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Updated for Editor's Notes: I publish these emailed updates from Judicial Watch, as often as possible. At the bottom of this post is a live link (I hope) that allows you to make a donation. "Money walks while BS only talks" - as some say (or, maybe that is only my personal colloquialism) . I have highlighted (in red) the real meat of this review. Understand that JW is able to "get things done" when others, including congress, cannot or will not. In the case of the Benghazi cover-up and the multitude of political "stunts" associated with the cover-up, it is JW that was able to secure unredacted (read "harshly edited") copies of emails that take this cover-up into the White House, and, makes Hillary look all the worse, as Secretary of State, along the way. We finally have a Select House Committee because of the work Judicial Watch has done. 5, 10, 15, 20 dollars would help, I'm sure. There is no more critical effort, politically speaking, than the recover of our nation from the hands of the Marxist collectivists who are, now, our Overlords. |
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 They also colluded to try to convince the public of Obama's "strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges." Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an "attack" and a possible kidnap attempt.If you watched the ongoing, remarkable coverage of the Judicial Watch expose, you will recall that the Obama administration's first response was to trot out White House press secretary Jay Carney to tell reporters not to believe their own eyes. Yes, he intoned, of course there was a memo from Rhodes - but it was not about Benghazi: "This document was explicitly not about Benghazi, but about the general dynamic in the Muslim world at the time," said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. One blogger over at The Washington Post called the Obama response to the Judicial Watch material, "the worst excuse ever" And Fox News' Brett Bair termed it "surreal":
This was a surreal answer from Jay Carney. Now, this is a prep session with Susan Rice, getting ready for five Sunday talk shows. This is three days after 9/11 when four Americans, including the American ambassador to Libya, are killed. Everybody in the chain has said it's a terrorist attack, everyone in the chain is saying there's no protest. And yet this email, if we're to believe Jay Carney at the White House, had nothing to do with Benghazi ... Now, that really strains credulity, I mean it is really out there.
In an explosive op-ed in the Washington Times, Judge Andrew Napolitano gave Judicial Watch full credit for getting hold of critical material that the House of Representatives had been denied by a battened-down Obama White House:
The White House responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the fearless private watchdog group Judicial Watch and turned over an email about constructing the appropriate narrative response to the tragedy at Benghazi written by Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Obama.
When investigators from the House of Representatives realized that they had subpoenaed that email and not received it, they knew that there was far more to learn about the affair than met the eye.
After we broke the story, House Speaker John Boehner reacted by calling for a House vote on forming a Select Committee on Benghazi. And I issued the following statement in support of his move:
I applaud Speaker Boehner's decision today to finally move toward a Select Committee on Benghazi in response to revelations from Judicial Watch. This is long overdue. Judicial Watch is pleased that its work uncovered the "smoking gun" Rhodes email that led to this important step. Five House Committees have failed for nearly two years to get to the bottom of the Benghazi mess and have been trifled with by a stonewalling administration. We stand ready to assist Congress in any investigation of this important issue.
