face the Nation for doing two frickin' segments on gay basketball. But the segment I missed, the opening, was all Benghazi cover-up.

Journalism! And on TV no less.

JackWayne said...

Does any person with moderate intelligence not know that Hillary! is a swine?

kentuckyliz said...

What, at this point, does it matter?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Face the Lies.

Anonymous said...

What is Jaw dropping is that Hicks hasn't been heard of from till now and that the State Department has not allowed Hicks to see the State Department After Action Report...

Andrew Cuomo must be pleased.

Brian Brown said...

Yeah, and White House aides say that President Obama was off-script when he warned Syria not to cross the "red line."

Isn't that reassuring?

Anonymous said...

Obama and Hillary deserve the heat and should be made to take responsibility.

Brian Brown said...

And, Susan Rice isn't qualified to run a lemonade stand.

How embarrassing that our country trots her out on TV to lie after an Ambassador is killed.

J said...

It is always interesting when the Foggy Bottom liars get caught in one of their obfuscations.Nobody can keep secrets forever.Methinks it is time for some serious CS reform.

George M. Spencer said...

What did President not know and when did he stop not knowing it?

Cody Jarrett said...

Professor, I know I bust on you some, but I figured in the interest of honesty and hands across the sea (or the Great Lakes anyway) I should say that I'm really pleased with how you've kept posting about this stuff.

Michael said...

In addition to the obvious (to most thinking people) political angle, what was going on in the "annex" in Benghazi is not something we are going to learn more about.

The political angle might spell the end of HC's hopes for the presidency.

Mogget said...


Susan Rice sure disappeared fast, didn't she? I mean, for a woman who was supposedly a prime candidate for SecState to just drop off the face of the earth. Whatever could be the problem?

edutcher said...

Saint Croix said...

Boy do I have egg on my face. I was certain the media was going to bury this story (again!) I was even attacking Face the Nation for doing two frickin' segments on gay basketball. But the segment I missed, the opening, was all Benghazi cover-up.

The worm (worms, if we're going to be specific) seems to have turned.

As Roger Simon notes, The MSM is finally taking Benghazi seriously, when even CBS's Bob Schieffer agrees there was a cover-up.

Jack Wayne said...

Does any person with moderate intelligence not know that Hillary! is a swine?

How many voted for her in '08?

And how many Demos are excited she'll be running in '16?

Mogget said...

The White House has decided that Hillary! is not the preferred successor to Obama, so they will allow her to be destroyed. Wagons will circle, however, if the restless natives start to close in on Obama.

Clyde said...

And how many of us knew about this BEFORE the election and were saying that Obama was unfit to be kept as CINC? Yeah, my hand's up. But not everyone was as well-informed or selective, and so we have a Nixon wannabe still in the White House.

KCFleming said...

Yeah, but Willard put a dog on top of his car.
ON TOP OF HIS CAR!!!

And a VIOLENT teenage FORCED haircut, with anti-gay overtones.
Plus, binders full of women.
Plus plus, 47%

KCFleming said...

Yeah, great, Benaghazi is finally being vetted.

The news people are acting like real news people, kinda sorta, in advance of the next elections, while their business dies and people are fired and maybe doing their fucking jobs might save them.

But in my view it's far to late.

Maybe not for the families, who need this sunlight. But for the current administration. They won because the press was complicit in the cover-up. So fuck them and this ginned up controversy. Where were they when this mattered?

I'm with Hillary. What's the point now? It's not like Hillary or Obama, the two ultimately responsible for the debacle, will own any of it.

And shit, the YouTube guy is still in jail.

AllenS said...

Nothing is going to come of this. Sure, the MSM will report this or that, but no one will call for anyone in this administration now or previously, to take reponsibility.

Here, let me draw this red line.

Tom said...

I'm glad this story has finally attracted attention. What Candy Crowley did in the debate regarding this story is a crime in and of itself. (The fact that Mitt wasn't prepared for exactly that is why he isn't president). Why the youtube director is still in jail is beyond me.

But the damage is done. We illegially invaded Libyia and nothing happened. We failed to guard our consulate and nothing happened. We manufacture some video as the cause of the attack and nothing happens. Obama's uses drones to kill US citizens and nothing happens.

We're looking for Justice and the only thing we're going to find is Just Us!

Scott M said...

Memo to trolls:

This is not going away.

No matter how hard you yell, "La la la la la, I can't hear you!".


I would tend to agree, but what, at this point, difference does it make? Seriously?

What possible outcome do think will come of this?

Nada, that's what. If it had blown up and been properly reported in the months prior to the election and if the GOP hadn't been stupid enough to let certain in-the-bag correspondents moderate a presidential debate, maybe we'd have something, but not now.

Brew Master said...

The cover-up may not have worked completely to obscure the events of that day. The truth will out afterall.

But at this date, it is to little to late. There will be no repercussions to the administration. The press will talk about it, but they all have in the front of their mind 'What difference, at this point, does it make?'.

Hillary will shielded from blame in order to keep her presidential hopes alive. Obama will be shielded from blame because of Affirmative Action.

Those who pay attention to politics will just add this to the list of things that makes Obama a lousy leader. Those who don't pay attention to politics will never even hear about it.

