Federal Bureau Of Investigation
The FBI opened its investigation soon after the attack and it remains ongoing. On May 2, 2013, the FBI released photos of three men from the Benghazi attack site, asking for help from the public in identifying the individuals. On June 16, 2014, in a joint effort by U.S. Special Operations and the FBI near Benghazi, Libya, an alleged ringleader of the Benghazi attack, Ahmed Abu Khattala, was apprehended. He was removed to a U.S. warship in the Mediterranean and was later to be transported to the United States.
Us Inquiry Into Fbi Clinton Spurred By Republicans Ends Without Results: Washington Post
By Makini Brice
3 Min Read
WASHINGTON – A U.S. Justice Department inquiry into Republican allegations of misconduct at the department and the FBI, including its handling of investigations related to 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, effectively ended without tangible results, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed here John Huber, Utah’s top federal prosecutor, to look into matters including allegations that the FBI had not fully pursued possible corruption cases at the Clinton Foundation and during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State, when the federal government allowed the sale of a company called Uranium One, the Post reported.
The assignment has ended, but no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers, the Washington Post reported washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-winds-down-clinton-related-inquiry-once-championed-by-trump-it-found-nothing-of-consequence/2020/01/09/ca83932e-32f9-11ea-a053-dc6d944ba776_story.html. Current and former law enforcement officials said they had not expected the probe to uncover anything, according to the newspaper.
A Justice Department spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In 2017, Republican lawmakers opened here a congressional investigation into the 2010 sale of Uranium One, a Canadian company that owned 20 percent of U.S. uranium supplies, to a Russian government firm.
The Gop Pushed Benghazi Probes For Years Its Already Done With Jan 6
Republicans spent years pushing for investigation after investigation of the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya. But when it comes to the Jan. 6 insurrection, theyre already very much over it.
A new poll from Quinnipiac University is the latest to show Republicans dont really want any type of investigation of the riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The poll gave people a choice between the idea that it was an attack on democracy that should never be forgotten, and the idea that its overblown and its time to move on. Three-quarters of Republicans 75 percent chose move on.
That binary choice is a little overly simplistic, admittedly. It asks people to choose between two polar opposites, when they might be more in the middle. But when asked whether they support Congresss investigation of Jan. 6, GOP support for the probe isnt much higher. Just 29 percent of Republicans support the probe.
It might be tempting to view this as a symptom of how the probe is being conducted, rather than the necessity of some kind of investigation. Republicans cried foul over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejecting GOP picks for the select committee, and Republicans voted overwhelmingly against both an independent commission and Pelosis fallback plan for a select committee.
But polling suggests thats not really the case that this really is about just not wanting to investigate at all.
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Fbi Report And Notes From Clinton’s Interview Released
On September 2, 2016, the FBI released a 58-page report on its investigation into Clinton’s private email server, including 11 pages of notes taken during the agency’s interview with Clinton. “We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act requests,” the FBI National Press Office said in a statement.
According to the report, Clinton “did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system. She “relied on State officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address.” Clinton also said that when she received a document marked with a “C,” she had not been certain that it was an indication of its classification.
Clinton was also asked about her knowledge of records management practices in the interview. Clinton “stated she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from State” when she was leaving office, although she suffered a concussion and blood clot in December 2012 and “could not recall every briefing she received” around that time.
House Gop Quietly Ends Probe Into Fbis 2016 Decisions
WASHINGTON House Republicans say more investigation is needed into decisions made by the FBI and the Justice Department in 2016 as they brought an unceremonious end to their yearlong look at the departments handling of probes into Democrat Hillary Clintons emails and Donald Trumps ties to Russia.
In a letter released Friday evening, less than a week before Republicans cede the House majority to Democrats, the chairmen of two House committees described what they said was the seemingly disparate treatment the two probes received during the presidential election in 2016 and called on the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate further.
House Judiciary Chairman Robert Goodlatte and Rep. Trey Gowdy, House Oversight and Government Reform chairman, both of whom are retiring next week, sent a letter to the Justice Department and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying they reviewed thousands of documents and conducted interviews that revealed troubling facts which exacerbated our initial questions and concerns. Republicans have said since the election that they believe Justice officials were biased against President Trump when they started an investigation into his ties to Russia and cleared Clinton in a separate probe into her email use.
The Republicans have insisted that they were not trying to undermine the Mueller probe.
