The White House on Monday played down a batch of newly released Twitter emails that reveal internal discussions about suppressing stories on Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop as &#8220;old news.&#8221;
Elon Musk&#8217;s release of the &#8220;Twitter Files&#8221; has stoked conservatives, who see collusion between Democrats and social media platforms to suppress stories leading up to the 2020 election.
But White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2022/12/05/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-december-5-2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dismissed</a> the files, calling them nothing more than a distraction.
&#8220;So, look, we see this as a — an interesting or a coincidence, if I may, that he would so haphazardly — Twitter would so haphazardly push this distraction that is a — that is full of old news, if you think about it,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;And at the same time, Twitter is facing very real and very serious questions about the rising volume of anger, hate, and antisemitism on their platform, and how they’re letting it happen. And, you know, the president said last week: More leaders need to speak out and reject this. And it&#8217;s very alarming and very dangerous,&#8221; Jean-Pierre said.
<a class="c-link" tabindex="-1" href="https://get.dailywire.com/readers-pass/read-only-v2?utm_campaign=dwplus&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=dwsite&amp;cid=dwplus&amp;mid=z&amp;xid=0" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/readers-pass/read-only-v2?utm_campaign=dwplus&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=dwsite&amp;cid=dwplus&amp;mid=z&amp;xid=0" data-sk="tooltip_parent" data-remove-tab-index="true">TIRED OF THE LEGACY MEDIA’S BIAS CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE AND OBSCURING THE TRUTH? JOIN US.</a>
The reporter followed up, asking: &#8220;Is it the White House view that decisions at Twitter were made appropriately in terms of decisions to censor this reporting ahead of the election?&#8221;
Jean-Pierre got her dander up. &#8220;Let me — you see — you mischaracterize, actually, what I — what I actually said, and took it out of context when you asked your question.&#8221;
&#8220;Look, when I answered the question — and I already — I actually already addressed this — about how the White House and the administration is seeing what’s happening on Twitter, we were — we follow also what’s going on just like you guys are reporting it, just like you guys are seeing,&#8221; she said.
This is an old trick crafted by former President Bill Clinton &#8212; and perfected by his wife, Hillary.
As scandal after scandal popped up during President Clinton&#8217;s two terms, the White House would deflect and distract. First, they&#8217;d assign the scandal to a blue-ribbon commission, then say they couldn&#8217;t comment while the investigation was ongoing. They&#8217;d drag out the probe, release a fraction of the documents requested by investigators, and when finally forced to answer questions, they&#8217;d say, &#8220;What, that old thing!?&#8221;
Hillary Clinton ran the play to perfection with the attack in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. What was clearly a terrorist attack was at first characterized by Clinton as a protest spontaneously inspired by protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo over a YouTube video.
She knew that wasn&#8217;t true. In a phone call with the Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Qandil the day after the attack, the then-Secretary of State <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/the-benghazi-timeline-clinton-edition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>, &#8220;we know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest.&#8221;
But she never said that publicly. The massive scandal was occurring just two months before the presidential election, so then-President Barack Obama and his minions sought to bury the real story.
Obama and Clinton dragged their feet for the next six weeks, prompting a furious Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to say on October 28, &#8220;this is either a massive cover-up or incompetence,&#8221; and suggested that it was a scandal worse than Watergate.
&#8220;We know that there were tapes, recordings inside the consulate during this fight &#8230; So the president went on various shows, despite what he said in the Rose Garden, about terrorist acts, he went on several programs, including The View, including Letterman, including before the UN where he continued to refer, days later, many days later, to this as a spontaneous demonstration because of a hateful video. We know that is patently false. What did the president know? When did he know it?&#8221; McCain <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57541807/face-the-nation-transcripts-october-28-2012-mccain-and-emanuel/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on CBS&#8217; &#8220;Face the Nation.&#8221;
Obama won re-election, and he would eventually claim he immediately called the Benghazi attack &#8220;an act of terrorism&#8221; (The Washington Post&#8217;s fact checker <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/obamas-claim-he-called-benghazi-an-act-of-terrorism/2013/05/13/7b65b83e-bc14-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_blog.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dubbed</a> that &#8220;revisionist history&#8221;).
But Clinton played the game even better. She was scheduled to testify before Congress on December 20 about the attack, but days before that, it was reported that she had become dehydrated from the flu, fainted, and sustained a concussion. Her testimony was postponed.
After announcing she would step down as Secretary of State, she finally testified on January 23, 2013. She uttered this classic passage: &#8220;With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they&#8217;d, they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?&#8221;
What, that old thing? Asked and answered. The Biden White House has learned well.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

US-LIBYA-ATTACKS-CONGRESS-CLINTON

Biden White House Takes Page Out Of Clinton Playbook For Hunter Scandal Defense

Barack Obama

Benghazi

Executive

Hillary Clinton

Joe Biden

Karine Jean-Pierre

Politics

Twitter

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency before serving as secretary of state, slammed the FBI raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home Monday, highlighting the disparity between that raid and the treatment of former presidential candidate and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The FBI’s raid was revealed by Trump in a statement on Monday and reports indicated that the raid revolved around supposed classified documents.
“Executing a warrant against ex-POTUS is dangerous,” Pompeo tweeted. “The apparent political weaponization of DOJ/FBI is shameful. AG must explain why 250 yrs of practice was upended w/ this raid. I served on Benghazi Com where we proved Hilliary (sic) possessed classified info. We didn’t raid her home.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Executing a warrant against ex-POTUS is dangerous. The apparent political weaponization of DOJ/FBI is shameful. AG must explain why 250 yrs of practice was upended w/ this raid. I served on Benghazi Com where we proved Hilliary possessed classified info. We didn’t raid her home
&mdash; Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) <a href="https://twitter.com/mikepompeo/status/1556831532735729664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The House Benghazi Committee released an 800-page report in June 2016 which claimed several damning actions or inactions regarding the terrorist attack that murdered four Americans in the Benghazi compound in Libya on September 11, 2012, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.
Among the claims: The State Department headed by Clinton knew the Benghazi compound was undermanned; requests for increased security at Benghazi were either ignored or outright refused by the department; political concerns delayed the Obama administration’s response to the attack, and that Clinton and others in the Obama administration parroted the false narrative that the attack was a response to a video.
According to the report, there was a  “shameful” stonewalling of the investigation by the Obama administration, particularly with regard to Clinton&#8217;s private email server.
“What may appear at first blush to be a lack of competence on behalf of the State Department now appears fully intentional and coordinated,&#8221; it concluded. &#8220;Delaying the production of documents sought by letter, informal request or subpoena has decided political advantages for those opposing the investigation.”
In August 2017, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who had been appointed by former President Barack Obama, ordered the State Department — which Hillary Clinton headed as secretary of state — to investigate its own emails regarding the Benghazi attack, as <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2017/08/09/judge-orders-searches-for-clinton-benghazi-emails-241470">Politico</a> reported. Mehta wrote in his <a href="http://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2015cv0692-48">ruling</a>:
<blockquote>To date, State has searched only data compilations originating from outside sources — Secretary Clinton, her former aides, and the FBI. &#8230; It has not, however, searched the one records system over which it has always had control and that is almost certain to contain some responsive records: the state.gov e-mail server.
If Secretary Clinton sent an e-mail about Benghazi to Abedin, Mills, or Sullivan at his or her state.gov e-mail address, or if one of them sent an e-mail to Secretary Clinton using his or her state.gov account, then State’s server presumably would have captured and stored such an e-mail. Therefore, State has an obligation to search its own server for responsive records.</blockquote>

