Official or unofficial? No HRC email for that day has been released
Maybe Trey Gowdy managed to inflict a political wound on Hillary Clinton by accident. Not with his 800-page report full of of rehash and bombast, but with the incidental finding that Hillary had conducted all of her official SecState business over a private email server.
A much shorter report issued last month by the State Department’s inspector general was arguably a bigger blow to Mrs. Clinton’s credibility than this one. It confirmed that her email arrangement violated State Department rules, showed the lengths to which her aides went to avoid setting up a proper account for her and disclosed that her home server was hastily shut down at least once because of fears it had been hacked.
That OIG report is non-partisan and has a dispassionate, measured, tone. Quite possibly, it presents a bigger political problem for HRC than anything Trey Gowdy accomplished in over two years of trying.
It's only a proposed report at this time, meaning that the minority side will have the chance to review and comment before the full committee votes the report out. There's no telling when that might be, however, since the two sides don't seem to be on speaking terms.
For potential political impact on the 2016 election, see the last section of the report,
Proposed additional views of Representatives Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo, which has a fairly devastating "Public vs. Private Timeline" of Hillary Clinton's conflicting statements in the days after the attack. Starting on page 18.
See also the astonished reaction of NEA Bureau officials to UN Ambassador Susan Rice's performance on all five Sunday talk shows on 16 September during which she absolutely insisted the attack in Benghazi was a spontaneous mob reaction incited by the Innocence of Muslims video.
On Monday, September 17, 2012, some State Department officials reacted with shock to Ambassador Rice’s claims. Specifically, the Department’s NEA Bureau press department—the experts on Libya—reacted with disbelief. The discussion began with NEA’s Senior Libyan Desk Officer reacting to draft press guidance that quoted the CIA talking points by saying, “I really hope this was revised. I don’t think we should go on the record on this.” This led to the Deputy Director, Office of Maghreb Affairs, NEA saying, “Not sure we want to be so definitive[,]”
NEA Spokesperson:
The horse has left the barn on this, don’t you think? Rice was on FIVE Sunday Morning shows yesterday saying this. Tough to walk back.
Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, NEA:
[Nuland] planned on walking it back just a bit, though.
Senior Libyan Desk Officer, NEA:
I think Rice was off the reservation on this one.
Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, NEA:
Yup. Luckily there’s enough in her language to fudge exactly what she said/meant.
NEA Spokesperson:
Off the reservation on five networks!
Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, NEA:
[White House] very worried about the politics. This was all their doing.
The White House was very worried about the politics? What's new about that? We are all very worried about the politics, aren't we? White House and Congress, majority side and minority, Trump and Clinton. It's what we all have in common. To quote Elwood Blues: remember, people, that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive, and survive, there are still some things that make us all the same. You. Me. Them. Everybody. Everybody.
I'm reading through the report by the Democratic side of the House Benghazi Select Committee, and so far the best stuff is toward the end, where the minority Members unload on Chairman Gowdy.
For example, there is this list of the various unmet deadlines that Representative Trey Gowdy has, over the years, announced for completion of the Committee's business.
Chairman Gowdy has repeatedly postponed his estimates for when the Select Committee would conclude its investigation and issue its final report:
In August 2014, Chairman Gowdy stated that he planned to complete the investigation by the “end of 2015.”
In April 2015, Chairman Gowdy stated that the Committee’s report would not be issued until 2016.
In January 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated that he would finish interviews “within the month.”
In March 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated that he would release his report “before summer.”
In April 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated that his target date was “mid-June.
In May 2016, Chairman Gowdy stated the Select Committee’s work would conclude “before the conventions” in mid-July.
Do you think he'll keep that last promise to conclude by mid-July? Me neither. But he has to end this thing someday, and just maybe today's minority report will motivate him to paddle faster.
I like the recommendations at the end of the report, many of which address the need for Congress to keep budgeting for all the other recommendations that have already been made by the Benghazi Accountability Review Board and other parties.
Most of that funding pays for the continuation of the Capital Security Construction Program, which replaces old and vulnerable diplomatic facilities with purpose-built and secure new buildings. The recommendations section includes this highly pertinent quote from the testimony of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs:
Then there is there is [sic] the macro [funding] question, Congressman, and that is that the best defense is ability to construct the new facilities that you have provided us additional funds for. Subsequent to the attack on Benghazi there was a major attack on our compound in Tunisia and there was a major attack on our compound in Khartoum. Those buildings held out and not a single American was killed or injured for over 8 hours until host nation security forces mobilized to defend us. But those building, in Khartoum and in Tunisia, were the new, modern buildings that we have had the assistance of the Congress and the funding to build. It is just that on a macro sense, because of the increase in the value of the dollar and because of inflation worldwide, the program that we started after Nairobi and Dar es Salaam [were attacked in August 1998] we were building eight Embassies a year then. Because of the decrease in funding we were building three.