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Depositions Of Clinton Aides
| Fox News, “Trey Gowdy on efforts to retrieve Hillary Clinton’s emails,” March 15, 2015. |
In his deposition for the House Select Committee on Benghazi on September 10, 2015, Pagliano formally invoked the Fifth Amendment. Gowdy said the committees Republicans had prepared 19 pages of questions for Pagliano. He has a right to not answer questions that he thinks may incriminate him,” said Gowdy, “and you have a right to glean any inference you want from the fact that he has.”
U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings , a member of the committee, called Paglianos deposition political theater. In a statement released on September 10, 2015, Cummings said, Mr. Paglianos testimony has nothing to do with the Benghazi attacks and everything to do with Republicans insatiable desire to derail Secretary Clintons presidential bid. If Chairman Gowdy actually wanted to find out what Mr. Pagliano knows, he would follow the lead of Senate Republicans and consider immunity something Democrats would support.
Cheryl Mills, an advisor to Clinton, testified before the Select Committee on Benghazi on September 3, 2015. The committee rejected Mills request to testify in public, but Cummings asked the committee to release a copy of Mills testimony. The entire public does not deserve to have leaks that are taken out of context, and leaving the wrong impression, Cummings said.
Republican Committees Investigate Clinton And Obama
Congressional Republicans have announced parallel inquiries into a uranium deal under President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s emails.
One committee will investigate how the Obama administration approved a 2010 acquisition that gave Russia control of 20% of the US uranium supply.
Two other panels will scrutinise the FBI decision not to charge Mrs Clinton over her private email server.
Democrats pilloried the inquiries as “a massive diversion”.
Both issues to be placed under the spotlight by the committees are longstanding political grievances of President Donald Trump.
His campaign aides are currently the subject of congressional investigations into whether they colluded with alleged Kremlin attempts to sway last year’s US presidential election.
On Tuesday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy announced inquiries into the previous administration.
They said there were “outstanding questions” about the FBI’s investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Mrs Clinton’s emails.
The congressmen said they wished to know why former FBI director James Comey chose to divulge the inquiry into Mrs Clinton, but not the one about Trump aides and Russia.
Also on Tuesday, Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, announced his panel’s inquiry into the sale of a Canadian mining firm that had mines in the American West.
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Federal Lawsuits Related To Foia Requests
As of September 2015, there were approximately 35 federal cases related to FOIA requests for emails sent or received by Clinton while she was secretary of state. One claim by Vice News investigative reporter Jason Leopold predated Clinton’s public recognition of her private email server. Leopold sued the State Department in January 2015 arguing it failed to timely respond to his November 4, 2014, FOIA request for “any and all records that were prepared, received, transmitted, collected and/or maintained by” the agency between January 21, 2009, and February 1, 2013, that related to Clinton.
In May 2015, the State Department proposed releasing 55,000 pages of Clinton’s emails on January 15, 2016, but Judge Rudolph Contreras of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected this plan. Instead, on May 27, 2015, Contreras ordered the State Department to produce batches of Clinton’s emails every 30 days beginning June 30, 2015.
In a report released on January 8, 2016, the Office of the Inspector General found the State Department had given inaccurate and incomplete answers to inquiries about Clintons records. We know we must continue to improve our FOIA responsiveness and are taking additional steps to do so, John Kirby, a spokesman for the State Department, said.
State Department Accountability Review Board
As required by the Omnibus Diplomatic and Antiterrorism Act of 1986, the State Department established on October 4, 2012, an Accountability Review Board “to examine the facts and circumstances of the attacks”. Four members were selected by Clinton and another was selected by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper. Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering served as the Chairman, Admiral Michael Mullen served as the Vice Chairman, also serving were Catherine Bertini, Richard Shinnick, and Hugh Turner, who represented the intelligence community.
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Republicans Release Benghazi Report With No New Evidence Against Hillary Clinton
After an exhaustive and politically charged investigation that went on for years and cost millions of dollars, Republicans on the House Benghazi committee released a final report Tuesday that shed little new light on the U.S. response to the 2012 attacks in that Libyan city.
The 800-page report, which Democrats on the committee denounced as a sham focused on discrediting Hillary Clinton before it was even released, included no new evidence of wrongdoing by the former secretary of State. While it argues that the State Department, under her leadership, inadequately protected its staff in Benghazi, its criticism focused more broadly on the Obama administration.