Mike Pompeo

Pompeo Cites Hillary Clinton Regarding FBI Raid Of Trump Home: I Served On Benghazi Committee … ‘We Didn’t Raid Her Home’

Mike Pompe cites Hillary Clinton regarding FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago

Donald Trump

No sooner had the Justice Department opened a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-doj-to-establish-specialized-domestic-terrorism-unit">new domestic terrorism unit</a> to fight “an elevated threat” from American citizens holding “anti-government and anti-authority ideologies” than a British-born Muslim held Jewish worshipers hostage inside a synagogue. The 44-year-old jihadist said he was holding <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rabbi-held-hostage-in-texas-synagogue-says-active-shooter-training-saved-lives-from-belligerent-terrorist">Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker</a> and three others inside the Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, in hopes of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kevin-mccarthy-hammers-biden-administration-over-texas-synagogue-hostage-situation">freeing</a> imprisoned, Pakistani-born terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, who is nicknamed “Lady al-Qaeda.” Puzzlingly, the FBI initially <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-fbi-changes-tune-on-synagogue-hostage-situation-the-jewish-community-was-targeted">claimed</a> this act of terror “was not,” in the words of FBI Special Agent in Charge Matt DeSarno, “specifically related to the Jewish community.” To his credit, President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-was-an-act-of-terror-biden-condemns-anti-semitism-promises-security-for-synagogues-churches-after-hostage-scene">insisted</a>, “This was an act of terror” motivated by anti-Semitism, and the FBI corrected the record the next day to read, “This is a terrorism-related matter, in which the Jewish community was targeted.”
Unfortunately, the FBI’s initial denial of reality represents an improvement over the Left’s reaction to other acts of Islamic terrorism, which erased not only the anti-Semitic subtext but denied those deadly attacks were acts of terrorism. Instead, leftists dismissed mass murders as acts of stress-related “workplace violence” or claimed the gunman’s motives seemed indecipherable, even as he shouted, “Allahu akbar!” Here are a few such incidents:
Fort Hood shooting (November 2009): On November 5, 2009, an Army Major named Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood, a military base in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 32. Barack Obama’s lack of seriousness became immediately apparent during <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hNabRkHbZo">a press conference</a> shortly after the massacre. He spent the first two minutes discussing how “<a href="https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-closing-the-white-house-tribal-nations-conference">a top priority</a>” is the White House Tribal Nations Conference and giving “<a href="https://therightswriter.com/2009/11/huge-military-slaughter-%E2%80%94-but-first-a-shout-out-to-obamas-bud/">a shout-out</a>” to one of the attendees, Dr. Joe Medicine Crow.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="President Obama speaks out following the Fort Hood mass shooting of 2009" width="500" height="375" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3hNabRkHbZo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It turned out President Obama was not the only one to show such nonchalance. Although the FBI anti-terrorism task force saw Hasan strike up an email correspondence with al-Qaeda terrorist <a href="https://therightswriter.com/2011/10/why-did-we-kill-anwar-al-awlkai-and-not-jane-fonda/">Anwar al-Awlaki</a> nearly <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fort-hood-report-shows-fbi-ignored-warning-signs-on-hasan-lawmaker-says">a year earlier</a>, they did not open an investigation. Similarly, military brass spotted Hasan posting online comments calling any <a href="https://nypost.com/2009/11/06/muslim-major-screamed-allahu-akbar-before-slaughtering-13-at-ft-hood/">suicide bomber</a> “a brave hero that sacrificed his life for a more noble cause.” Survivors say his final words before shooting were, “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/suspected-fort-hood-shooter-was-calm-during-massacre-may-have-shouted-god-is-great">Allahu akbar</a>!”
Despite Hasan’s clear motivation, which he subsequently <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/prosecutors-turn-to-motive-in-trial-of-ft-hood-gunman">admitted</a> in <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/fort-hood-gunman-maj-nidal-hasan-sentenced-to-death">court</a>, the Obama administration referred to the shooting as “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lawmakers-blast-administration-for-calling-fort-hood-massacre-workplace-violence">workplace violence</a>.” The Obama-Biden administration had spent years stoking fears about the <a href="https://therightswriter.com/2010/10/pro-life-the-fbi-is-watching-you/">alleged threat</a> of “<a href="https://therightswriter.com/2009/04/department-of-hopeless-speculation">right-wing extremism</a>,” and this did not fit the narrative. The administration made the term “terrorism” so charged that the Army’s lead prosecutor referred to it as “<a href="https://kdhnews.com/military/hasan_trial/hasan-seeks-to-limit-victim-testimony/article_4e82cf32-eff9-11e2-ae93-0019bb30f31a.html">the t-word</a>.” The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/us/at-fort-hood-wrestling-with-label-of-terrorism.html">noted</a> nearly five years later that the Obama administration refused “to call the 2009 shooting terrorism, although it was called an act of terror in a 2011 Senate report and it has <a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/IncidentSummary.aspx?gtdid=200911060002">an official ID number</a> in the Global Terrorism Database.”
The decision heaped more harm on the victims’ families. The Obama administration’s actions did not merely portray a politically correct fantasy; they denied survivors a Purple Heart and the government benefits that go with it. Even after the Republican-controlled Congress passed a bill conferring the award on the people injured in this act of jihad, the Obama-Biden Defense Department <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/the-administration/239431-army-finally-gives-ft-hood-victims-their-full">fought against</a> giving the wounded the benefits due to survivors of terror — perhaps the first time a Democratic administration refused to give a civilian a government check. Even Time magazine called the government’s treatment of the incident “<a href="https://time.com/4294106/fort-hood-survivors/">a national disgrace</a>.”
‘Random’ shooting at a Paris kosher supermarket (January 2015): On January 9, 2015, a 32-year-old shooter named Amédy Coulibaly entered the Hypercacher kosher supermarket in Paris and killed 4 people during an hours-long siege. During the standoff, he told a journalist he shot his victims, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/21/paris-court-kosher-supermarket-attacker-amedy-coulibaly-killed-four-charlie-hebdo">because they were Jews</a>.”
