CCB Press Conference on Benghazi Largely Ignored by Mainstream Media

Accuracy in Media

By: Roger Aronoff

 

On June 29, the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB) held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington to discuss the release of its new report on the events surrounding the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the Special Mission Compound and CIA Annex, resulting in the deaths of four Americans. As usual, the liberal media largely stayed away. Apparently, if The New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and NBC don’t cover a story, no matter how important, it isn’t really news. So instead, the only representative from the mainstream media was The Washington Post’s designated hit man, Dana Milbank, who regularly trolls conservative gatherings to heap scorn, sarcasm and peddle misinformation to his waiting readers. That is the sad state of journalism in this country today.

Mr. Milbank’s penchant for playing fast and loose with the details has gotten him in trouble before, when he claimed that conservative speakers had “taunted” a young Muslim girl. These speakers had, in fact, thanked her for her presence. In the latest case, Milbank wrote an opinion piece, not a news story, with the online headline, “Benghazi Conspiracy Theorists Turn on Trey Gowdy.” The headline in the print edition of the paper was “Appeasing the far right? You’ll always end up wrong.”

During the course of Milbank’s article, he called the members of the CCB “a coalition of far-right ­foreign-policy types,” “conspiracy theorists,” and “agitators.” This is all part of the attempt to discredit the messenger, because Milbank can’t really dispute the message—although he has certainly tried. But at least he was there, and spelled the names correctly, though he was wrong about the number of members on the commission (it’s 14, plus two advisory, not 11). Apparently the Post’s Fact-Checker was busy on other stories that day. Maybe they should hire more.

Milbank found our report to be what he called “full of inventive accusations.”

“They found ‘troubling evidence that Obama and Clinton were deeply and knowingly involved in running guns to al-Qaeda in Libya,’” writes Milbank, “as well as ‘a clear case of official U.S. government submission to the Islamic Law on slander.’”

“They determined that the Obama administration ‘switched sides in what was then called the Global War on Terror’ and ‘benefited this country’s worst enemies,’” he continues. “They wrote that Clinton herself blocked U.S. military forces from attempting a rescue mission, and they attributed the decision to oust Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi in part to financial interests of the Clinton Foundation.”

Comey’s FBI Helped Convict Navy Reservist who “Handled Classified Materials Inappropriately”

Judicial Watch

Illustrating that FBI Director James Comey is a liar and a fraud, his agency helped convict a Navy reservist last summer of the same crime that he just cleared Hillary Clinton of committing. In that case the reservist from northern California got criminally charged—as per FBI recommendation—for having classified material on personal electronic devices that weren’t authorized by the government to contain such information. The FBI investigation didn’t reveal evidence that the reservist intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel, so he was just being “extremely careless” like Clinton and her top aides.

Similar offenses, vastly different outcome. The key factor, of course, is that one subject is a regular Joe without Clinton-like political connections. His name is Bryan H. Nishimura and last July he pleaded guilty to unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials after the FBI found such materials were copied and stored in at least one “unauthorized and unclassified system.” Clinton had droves of classified and top secret materials in an “unauthorized and unclassified system.” Nishimura had been deployed to Afghanistan as a regional engineer for the U.S. military and had access to classified briefings and digital records that could only be retained and viewed on authorized government computers, according to the FBI announcement, which defines the reservist’s crime in the following manner; “handled classified materials inappropriately.” So did Clinton on a much larger scale.

Last July Nishimura pleaded guilty to “unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials” and was sentenced to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials. He was further ordered to permanently surrender all government security clearance. Hillary Clinton could soon have the highest security clearance available if she gets elected president making Comey’s inconceivable recommendation that “no charges are appropriate in this case” all the more outrageous. Incredibly, during his 15-minute press conference this week Comey provided details of how Clinton violated the law by exchanging dozens of email chains containing classified and top secret information and how she mishandled national defense information on her outlaw email server. The FBI director even outlined how Clinton compromised the country’s national defense to “hostile actors” yet he asserts Clinton and her cohorts didn’t intend to break the law. “Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” Comey said, “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” Enough to be criminally charged like the Navy reservist from northern California.

When Comey, the federal prosecutor in the Martha Stewart case, put the television celebrity in jail for participating in an insider trading scheme, he acknowledged the importance of not granting special treatment to a rich and famous person. Stewart went to prison for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a sudden stock sale that helped her avoid losing thousands of dollars. In an interview with his college newspaper a few years after Stewart’s conviction Comey, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that if Stewart were Jane Doe she would have been prosecuted. “I thought of my hesitation about the case due to someone being rich and famous, and how it shouldn’t be that way,” Comey said. “I decided we had to do it.”

In Clinton Case, Obama Administration Nullifies 6 Criminal Laws

Zero Hedge

When the Obama Administration, on July 5th, ruled that in regard to Hillary Clinton’s privatized email system while she was Secretary of State, “Our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case” to a grand jury, because “We cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges,” they ignored the following six U.S. criminal laws, each of which undeniably describes very well what she did:

18 U.S. Code § 2232 — Destruction or removal of property to prevent seizure

(a) Destruction or Removal of Property To Prevent Seizure

Whoever, before, during, or after any search for or seizure of property by any person authorized to make such search or seizure, knowingly destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of preventing or impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take such property into its custody or control or to continue holding such property under its lawful custody and control, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

(b) Impairment of In Rem Jurisdiction

Whoever, knowing that property is subject to the in rem jurisdiction of a United States court for purposes of civil forfeiture under Federal law, knowingly and without authority from that court, destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of impairing or defeating the court’s continuing in rem jurisdiction over the property, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

Nearly One Million Illegal Aliens at Large

Frontpagemagazine.com

On July 1, 2016 the title of a Washington Times published report, “Nearly 1 million immigrants — including more than 170K convicts — ignoring deportation,” makes clear that the term “immigration law enforcement,” under this administration especially, is an oxymoron.

Reportedly 170,000 of these aliens have serious criminal histories and pose an immediate threat to the residents of the towns and cities where they live and may continue pursuing their criminal “careers.” “Sanctuary cities” that shield them from detection by the federal government may attract these aliens, thereby endangering their decent law abiding residents. A recent article published by the Discovery Institute, “Sanctuary Cities Can Provide Safe Havens For Terrorists,” focused on the threats sanctuary cities pose to national security and quoted from one of my recent commentaries.

My recent article, “Obama’s Victims: Released Criminal Illegals Commit Rape, Murder, Molestation” explained how the administration’s malfeasance has undermined public safety and has resulted in more innocent people being assaulted and killed.

The laws of nature are immutable; the speed of light does not depend on a cop with a radar gun and a summons book. Our legislated laws, however, are meaningless and worthless if they are not enforced.

Law enforcement is a labor-intensive job. In order for law violators to be punished for their transgressions their crimes need to be discovered and they need to be identified. It is essential that an adequate number of law enforcement officers are “out there” to do this work and to make the physical arrests.

FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook

Image via tariganter.wordpress.com

 

Family Security Matters

by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY

There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.

Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.

In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.

I would point out, moreover, that there are other statutes that criminalize unlawfully removing and transmitting highly classified information with intent to harm the United States. Being not guilty (and, indeed, not even accused) of Offense B does not absolve a person of guilt on Offense A, which she has committed.

It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged. Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged.

It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States. Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we’ve decided she shouldn’t be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information.

I think highly of Jim Comey personally and professionally, but this makes no sense to me.

Finally, I was especially unpersuaded by Director Comey’s claim that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI. To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton’s conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case.

A version of this piece also appeared on National Review  Online.

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-to-let-hillary-off-the-hook?f=must_reads#ixzz4DcSyE891
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