The report accuses the government of incompetence at various levels, including a failure to deploy needed military assets, CIA intelligence reports that were rife with errors and misguided planning, even in the midst of the violence.
Not a single wheel of a single U.S. military asset had even turned toward Libya, Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, the committee chairman, said Tuesday at a committee news conference on Capitol Hill unveiling the report, making the case that the administration ignored dozens of warning signs that violence was imminent.
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House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthys gloating on cable news that the committee would hurt Clintons White House chances also fueled the narrative that it was not a serious fact-finding mission.
Watch The Benghazi Hearing In 3 Minutes
Watch highlights from the House hearing about an attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012, when Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state. The hearing began at 10 a.m. and, with breaks, lasted until 9 p.m.
Previous investigations concluded that State Department officials had erred in not better securing the diplomatic compound amid reports of a deteriorating security situation. But they also determined that the attacks had come with little warning and that it would have been difficult to intervene once they had begun.
The investigations generally concluded that after the attack, the Obama administrations talking points were flawed but not deliberately misleading.
The Pentagon had no forces that could be readily sent to Benghazi when the crisis began. The closest AC-130 gunship was in Afghanistan. There were no armed drones within range of Libya. There was no Marine expeditionary unit, a large seaborne force with its own helicopters, in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Africa Command also did not have on hand a force able to respond rapidly to emergencies. Every other regional command had one at the time. The Pentagon was caught unprepared for this type of crisis.
The unclassified version of an independent 2012 report, headed by Thomas R. Pickering, a former diplomat, concluded that there simply was not enough time, given the speed of the attacks, for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference.
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New Questions Arise After Benghazi Report
A Select Committee spokesman dismissed the Democrats report as rehashed, partisan talking points aimed at defending Hillary Clinton.
Appearing on Morning Joe on Tuesday, Gowdy dismissed Democrats’ charge that the report targeted Clinton for political reasons rather than investigating the reasons for the loss of American lives in the attack.
“They will be shocked when they read the report, if they do bother to read the report,” Gowdy said. “It is a series of heroic acts by our fellow Americans and what we can do to prevent the next “
“Yes, Hillary Clinton was secretary of state at the time,” he added. “I can’t get around that fact, but the focus of this report is on exactly what the families asked us to focus on.”
A senior White House officials told NBC News on Tuesday that the report released by the Republican majority on the committee “has been a right-wing conspiracy theory for years now and has been debunked several times over, including by Republican reports and investigations.”
Formation And Initial Investigation
The House Select Committee on Benghazi was established on May 8, 2014, to investigate and issue a report on the “policies, decisions, and activities that contributed to” the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, which resulted in the death of four AmericansAmbassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods. Since Clinton was secretary of state during the attack, the committee initiated a review of her communications related to the incident.
On March 4, 2015, the committee subpoenaed Clinton to produce any and all documents about Libya between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2012.
The subpoena’s production request read:
| For the time period of January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2012, any and all documents and communications in your possession, and/or sent from or received by the email addresses “[email protected],” “[email protected],” or any other email address or communications device used by you or another on your behalf, referring or relating to:
Libya ; weapons located or found in, imported or brought into, and/or exported or removed from Libya; the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 and September 12, 2012; or statements pertaining to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 and September 12, 2012. |
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House Republicans Release Long
A long-awaited report on the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi details an array of bureaucratic miscues and inter-agency blunders but does not specifically blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for events that led to the deaths of four Americans.
The 800-page document represents the end of a costly, politically charged investigation led by House Republicans who sought to understand how the attack unfolded, and how the Obama administration including Clinton responded. Democrats accused Republicans of using the inquiry to hurt Clinton’s chances at the presidency. But after more than two years and an estimated $7 million, the report, released Tuesday, instead paints a more nuanced portrait of incompetence.
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It details a misunderstanding of America’s allies, a mistaken belief that fighting had subsided and breakdowns that delayed the military’s attempts to save Americans from the diplomatic compound including the inability to decide whether Marines should wear their uniforms.
The report also offers new details about why U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, one of the casualties, was at the compound in the Libyan city with only two State Department bodyguards, months after the British and others had evacuated the area.
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Hillary Clinton Email Investigation
While serving as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, Hillary Clinton said she exclusively used a private email account to send both personal messages and communications related to official State Department business. By managing her email in this manner, Clinton potentially violated record-keeping, transparency, and security regulations.
There were three lines of inquiry into Clinton’s emails:
HIGHLIGHTS
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