Yet a month later, President Obama claimed the shooter had no motive at all. “My first job is to protect the American people,” Obama <a href="https://www.vox.com/a/barack-obama-interview-vox-conversation/obama-foreign-policy-transcript">told</a> Matthew Yglesias of Vox.com. “It is entirely legitimate for the American people to be deeply concerned when you&#8217;ve got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks.&#8221;
Rather than apologize, the administration doubled down on Obama’s choice of words. White House spokesman Josh Earnest <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/white-house-shooting-kosher-market-paris-random/story?id=28871389">said</a>, “The adverb that the president chose was used to indicate that the individuals who were killed in that terrible tragic incident were killed not because of who they were, but because of where they randomly happened to be.” He said the shooter was targeting “any random deli” and pointed out, “There were people other than just Jews who were in that deli.” After backlash, Earnest <a href="https://twitter.com/PressSec44/status/565261624211427329">tweeted</a> that the “terror attack at Paris Kosher market was motivated by anti-Semitism. POTUS didn&#8217;t intend to suggest otherwise.”
San Bernardino Christmas party jihad (December 2015): On December 2, 2015, a married couple walked into a Christmas party thrown by their employer, the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, and opened fire. They killed 14 people and injured 22 others; the death toll would have grown higher if the three explosive devices he left at the scene had gone off.
The media <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-top-10-dumbest-things-said-about-san-chase-stephens">attempted</a> to pin the shooting on every one of their political opponents. Former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes told CNN that, since the attack occurred at a county government, it sounded like “an anti-government militia group wanting to attack the government.” MSNBC raised the possibility that the death had pro-life origins, noting that “the Planned Parenthoood of San Bernardino is only a few blocks away.” (Of course, terrorists usually attack their intended target, not one in its general vicinity.)
Police eventually identified the perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook (a U.S. citizen of Pakistani heritage) and Tashfeen Malik (a native Muslim from Pakistan), both of whom had taken <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/christmas-party-triggered-san-bernardino-terror-attack-police/story?id=43884973">an oath</a> of allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. They had planned the attack for months, making provisions for everything, including the care of their infant daughter. Still, the media tried to intimate the couple had been triggered, perhaps by being invited to attend a Christmas party.
Even after the terrorists’ identities and motives became known, Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton stubbornly called them “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hillary-wont-call-san-bernardino-terrorists-michael-qazvini">shooters</a>” rather than “terrorists.” This was apparently part of a coordinated strategy run from the White House. As Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/obama-reportedly-worried-about-public-relations-ben-shapiro">wrote</a> at the time:
<blockquote>Jack Murphy of SOFREP reported, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/10/report-obama-told-nsc-to-downplay-terrorist-angle-of-san-bernadino/">according to The Daily Caller</a>, that the FBI was ready to label the San Bernardino shootings a terrorist attack almost immediately, but didn’t because the White House stepped in to stop them from doing so. According to Murphy’s source, “as soon as the shooting took place, Obama convened a meeting with the National Security Council and the heads of other federal enforcement agencies to discuss a public relations strategy.”</blockquote>
Public relations for whom?
Attempted Times Square bombing (May 2010): On May 1, 2010, a few eagle-eyed bystandrers saw smoke rising from a vehicle parked on New York City’s Times Square. It emanated from a car bomb, which police defused before it ignited. The first suspect to come to the mayor’s mind was the Tea Party.
Then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/story/nyc-mayor-michael-bloomberg-switches-party-affiliation-from-republican-to-independent">Independent</a>-turned-<a href="https://abc7ny.com/mayor-michael-bloomberg-former-of-new-york-city-mike-democrat/4453276/">Democrat</a> (who was then a registered Independent), <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/its-already-time-for-a-dumbest-theories-about-times-square-bomber-post">speculated</a> the bomber would turn out to be a &#8220;homegrown&#8221; terrorist, perhaps a foe of big government. Bloomberg told then-CBS News anchor Katie Couric, &#8220;If I had to guess, 25 cents, this would be” the work of a “homegrown” terrorist, “or maybe a mentally deranged person, or somebody with a political agenda that doesn&#8217;t like the health care bill or something.” He helpfully concluded, “It could be anything.”
In reality, the terrorist was not one of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/5-times-the-left-refused-to-take-voters-no-for-an-answer-and-won">majority of Americans who opposed Obamacare</a> but 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad, who had received five months’ of explosives training from the Tehrik-e-Taliban during a five-month visit to his <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/faisal-shahzad-indicted-attempted-car-bombing-times-square">native Pakistan</a>.
Assault on the U.S. Embassy at Benghazi (September 2012): Terrorists attacked the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The Obama administration made a full-court press on the Sunday morning shows to claim the attack was not a coordinated terrorist assault to commemorate the most violent act of terrorism in U.S. history; it was a spontaneous reaction to an obscure anti-Islamic YouTube video posted by a <a href="https://www.copticchurch.net/">Coptic Christian</a>. The State Department seemed to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/remember-youtube-filmmaker-hillary-blamed-benghazi-joshua-yasmeh">spend more time</a> condemning the critics of Islam than the killers of American citizens:
<blockquote>Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.</blockquote>
Numerous investigations eventually unearthed the lie at the heart of the Obama administration’s response, but to this day, Democrats portray Hillary Clinton as the victim of the Benghazi hearings.
The common factor in all these attacks is a desire to explain away the crimes of Islamic terrorists — even as they attempt to portray every act of conservative dissent as potential domestic terrorism.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Terrorism

