‘Total Bullshit’ - Benghazi Review Panel Member on GOP Report on Clinton
Yet another GOP “scandal” you could say that about.
From Media Matters:
A member of the independent panel that reviewed the September attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya is calling attempts by Fox News and congressional Republicans to blame Hillary Clinton for the deaths of U.S. personnel “total bullshit.”
Fox News has been promoting Republican attacks blaming Hillary Clinton for security cutbacks prior to the September 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya. But Richard Shinnick, a member of the five-person State Department Accountability Review Board that reviewed the Benghazi attacks last fall, says such claims are unfounded.
“Hillary Clinton was never in the loop for that,” said Shinnick, a former 27-year foreign services officer. “It just doesn’t make any sense to anybody who understands the State Department. They all know that the Secretary of State was never in that chain of responding to Benghazi, it just wasn’t so.”
On April 25, the Republican chairmen of five House committees released a report that stated Clinton’s congressional testimony that she was unaware of requests for additional security at the Benghazi compound was false, citing a cable signed by Clinton that responded to one such request by calling for security cuts. Fox News, which has frequently harped on the Benghazi attack to criticize the Obama administration, quickly promoted the GOP attacks, calling them a “Benghazi Bombshell.”
The Republican report specifically criticized the Accountability Review Board for failing to criticize Clinton:
The Board’s finding regarding the security decisions in Benghazi, however, was limited to Diplomatic Security professionals and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. The Committees’ review shows that the leadership failure in relation to security and policy in Benghazi extended to the highest levels of the State Department, including Secretary Clinton.
But Shinnick says the claim that Clinton’s signature on the cable indicates her involvement misrepresents how the State Department operates. He said many directives and orders come through that office without the secretary personally reviewing each.
“Every single cable going out is signed ‘Clinton,’ it is the normal procedure,” Shinnick said. “Millions of cables come into the operation center every year, not thousands, millions. And they are all addressed Hillary Clinton.”
“So you can make a story that Hillary saw a cable and didn’t act on it or sent a cable out; it’s all bullshit, it’s all total bullshit,” Shinnick stressed. “I can’t be any clearer than that. I read those stories and fortunately or unfortunately the people on the ARB understood that. If you don’t want to believe that, then go chase a story.”
“If you don’t want to believe that, then go chase a story.” Love that!