Now, this is a long time coming. Judicial Watch had been part of a broad coalition calling for Boehner to appoint a select committee for some time. It finally took our startling disclosure, tying the White House to Benghazi lies, to push Boehner over the edge. Congress had been denied this document, and its investigation and subpoenas had been thwarted by the Obama gang. To his credit, the Speaker of the House had had enough. But, even with all of that, we still aren't finished. We are pleased that there is now a Select Committee but if you know Judicial Watch, you also know that we aren't going to shut down our investigations and lawsuits just because a new congressional committee has been formed. And so our battle to expose the truth on Benghazi is only heating up. A Vaughn Index is a document prepared by a federal agency to justify and detail the withholding of material from public disclosure. The State Department sent the Benghazi draft Vaughn Index to Judicial Watch on May 1, 2014, in accordance with a court order of October 1, 2013. The new document seeks to justify withholding internal Obama administration exchanges about the Benghazi attack dating back to a September 11, 2013, interagency email exchange containing redactions of an opinion offered on how to respond Benghazi attack updates. Though the State Department document repeatedly describes the material as "Unclassified" or "Sensitive But Unclassified," it nonetheless justifies scores of extensive redactions and exemptions. I'm going to go through this material in detail for you because much of the media will do its best provide cover for a White House already under attack because of Judicial Watch's revelations. The majority of material in the draft Vaughn Index document pertains to "various drafts, and comments related to the drafts, of a proposed letter from United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN) Ambassador Susan Rice in response to various Congressional inquiries regarding the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya." The internal debate about the Rice response apparently continued until October 30, 2012. The material obtained by Judicial Watch included the following descriptions related to redacted or exempted material: [The Vaughan Index includes the following critical docs ~ blog editor]:
• Document C05415305 is a seven-page inter-agency e-mail exchange consisting of sixteen messages between State Department and other U.S. Government officials [Rhodes, Brennan, McDonough . . .] on September 27 and September 28, 2012, with an original subject line "FOX News: US officials knew Libya attack was terrorism within 24 hours, sources confirm." Subsequent e-mail subject lines were redacted. The document was originally designated SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED. The Department withheld comments, opinions and assessments related to the formulation of a media strategy with respect to an ongoing sensitive matter under Exemption 5 pursuant to the deliberative process privilege...The information withheld under Exemption 5 is pre-decisional and deliberative in nature. The release of this information could reasonably be expected to chill the frank deliberations that occur when State Department and other U.S. Government officials are formulating public responses to address sensitive issues. The material is therefore exempt under FOIA Exemption 5, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(5), pursuant to the deliberative process privilege."
• Document C05415752 is a one-page intra-agency e-mail exchange, consisting of three messages, that is dated September 11, 2012, and bears the subject line "UPDATE: Clashes at U.S. consulate in eastern Libyan city (Reuters)." The Department withheld an opinion offered in response to an update regarding the Benghazi attack under FOIA Exemption 5 pursuant to the deliberative process privilege.
• Document C05415756 is a four-page intra-agency e-mail exchange consisting of ten messages between State Department officials, dated September 11, 2012, with the subject line "Libya update from Beth Jones." [Jones was Assistant Secretary of State to Hillary Clinton at the time of the Benghazi attack.]
• Document C05415286 is a three-page intra-agency e-mail exchange, consisting of three messages, dated September 15, 2012, between various State Department personnel. This document ... gives a readout and comments on an internal video conference held by U.S. Government officials on September 15, which discussed the security situation in parts of the Islamic world in the wake of a controversial film on the Prophet Mohammed.
• Document C05415951 is a three-page intra-agency e-mail exchange, consisting of six messages, between State Department and other U.S. Government officials, dated September 28, 2012 and originally designated UNCLASSIFIED. The subject line of the first five messages is "Statement by the Director of Public Affairs for National Intelligence Shawn Turner on the intelligence related to the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya."
• Document C05415969 is a three-page intra-agency e-mail exchange, consisting of six messages, dated September 29-30, 2012. The subject line of the messages is "Benghazi Draft Response Letter- v14." The Department withheld candid comments, opinions and assessments made during internal strategy discussions related to the drafting of an official response letter under FOIA Exemption 5 pursuant to the deliberative process privilege.
• Documents C05416026 is a two-page intra-agency e-mail exchange, consisting of three messages, dated September 30, 2012. The subject lines of the three messages are, beginning with the earliest in time, "Press Recommendation on Libya," "Draft Response - Vl 7," and "[Redacted] version of the response letter."
The State Department's withholdings make President Obama's transparency pledges seem like a joke. In one of his first official acts (on January 21, 2009, President Obama issued a memorandum on FOIA that includes the following:
Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.
All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order 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.
This document is a guide to the Obama administration's Benghazi cover up. While Congress finally tries to get its act together, while the liberal media attacks, Judicial Watch will keep plugging away in court to get at the truth about Benghazi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Until next week...  Tom Fitton President |
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