‘Workplace Violence’? 5 Times The Left Downplayed Islamic Terrorism

Anti-Semitism

domestic terrorism

Readers Pass

On February 23, The New York Times reported that failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was partnering with Louise Penny to write a political “thriller.”
The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/books/hillary-clinton-louise-penny-state-of-terror.html?smid=tw-nytimes&amp;smtyp=cur">book</a>, aptly titled “State of Terror,” is set for release in October, and is “about a secretary of state confronting terrorism threats and a weakened nation.” Again, this is a political thriller, not an ironic comedy.
Clinton announced the book on her Twitter account, with an uncharacteristically amusing satirical tone&#8230;one can only hope. “My first work of fiction, but drawing from some life experience!” she wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
My first work of fiction, but drawing from some life experience! <a href="https://t.co/IkN0PhU7Tu">https://t.co/IkN0PhU7Tu</a>
&mdash; Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1364643936678084612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 24, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Let’s take a trip down memory lane and remind Clinton of her many, many, many works of fiction which preceded “State of Terror.”
Emails
Just on the subject of “Hillary Clinton’s emails,” she told a barrage of lies. She <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/247141-hillary-fires-back-on-emails-everything-i-did-was">claimed</a> that she had “turned over everything I was obligated to turn over,” with FBI Director James Comey saying that the FBI “discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not among the group of 30,000 e-mails returned by Secretary Clinton to state in 2014.”
Comey also refuted her false claims that there was “no classified material” in her private emails, that there was nothing “classified at the time,” and that there was nothing “marked classified” in her private emails.
She then lied about Comey’s conclusion, saying on national television that “Director Comey said my answers were truthful, and what I’ve said is consistent with what I have told the American people.” The Washington Post gave this particular <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/07/31/clintons-claim-that-the-fbi-director-said-her-email-answers-were-truthful/">lie</a> “Four Pinocchios.” 
Benghazi
Clinton lied repeatedly regarding the attack on two American government facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. On the evening of the attack, she released a statement which blamed an anti-Muslim video for the attack.
<blockquote>“Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”</blockquote>
Approximately one hour later, Clinton <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/chelsea-clinton-diane-reynolds-secret-email-115786">emailed</a> an alias account owned by her daughter, Chelsea, saying “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an al Qaeda-like group: The Ambassador, whom I handpicked and a young communications officer on temporary duty w a wife and two young children. Very hard day and I fear more of the same tomorrow.” The email was uncovered in 2015 by the House Select Committee on Benghazi. 
The next day, Clinton said “We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest,” while speaking with the Egyptian prime minister. In the days that followed, she made <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/the-benghazi-timeline-clinton-edition/">repeated</a> references to this video, and on September 14, at the “transfer of remains ceremony marking the return to the United States of the remains of the four Americans killed in Benghazi,” Clinton <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/secretary-of-state-hillary-clintons-remarks-at-transfer-of-remains-ceremony-for-americans-killed-in-libya-transcript/2012/09/14/54fc64c0-fea2-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_story.html">blamed</a> their deaths on “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.”
On October 15, Clinton excused her falsehood by blaming the “fog of war.”
Sniper Fire
While campaigning for president in 2008, Clinton falsely <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-bosnia-sniper-fire-2016-6">claimed</a> that she landed “under sniper fire” during a trip to Bosnia in 1996. Speaking at George Washington University in March 2008, she said “There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.” The Washington Post later shared a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/23/recalling-hillary-clintons-claim-of-landing-under-sniper-fire-in-bosnia/">video</a> debunking her claim, showing her being greeted by Bosnian officials. Among the welcome party was 8-year-old Emina Bicakcic, who told Clinton “There is peace now.”
Family History
In 2015, Clinton said that “all my grandparents” immigrated to the United States, and so she could relate to illegal immigrants. Buzzfeed News later <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/andrewkaczynski/hillary-clinton-wrong-on-familys-immigration-history-records#.gm5d7pMax">reported</a> that three of Clinton’s grandparents were born in the United States.
A Clinton spokesman defended the lie, saying that Clinton’s “grandparents always spoke about the immigrant experience and, as a result she has always thought of them as immigrants.”
Travelgate
After employees of the White House Travel Office were fired in May 1993, Clinton later gave a deposition under oath to the Independent Counsel in which she denied having a role in the firings. A memo was uncovered later which said that there would be “hell to pay” if those responsible “failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady’s wishes.”
Wisconsin
On two occasions, Clinton received a “Pants On Fire!” rating from Politifact as she made accusations of electoral impropriety. 
On March 3, 2019, she <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/mar/06/hillary-clinton/clinton-hot-seat-claim-thousands-were-turned-away-/">said</a> in Wisconsin, because a key provision of the Voting Rights Act was not in effect, “somewhere between 40,000 and 80,000 people were turned away from the polls (in 2016) because of the color of their skin” and other factors.
On September 17, 2019, she <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/sep/19/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-wrong-again-wisconsin-voter-id/">said</a> that between 27,000 and 200,000 Wisconsinites were “turned away” from the polls in 2017 due to lack of proper identification.
Dead Broke
On June 9, 2014, Clinton said “We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” during an interview on ABC.
“We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to piece together the resources for mortgages for houses, for Chelsea’s education. It was not easy. Bill has worked really hard. And it’s been amazing to me. He’s worked very hard,” she added.
While the Clinton’s federal disclosure form in 2000 shows them in debt, this did not include homes for personal use, such as the <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/jun/10/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-she-and-bill-were-dead-broke/">two homes</a> the pair owned, including a $1.7 million home in Chappaqua, New York and a seven-bedroom house in Washington, D.C. priced at $2.85 million, bought just as they were leaving the White House.
Trans-Pacific Partnership
While Clinton claimed that she opposed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as Obama’s secretary of state she <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/27/politics/tpp-what-you-need-to-know/index.html">praised</a> it as setting “the gold standard in trade agreements.” Leaked excerpts of speeches given by Clinton also <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hillary-clinton-trade-deal-229381">showed</a> that “she thought of the Asia-Pacific pact at the time and even reveal[ed] her hopes of tearing down trade barriers throughout the Western Hemisphere.”
Chelsea Clinton Downtown in 9/11
According to the <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/media-blog/where-was-chelsea-911-story-greg-pollowitz/">National Review</a>, “Clinton told NBC’s &#8216;Dateline&#8217; that Chelsea had been jogging near the World Trade Center, out for a cup of coffee, when the first plane hit.”
However, “Chelsea, writing a first-hand account in the defunct Talk magazine, later revealed that she was watching TV in a pal’s apartment on Park Avenue South.”
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">@ighaworth</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Hillary Clinton Says She’s Writing Her ‘First Work Of Fiction.’ She Must Have Forgotten This Long List Of Lies.

