President Obama raised eyebrows today with his press conference statement that he was unaware of news stories about Benghazi whistleblowers being blocked and even threatened by the State Department.“I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody has been blocked from testifying,” said Obama to a question from Jessica Yellin of CNN. “So what I’ll do is I will find out what exactly you are referring to.”
The President must be the only person in Washington who has not heard about the Benghazi whistleblowers. Congress has been trying to gain access to the survivors of the terrorist attack for months. Indeed, during his congressional testimony on April 21, Secretary of State John Kerry promised them he would make it happen. Well, it turns out the opposite is the case.
As reported by Fox News yesterday, at least four career employees at the State Department and the CIA are ready to provide information to Congress that can give insights into what happened that fateful night at the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi.
This news is of huge importance. We have to understand the systemic and individual failures that led to the deaths of four brave Americans in order fix the problems... However, considering that the survivors of Benghazi have been incommunicado for all these months, it is perhaps not surprising to learn that the potential whistleblowers are allegedly being threatened with career-ending consequences if they speak.
At every step of the way, the Obama Administration has been obfuscating the facts of the September 11 terrorist attack, misleading the public, dragging its feet, and—according to the report released by five House committees last week—trying to whitewash its own security and intelligence failures. Expect fireworks when the whistleblowers finally do get to tell their stories.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) says that the President's answers are, eh, hokum:
A lawyer for Benghazi whistleblowers has publicly stated that the State Department is blocking her client's ability to talk freely with counsel. Over the past two weeks, I have sent four letters requesting that this Administration make information available about how lawyers, who already have security clearances and are representing Benghazi whistleblowers, can be cleared to fully hear their clients' stories. I have yet to receive any response from the Obama Administration.
Even if the President really doesn't know anything about someone wanting to come forward, his position should be that whistleblowers deserve protection and that anyone who has different information about Benghazi is free to come forward to Congress. The President's unwillingness to commit himself to protecting whistleblowers only aids those in his Administration who are intimidating them.
Perhaps the President would agree to a polygraph examination so we can get to the bottom of this. Although the person administering the test had better wear a welding mask in case the box explodes into billions of pieces of shrapnel.
Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.
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