Nothing will change.

ricpic said...

It all gets very byzantine when Huma, by way of pillow talk with Hillary, makes United States foreign policy.

Original Mike said...

"What possible outcome do think will come of this?"

For my part, I just want to know what the hell Urkel did that night. He's the damn President. We have a right to know.

gerry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brew Master said...

For my part, I just want to know what the hell Urkel did that night. He's the damn President. We have a right to know.

He did nothing that night, which is why this won't come back to him at all. He went to bed thinking that others were doing the work for him, just as he has his whole life. His entire career has been as a front man/mouthpiece, but never required to do the actual work.

gerry said...

The White House has decided that Hillary! is not the preferred successor to Obama, so they will allow her to be destroyed.

Hillay was squashed by racialist campaigns by Obama and henchmen in 2008. She abandoned her destiny, after all, in service to the racial requirements of Obama's career. Now it is her turn for the Oval Office, and I doubt that she and her ilk will march quietly into an historical crematory.

Gotta get some popcorn. Benghazi will get some spooks (as in intel operatives) hopping mad, some retired generals and State Department operatives who were shat upon by master Obama into vengeful moods, and this will virtually end Obama. Impeachment would be nice, but I think that is not possible. A nice big black mark after his name in history books will be very Schadenfreude-y, though.

Scott M said...

Gotta get some popcorn.

When I posted earlier about these revelations not having a damned bit of effect, I was thinking only of currently serving pols.

If the evidence that is mounting is as damning and comprehensive as it appears, it could go a long way toward ruining one Hillary Clinton's choice.

ndspinelli said...

If nothing else, it's noteworthy Issa was treated w/ respect by the host!

INGA..INGA..cleanup in the Libya thread.

edutcher said...

Two things to keep in mind:

We'll have almost a year of full ObamaCare under our belts before Election Day so the economic effects will have begun to be felt.

The Senate is vulnerable for the Demos and there's no chance they can flip the House.

What happened to Willie can happen to him.

jr565 said...

Inga where are you?!?!

Donde esta all the libs? Come out and play!

bagoh20 said...

"What possible outcome do think will come of this?"

I know what should come of it.

Compared to what Nixon resigned over, and Bill Clinton was impeached and disbarred for, this scandal is Godzilla hiding in the national closet.

The precedents of incompetence and lying being set by this administration and the press are gonna haunt us for a very long time. Future Presidents will be able to point to this administration every time they pull some crap or do something stupid, and say "at least we didn't do something like that". I think this is the biggest failure of us electing this guy. It assured a permanent severe lowering of standards in our leaders. That's why voting for him was so stupid.

Methadras said...

We all knew this was going to happen, thus Cankles telegraphed and unshrewd proclamation, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" and so what will it be now? A right wing conspiracy to keep her from the white house because she is now tarnished while the left starts to crow at what a wonderful human being she is?

She and Obama should be in fucking jail for the treason they both have committed in this total fiasco. They have lied to the American public, they allowed a US ambassador to die needlessly, and they shit on Ty Woods and Glen Dougherty and their families, the men and women who served in Libya who were there during this attack, and namely, Chris Stephens and his family. There isn't enough finger pointing and shame that can be directly sent to these human garbage bags of ideological filth. Their entitlement, hubris, arrogance, and conceit is to the detriment of us all.

furious_a said...

Nakoula Nakoula was unavailable for comment.

furious_a said...

how many of us knew about this BEFORE the election and were saying that Obama was unfit to be kept as CINC?

Low-information voters didn't care then, they don't care now, and they won't care ("It happened long ago") when the "Hillary! 2016 -- What Difference Does It Make?" bus hits the campaign trail.

Nothing will come of this, for Hillary or the President.

Allan said...

"Low-information voters didn't care then, they don't care now, and they won't care"

Low-information voters didn't care about the Watergate break-in, either. They re-elected Nixon with a large majority.

Anthony said...

Nothing is going to come of this. Sure, the MSM will report this or that, but no one will call for anyone in this administration now or previously, to take reponsibility.

Agreed, and with similar sentiments others have expressed. The MSM will cover it a bit, fairly neutrally, so they'll be able to say "We covered that", but they won't whip anyone into a frenzy over it, like they wold have done to a Republican admin. They're a Democratic press corps, before, during, and after.

Anonymous said...

I too am grateful to Althouse for continuing to post on Benghazi.

It's hard to say how far its current resurrection will go. People forget Watergate took over two years to bring down Nixon, even with the liberal press slavering over the case.

I was deeply upset when I noticed not only the Obama administration lying and stonewalling but the active complicity of the media. With Benghazi, the Obama administration became a goon squad presidency with the press acting as its goons.

I was also disappointed that high officials in the State Dept. and military, who knew what happened, seemed to have rolled over for the Obama administration. If these people lack the moral vision and courage to speak out against such a clear dereliction of duty and subsequent cover-up, the nation is even worse shape than I suspected.

We shall see. It appears there is life to this story yet. It's still possible for this to break wide open. I shall cross my fingers but I won't get my hopes up.

Issob Morocco said...

Perhaps you can do a photo shoot on the trellis at the Benghazi US Consulate.

You have avoided this thread like the plague, why?