When President Donald Trump called in an airstrike to take out the world&#8217;s No. 1 terrorist, Democrats running for president seemed almost sad.
Former Vice President Joe Biden said that Trump, who on Thursday ordered the strike on Qassem Soleimani, commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, “just tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said &#8220;this reckless move escalates the situation with Iran and increases the likelihood of more deaths and new Middle East conflict.&#8221; Sen. Bernie Sanders said, “Trump promised to end endless wars, but this action puts us on the path to another one.&#8221;
But Soleimani was a very bad man. “Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion,” Trump said Friday.
While some Democrats acknowledged that Soleimani was a dangerous terrorist, few admitted that he was the world&#8217;s No. 1 terrorist, responsible for the death of many Americans, including the four who died in Benghazi.
&#8220;He’s the Wizard of Oz of Iranian terror, the most dreaded and most effective terrorist alive,&#8221; Kenneth R. Timmerman wrote in his book, “Dark Forces,” the <a href="https://nypost.com/2014/06/20/how-irans-spy-chief-paid-for-the-benghazi-attack/">New York Post</a> reported in 2014.
Timmerman said Suleimani was &#8220;a man who has orchestrated a campaign of chaos against the United States around the world.&#8221;
<blockquote>Suleymani has orchestrated attacks in everywhere from Lebanon to Thailand. The US Department of Justice accuses him of trying to hire a Mexican drug cartel to blow up the Saudi Ambassador to the United States while he was in Washington, DC.
My sources, meanwhile, say Suleymani was involved in an even more direct attack on the US — the killing of Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya.
“In Libya, Iran wanted to block US influence, which they saw as a threat,” the intelligence chief said. “They saw the uprising against Khadafy — and the Arab Spring more generally — as an opportunity to accomplish this.”</blockquote>
On Sept. 11, 2012, a massive mob of heavily armed terrorists flooded in the U.S. compound in Libya, sweeping over the nine-foot-tall fences topped with three feet of barbed wire. “The lethality and number of armed people is unprecedented,” one State Department official said in detailing the horrifying last hours of the four Americans.
With only five guards, Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans fled to another building when the “unbelievable amount of bad guys,” as one State official called them, poured in. The mob followed and set it on fire. Chaos ensued; the Americans were separated. Some guards barricaded themselves in other buildings, but finally, a group gathered and decided to flee. They sped through the gates in an armored vehicle and ended up at an annex building. But the fighting wasn’t over: The annex took “precise” mortar fire with rounds landing on the roof, immediately killing two Americans.
The Obama administration at first claimed the attack was prompted by an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube, even though then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told daughter Chelsea that night that it was a terrorist attack.
In the New York Post piece, Timmerman wrote: &#8220;Today, the Obama Administration has allied itself with Suleymani to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In this case, Iran’s goals — a Shi’ite-friendly government in Iraq — coincides with America’s hope that the country doesn’t fall apart. But don’t be fooled: It’s only a partnership of convenience, and one that won’t last.&#8221;
It didn&#8217;t.

Protest Following U.S. Iraq Airstrike

Iranian General Killed In Airstrike Helped Plan Benghazi Attack, Which Left 4 Americans Dead

Iran

Qassem Soleimani

On Tuesday, pro-Iran terrorists gathered by the hundreds to launch an assault on the American embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. They did so in response to American attacks on Kata’ib Hizbollah, an Iranian-backed terror outlet with significant reach in Iraq and Syria. After American Marines arrived via helicopter on Wednesday, and with the terrorist group leadership telling its minions to pull away from the embassy, the siege came to an end — and Iraq’s embattled prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, committed to considering legislation that would push American troops to leave the country.
President Trump responded to the attacks strongly, not only deploying additional forces to defend the embassy, but declaring that there would be no second Benghazi — a reference to the disastrous 2012 incident in Libya in which terrorists stormed the U.S. embassy there and murdered the American ambassador, among others. The Obama White House subsequently blamed the terror attacks on a little-known YouTube video.
Many in the media, naturally, played the Baghdad assault as a negative referendum on Trump’s Iran policy. Many of the same members of the media who defended Obama’s Libyan war and then justified the Benghazi abomination now suggest that Trump was too harsh on the Iranians, and hurt their feelings — and that’s what has led to Iran’s increasing militancy.
But this ignores reality and history: Iran was responsible for the deaths of thousands of troops in Iraq over the past 15 years, has been the world’s leading terror sponsor for decades, and has harassed and attacked American interests ever since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. What’s more, Iran was massively emboldened in its regional aggression by Obama administration-era appeasement — it turns out that signing checks to the Iranians and opening their export markets to foreign dollars allowed Iran to expand its regional ambitions to Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, the Gaza Strip, and Iraq in new and powerful ways.
Iran has lashed out in increasingly violent ways recently because their leadership hopes that violence will sway the United States to pull out, or to return to the appeasement strategy — or hopes that possibly, they can swing public opinion against Trump by prompting conflict, thus bringing a surrender-minded Democrat to the White House.
So, what happens next?
Trump has two real options. First, he could continue to take a hardline stand, ensuring that American assets in the region are protected and retaliating against Iranian militias. This seems like Trump’s preferred stand at the moment — that’s why Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stated there will be no troop drawdown or embassy evacuation. In order to make this standard work, Trump will have to stick to the lines he draws, which means no more calling back bombers in mid-air after deploying them to strike Iranian targets.
Second, Trump could withdraw. There are some on the Right who presumably would like to see Trump pull out of the Middle East at the first available opportunity. That philosophy is driven by a tendency toward isolationism, the belief that the United States ought to redeploy out of the area unless directly threatened. This strategy has been historically popular with the American people, but does create greater threats down the road — vacuums don’t stay vacuums for long, and Russia, Iran, and China are eager to fill any gap left by the United States to their own benefit.
The great danger for Trump lies in vacillating between these two positions. Vacillation is seen as weakness by the Iranian regime, which is why the Iranian leadership has already declared Trump’s threats empty. Obama demonstrated to the world that his threats were empty, and America’s enemies took advantage. The more credible Trump’s threats, the less often he’ll have to enforce them — and the less grand the response will have to be. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in foreign policy, and an ounce of deterrence is worth a pound of reactivity. Trump seems to get that. So does his team. That’s why Baghdad won’t be Benghazi.