Building more Fortress Embassies isn't the answer to every overseas security problem. But it could very well be the solution to the problem of surviving prolonged incidents of political violence, with our own resources, until our host governments become willing and able to intervene. Isn't that enough?
The Benghazi Select Committee hearing is still going on as we approach 8PM. I'm home trying to catch up while having a brew, and so far I have to give this match to Hillary.
One interesting thing happened right around 7PM, when Rep. Susan Brooks played the SECCA card. SECCA is the Secure Embassy Construction and Counterterrorism Act of 1999, and it creates certain legal requirements for physical security at overseas diplomatic facilities. Rep Brooks quoted to Hillary Clinton from Foreign Affairs Manual 12 FAM-315, which concerns SECCA and the SecState's authority to waive certain requirements of the law if he or she finds it is in the national interest.
BTW, that Foreign Affairs Manual is a publicly available source of information which you may read for yourself here.
Anyway, Rep. Brooks evidently thought she had Hillary dead to rights on the question of whether or not she had signed a waiver for the Benghazi Special Mission facility. That sounded like Hillary is in quite a fix. Either she deliberately waived security standards - which would be politically explosive - or else she was at fault for not complying with the law. So which was it? Did she or did she not sign a waiver?
It was neither. A waiver was not required, because SECCA did not in fact apply to the Benghazi Special Mission. Evidently, neither Rep. Brooks nor her staffers bothered to actually read much of that Foreign Affairs Manual, or else she would have read 12 FAM-313, para b., in which it states that "for purposes of applying SECCA, a U.S. diplomatic facility is any chancery, consulate, or other office notified to the host government as diplomatic or consular premises ..." The Special Mission was not a chancery or consulate or any other kind of office so notified.
So, to quote White Goodman of the great movie Dodgeball, "you can put away your rule book on that one, Poindexter." Point: Hillary.
Now, will this hearing ever end so I can go to bed?
The House Benghazi Special Committee interviews Hillary Clinton tomorrow in a marathon public session that starts at 10AM and may run into late afternoon. To view it live, watch this space.
It will be Committee Chairman Harold Watson Gowdy III ("Trey") versus Hillary Rodham Clinton. Gowdy gets only one shot, since Hillary has agreed to a single session. When the hearing ends tomorrow afternoon, which one will go home victorious, and which one will just go home?
Judging by the enthusiasm with which he badgered the Director of the U.S. Secret Service at yesterday's Oversight Committee hearing, Representative Jason Chaffetz, the bad-ass wannabe who represents Utah's 3rd District, seems to have found a new pet project and outlet for his Walter Mitty side.
If the Secret Service keeps giving him such great material for oversight he might even forgot about his other pet project, embassy security.
Okay, so yesterday's hearing was an utter embarrassment for the Secret Service. Both sides of the Committee took turns hitting the witness hard, and the Service had it coming. But then, about two and a half hours into it, Chairman Chaffetz suddenly peeled out of formation and launched into an outburst of threats and obsolete cop jargon directed at the evidently disturbed woman who initiated this latest scandal when she dropped a package in the street in front of White House on March 4 and then drove off, escaping arrest until two days later.
Chaffetz told the Secret Service Director how he would have handled that situation.
“I want her taken down! I want a net to go over this city! ... Take ‘em down! Take ‘em down! That’s what I want to see happen.”
Yes, he actually said I want a net to go over this city. Where did he get that from, some old film noir hard-boiled detective movie on TCM? It's of an era with 'if that dame tries to scram outta here, I'll pull my roscoe and ventilate her! Sweat that broad under the hot lights back in the squad room and she'll open up like a cheap suitcase! And don't youse let that doll talk to her mouthpiece until she spills the beans!'
His strange rant was promptly posted on the Oversight Committee’s You-Tube channel within minutes:
That Secret Service hearing was such a great stage for histrionic politicians that Trey Gowdy temporarily dropped his Benghazi select committee investigations to do some hasty and ill-prepared questioning of his own. He even stepped on Chaffetz's toes a little, trying to horn in on Chaffetz’s prerogative as Chairman for this one.
Gowdy mostly did some pointless quibbling with the Service's Director over the relative importance of Congressional oversight versus the Service OIG's investigative interest. Amusingly, he referred to "dueling narratives.” I think that's a bad phrase for someone who speaks with such a pronounced Deliverance accent.
The entire hearing is embedded below, just in case you're a glutton for punishment.