U.S. Embassy Baghdad

SHAPIRO: Why Baghdad Won’t Be Benghazi

Iraq

Trump Administration

While the embassy attack in Baghdad, Iraq, was unfolding on Tuesday, MSNBC host Joy Reid prematurely celebrated President Donald Trump having his own &#8220;Benghazi&#8221; — thereby referencing an Obama administration scandal that resulted in four dead Americans, including former U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.
Reid, a fierce Trump critic, took a shot at the president for commenting Tuesday that the American people should &#8220;read the transcripts,&#8221; referring to a July call with his Ukrainian counterpart, which is the premise for Democrats&#8217; current partisan impeachment effort.
&#8220;As Trump&#8217;s Benghazi unfolds in Iraq&#8230;&#8221; the MSNBC host posted to Twitter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
As Trump&#39;s Benghazi unfolds in Iraq&#8230; <a href="https://t.co/X8FsJpt6Au">https://t.co/X8FsJpt6Au</a>
&mdash; Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1212088051037614081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed Reid: &#8220;What’s wrong with you? Is partisan hatred really that deep? We root for American soldiers, not against them.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
What’s wrong with you? Is partisan hatred really that deep? We root for American soldiers, not against them. <a href="https://t.co/VOKsxWtS5f">https://t.co/VOKsxWtS5f</a>
&mdash; Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1212419867254636544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;&#8216;Trump’s Benghazi&#8217; was handled with decisive action, like an actual leader would respond. The response (since they actually bothered to respond, unlike Obama/Crooked) was really the anti-Benghazi response! You’re welcome,&#8221; Donald Trump Jr. responded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“Trump’s Benghazi” was handled with decisive action, like an actual leader would respond. The response (since they actually bothered to respond, unlike Obama/Crooked) was really the anti-Benghazi response! 
You’re welcome. <a href="https://t.co/pih1s9PfHl">https://t.co/pih1s9PfHl</a>
&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1212425992150691840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 1, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Reid also promoted a statement from the anti-Trump group VoteVets, which called the president a &#8220;scared, insecure, fragile, petty, small&#8221; man and blamed the embassy attack on Trump for reneging upon the controversial Iran nuclear deal.
&#8220;[A]t the end of the day, this all traces back to a scared, insecure, fragile, petty, small president who simply could not stand the thought of allowing a major achievement of Barack Obama&#8217;s to continue to succeed,&#8221; a statement reads from Will Goodwin, Army veteran and Director of Government Relations for VoteVets.
&#8220;It is our men and women in uniform who will now pay the price for his brittle feelings, unless Congress steps in,&#8221; he added.
Reid captioned the statement with, &#8220;All of this.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
All of this: <a href="https://t.co/WNJK1YhO6G">https://t.co/WNJK1YhO6G</a>
&mdash; Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) <a href="https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1212066796276211713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-u-s-forces-arrive-at-embassy-in-baghdad-to-stop-attack-trump-drops-big-statement?itm_source=parsely-api">The Daily Wire</a> on Tuesday, however, President Trump did not have a &#8220;Benghazi&#8221; on his hands, thankfully. Instead, American military forces arrived at the embassy on Tuesday to stop the terrorist attack and no Americans were killed.
“The U.S. Embassy in Iraq is, &amp; has been for hours, SAFE! Many of our great Warfighters, together with the most lethal military equipment in the world, was immediately rushed to the site,&#8221; Trump said via Twitter. &#8220;Thank you to the President &amp; Prime Minister of Iraq for their rapid response upon request Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&#8230;.Iran will be held fully responsible for lives lost, or damage incurred, at any of our facilities. They will pay a very BIG PRICE! This is not a Warning, it is a Threat. Happy New Year!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1212121026072592384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy started early on Tuesday morning when thousands of supporters of the Kataeb Hezbollah terrorist organization attacked the facility in response to U.S. forces killing dozens of terrorists from the organization just a few days ago,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-u-s-forces-arrive-at-embassy-in-baghdad-to-stop-attack-trump-drops-big-statement">The Daily Wire</a> reported on Tuesday. &#8220;The terrorist supporters shouted &#8216;Down, down USA!&#8217; and &#8216;Death to America&#8217; and &#8216;Death to Israel&#8217; as they attacked the facility.&#8221;
Trump&#8217;s swift and transparent response was far different than the devastating and fatal handling of the terrorist attack on the embassy in Benghazi, Libya during the Obama administration.
As previously reported by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/10-devastating-facts-benghazi-report-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a>, the House Benghazi Committee released a damning 800-page report following a two-year investigation &#8220;detailing the deadly incompetence and blatant deceptiveness of the Obama administration that resulted in four Americans murdered and the pushing of a false narrative to the American people to cover for the failures of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama. &#8230; [T]he report shows that the Benghazi attack was not only an avoidable tragedy, but the administration’s response to it involved &#8216;intentional and coordinated&#8217; deception.&#8221;
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/10-devastating-facts-benghazi-report-james-barrett">8 Devastating Facts From The Benghazi Report</a>

Joy Reid

MSNBC’s Joy Reid Celebrates: ‘Trump’s Benghazi Unfolds In Iraq’

MSNBC

President Trump, wearing a tuxedo, arrived at his Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve celebration with first lady Melania and son Barron on Wednesday night, and stopped to hold an impromptu press conference.
The president&#8217;s comments came as Iran became belligerent after the U.S. military carried out air strikes against the Kataib Hezbollah militia in response to the killing of an American civilian contractor in a rocket attack Friday on an Iraqi military base. The air strikes prompted protests and an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
Trump was defiant, saying &#8220;This will not be a Benghazi.&#8221;
&#8220;The Marines came in. We had some great warriors come in and do a fantastic job,&#8221; Trump said about the protests at the U.S. embassy. &#8220;And they were there instantaneously, as soon as we heard. I used the word &#8216;immediately.&#8217; They came immediately. And it’s in great shape, as you know. This will not be a Benghazi. Benghazi should never have happened. This will never, ever be a Benghazi.&#8221;
&#8220;But we have some of our greatest warriors there,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;They got in there very quickly. As soon as we saw there was a potential for problem, they got in, and there was no problem whatsoever.&#8221;
On Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists attacked U.S. diplomatic outposts in Libya, killing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Follow-up reports on the incident found that the embassy was vulnerable to attack, and a Senate committee pointed the finger at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
In perhaps the most significant finding, the Senate report said the intelligence community, including the CIA, NSA and Pentagon, among others, delivered many warnings on the growing threats in Benghazi, but the State Department failed to take them seriously and increase security.
In his brief press conference, Trump was asked &#8220;do you foresee going to war with Iran?&#8221;
&#8220;I don’t think that would be a good idea for Iran. It wouldn’t last very long. Do I want to? No. I want to have peace. I like peace. And Iran should want peace more than anybody. So I don’t see that happening. No, I don’t think Iran would want that to happen. It would go very quickly,&#8221; he said.
Another reporter asked: &#8220;I know it’s a night of celebration, Mr. President, but are you spoiling for a political fight in January, with the impeachment?&#8221;
&#8220;Well, the impeachment thing is a hoax. It’s a big, fat hoax. We had, I guess, 196 to nothing, with the Republicans. We had three Democrats come over. One actually joined our party, as you know — which is, I think, a record. I don’t think that’s been done before, in terms of somebody coming in like that on a vote like that. But he joined our party — from New Jersey. He’s going to be fantastic,&#8221; Trump said of Rep. Jeff Van Drew.
&#8220;And, no, I think — I look forward to it. I mean, we’ll see. We have absolutely — we did nothing wrong. All you have to do is read the transcripts. If you read the transcripts — or you could also do something else. You could go see or speak to the President of Ukraine. And the President of Ukraine said, loudly and boldly — and I appreciate his statement — he said it many times: There was no pressure. The foreign minister of Ukraine said there was absolutely no pressure, and that’s the whole case right there. There was no pressure whatsoever,&#8221; Trump said.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="President Trump Delivers Remarks" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ONOB3M5TA3k?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

US-POLITICS-TRUMP-NEW YEAR

WATCH: Trump Holds Impromptu Press Conference On New Year’s Eve: ‘This Will Not Be A Benghazi’

On Thursday, a federal judge ordered further investigation into officials&#8217; handling of Hillary Clinton&#8217;s private email server during her four-year tenure as secretary of state. Her use of an unapproved, unsecured private email server, he said in the blistering ruling, is &#8220;one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.&#8221;
The ruling revolves around a Freedom of Information Act suit brought by a conservative government watchdog. Judicial Watch, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ruled Thursday, should be given access to documents and be permitted to acquire additional testimony about Clinton&#8217;s use of a private server and officials&#8217; failure to be transparent about information searches related to it.
Judge Lamberth&#8217;s opinion, <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000167-86a0-df8f-adff-affda6d90001">published by Politico</a>, begins by quoting former President Barack Obama, who, on his first full day in office, waxed eloquent about the importance of transparency in government and declared his administration&#8217;s commitment to FOIA: &#8220;In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government. &#8230; All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.&#8221;
&#8220;But in this case, faced with one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency, his State and Justice Departments fell far short,&#8221; Lamberth wrote. &#8220;So far short that the Court questions, even now, whether they are acting in good faith. Did Hillary Clinton use her private email as Secretary of State to thwart this lofty goal? Was the State Department&#8217;s attempt to settle this FOIA case in 2014 an effort to avoid searching&#8211;and disclosing the existence of&#8211;Clinton&#8217;s missing emails? And has State ever adequately searched for records in this case?&#8221;
When Judicial Watch filed its FOIA suit in July 2014 over the State Department&#8217;s false talking points on the Benghazi attack, the judge notes, officials knew that Clinton&#8217;s private emails were missing from its records. &#8220;State played this card close to its chest,&#8221; he wrote. &#8220;At best, State&#8217;s attempts to pass-off its deficient search as legally adequate during settlement negotiations was negligence born out of incompetence. At worst, career employees in the State and Justice Departments colluded to scuttle public scrutiny of Clinton, skirt FOIA and hoodwink this court.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/06/hillary-clinton-emails-lawsuit-judicial-watch-1048196">Politico</a> notes that Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan-appointee and a judge who &#8220;sparred&#8221; at times with the Clinton administration, is critical not only of the past administration but of the Trump administration for failing to adequately follow through on this crucial case.
&#8220;To preserve the Department&#8217;s integrity, and to reassure the American people their government remains committed to transparency and the rule of law, this suspicion cannot be allowed to fester,&#8221; he said. To this end, he ordered that both sides discuss a discovery process and report back to him in 10 days to nail down a plan for further fact-finding.
At the heart of the issue is the suspicion that State and Justice Department officials were attempting to protect Clinton and the administration by deliberately resisting FOIA searches in her private server, thus attempting to conceal damning information, like Clinton&#8217;s admission to Chelsea that she knew the Benghazi attack was a terrorist operation while the administration publicly described it as spontaneous riot in response to a YouTube video offensive to Muslims.
&#8220;The historic court ruling raises concerns about the Hillary Clinton email scandal and government corruption that millions of Americans share,&#8221; said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement. &#8220;Judicial Watch looks forward to conducting careful discovery into the Clinton email issue and we hope the Justice Department and State Department recognize Judge Lamberth&#8217;s criticism and help, rather than obstruct, this court-ordered discovery.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000167-86a0-df8f-adff-affda6d90001">Read Lamberth&#8217;s full ruling here</a>.

Judge Calls Clinton Emails One Of  ‘Gravest Modern Offenses To Government Transparency,’ Orders Further Fact-Finding

Judicial Watch

Former President Barack Obama suggested on Friday that outrage over the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi &#8212; which resulted in the deaths of four Americans &#8212; was a result of &#8220;wild conspiracy theories.&#8221;
Obama, trying to help the Democrats in the 2018 midterms, attacked President Donald Trump while speaking at the University of Illinois where he accepted the Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government.
&#8220;But over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican party,&#8221; Obama said.
Obama then attacked Republican members of Congress, accusing them of embracing &#8220;wild conspiracy theories like those surrounding Benghazi.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe loading="lazy" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2jR1nfe30xU" width="560"></iframe></div>
Shortly after Obama made his remarks, Kris Paronto, a former Army Ranger who was a private security contractor working for the CIA at the CIA annex in Benghazi, slammed Obama.
Paronto, who is credited with saving approximately 20 people during the attack, wrote on Twitter:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Benghazi is a conspiracy <a href="https://twitter.com/BarackObama?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BarackObama</a> ?! How bout we do this,let&#8217;s put your cowardly ass on the top of a roof with 6 of your buddies&amp;shoot rpg&#8217;s&amp;Ak47&#8217;s at you while terrorists lob 81mm mortars killing 2 of your buddies all while waiting for US support that you never sent<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/scum?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#scum</a>
&#8212; Kris Paronto (@KrisParonto) <a href="https://twitter.com/KrisParonto/status/1038148368344776705?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 7, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Note: This article has been revised for clarity.

Obama Calls Benghazi A Wild Conspiracy Theory. Benghazi Hero Levels Him.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday night received a pointed tongue lashing from Benghazi warrior Kris Paronto after Clinton audaciously scolded the White House for not defending a U.S. diplomat to her liking.
Paronto is a former Special Forces officer, a surviving member of a six-man security team who claims he was given a &#8220;stand down&#8221; order from a top CIA officer following distress calls from the State Department concerning a terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/benghazi-movie-stand-down-order-debate-217622">noted</a> by Politico. Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were murdered during the attack; Hillary Clinton was serving as Secretary of State at the time.
Hillary was reacting to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders&#8217; remarks regarding the president and former U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul. &#8220;McFaul has been listed by the Russian government as a person of interest in the Bill Browder/Russia financial scam, and President Trump allegedly told President Putin on Monday that the U.S. would consider sending McFaul and Browder to Moscow for &#8216;questioning,'&#8221; <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/07/19/fmr_us_ambassador_to_russia_mike_mcfaul.html">reports</a> Real Clear Politics.
&#8220;Ambassador [McFaul] is a patriot who has spent his career standing up for America. To see the White House even hesitate to defend a diplomat is deeply troubling,&#8221; wrote the twice-failed presidential candidate in a tweet.
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Ambassador <a href="https://twitter.com/McFaul?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@McFaul</a> is a patriot who has spent his career standing up for America. To see the White House even hesitate to defend a diplomat is deeply troubling. <a href="https://t.co/gI8K8Tjg3M">https://t.co/gI8K8Tjg3M</a>
&#8212; Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1019951378620403712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Obviously, such criticism about hesitation in defending a U.S. diplomat coming from Hillary Clinton is incredibly galling, especially for Mr. Paronto, who lived through the horror.
&#8220;Are you f&#8217;n kidding me [Hillary Clinton]?!!!&#8221; wrote Paronto via Twitter. &#8220;You left Ambassador Stevens and us to die in Benghazi then spewed lie after lie to the family members of my dead teammates and to the world to cover it up and now you have the nerve to talk about defending diplomats?! You are disgusting!&#8221;
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Are you f&#8217;n kidding me <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HillaryClinton</a> ?!!! You left Ambassador Stevens and us to die in Benghazi then spewed lie after lie to the family members of my dead teammates and to the world to cover it up and now you have the nerve to talk about defending diplomats?!You are disgusting! <a href="https://t.co/ErQl1jOU8a">https://t.co/ErQl1jOU8a</a>
&#8212; Kris Paronto (@KrisParonto) <a href="https://twitter.com/KrisParonto/status/1020057699592036352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;There is no sensationalism in that: We were told to &#8216;stand down,'&#8221; Paronto <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/benghazi-movie-stand-down-order-debate-217622">told</a> House Select Committee in 2013. &#8220;Those words were used verbatim &#8212; 100 percent. &#8230; If the truth of it affects someone&#8217;s political career? Well, I&#8217;m sorry. It happens.&#8221;

Benghazi Warrior UNLOADS On Hillary After She Scolds White House For Hesitating ‘To Defend A Diplomat’

Can you say Benghazi?
On Thursday, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton attacked President Trump after Trump did not initially reject an offer from Vladimir Putin that Russia be allowed to &#8220;question officials, including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence service of the United States.&#8221;
When White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/33249/watch-huckabee-sanders-wont-say-if-trump-will-help-ben-shapiro">asked</a> about whether Trump supported the idea, she responded, &#8220;The president&#8217;s going to meet with his team and we&#8217;ll let you know when we have an announcement on that.&#8221;
In response, Clinton tweeted an attack on Trump that reeked of hypocrisy:
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Ambassador <a href="https://twitter.com/McFaul?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@McFaul</a> is a patriot who has spent his career standing up for America. To see the White House even hesitate to defend a diplomat is deeply troubling. <a href="https://t.co/gI8K8Tjg3M">https://t.co/gI8K8Tjg3M</a>
&#8212; Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1019951378620403712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
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As is well known by now, Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State when the attack was launched in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. As Greg Hicks, former Deputy Chief of Mission for Libya, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/09/11/what-benghazi-attack-taught-me-about-hillary-clinton.html">noted</a> of the failure of the State Department four years later:
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The Benghazi Committee&#8217;s report graphically illustrates the magnitude of her failure. It states that during August 2012, the State Department reduced the number of U.S. security personnel assigned to the Embassy in Tripoli from 34 (1.5 security officers per diplomat) to 6 (1 security officer per 4.5 diplomats), despite a rapidly deteriorating security situation in both Tripoli and Benghazi. Thus, according to the Report, &#8220;there were no surplus security agents&#8221; to travel to Benghazi with Amb. Stevens &#8220;without leaving the Embassy in Tripoli at severe risk.&#8221; 
Had Ambassador Stevens&#8217; July 2012 request for 13 additional American security personnel (either military or State Department) been approved rather than rejected by Clinton appointee Under Secretary of State for Management Pat Kennedy, they would have traveled to Benghazi with the ambassador, and the Sept. 11 attack might have been thwarted.
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Even the State Department&#8217;s own Accountability Review Board <a href="http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/202446.pdf">report</a> wrote:
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The number of Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) security staff in Benghazi on the day of the attack and in the months and weeks leading up to it was inadequate, despite repeated requests from Special Mission Benghazi and Embassy Tripoli for additional staffing. Board members found a pervasive realization among personnel who served in Benghazi that the Special Mission was not a high priority for Washington when it came to security-related requests, especially those relating to staffing. The insufficient Special Mission security platform was at variance with the appropriate Overseas Security Policy Board (OSPB) standards with respect to perimeter and interior security. Benghazi was also severely under-resourced with regard to certain needed security equipment, although DS funded and installed in 2012 a number of physical security upgrades.&#8221;
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