As the Benghazi scandal begins to heat up again, there appears to be some confirmation that CIA employees were required to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) that would prohibit them from speaking with Congress. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) relayed what happened to one such employee who refused to sign the NDA.
CIA Director Brennan: New Benghazi problem.
A CIA employee who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring him from discussing the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has been suspended as a result and forced to hire legal counsel, according to a top House lawmaker.
Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) revealed at an event on Monday that his office was anonymously informed about the CIA employee, who is purportedly facing an internal backlash after refusing to sign a legal document barring him from publicly or privately discussing events surrounding the Benghazi attack.
The revelation comes about a month after several media outlets reported that CIA employees with knowledge of the terror attack had been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and submit to regular polygraph tests.{emphasis ours}
As the Free Beacon points out, this doesn’t square with a letter sent by CIA Director John Brennan to House Intelligence Committee Chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) on September 3rd. In that letter, Brennan reproduced four questions asked of him by Rogers and responded to them. If the aforementioned claim by Wolf is accurate, Mr. Brennan’s answers to two of those questions (#2 and #4) may be more than just a bit problematic:
Brennan says “No” Non-Disclosure agreements.
In question #4, which speaks directly to Wolf’s claim, that a CIA employee faced reprisals for not playing ball, Brennan says no employee has been threatened. According to Wolf, this particular employee was hit with a double-whammy; he was suspended and now has to hire a lawyer. Note what Brennan says in his response to Rogers about what he would do if he found out such threats of reprisals were taking place:
There is Brennan on the record, saying that he “would not… tolerate any such behavior”. However, look who is out of a job and facing reprisals. It’s not the guy who issued the threat and meted out the punishment. By all accounts, it’s the guy on the other end of something Brennan “would not… tolerate”.
Check out Brennan’s personal note to Rogers at the bottom of the letter (h/t Free Beacon):
Brennan “assure(s)” Rogers he “will not tolerate” behavior he’s apparently tolerating.
At its essence, the transparent reason for stonewalling on Benghazi has to do with preventing harm to the Obama administration. In addition to Wolf’s claims belying Brennan’s assurances, consider what an email from Stratfor President Fred Burton said about Brennan in 2010, via Wikileaks (h/t Reason):
Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.
Note — There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…{emphasis ours}
If, as Wolf charges, Brennan “tolerate(s)” the behavior he says he won’t “tolerate”, we may have our answer as to why he would “tolerate” it.
Speaking of Wolf, Liberty News has conducted an interesting interview with the Virginia congressman. Watch as Wolf asserts as a statement of fact, that the CIA Station Chief in Benghazi was given the stand down order on 9/11/12:
Incidentally, Burton is the author of Under Fire, a book about Benghazi that sources survivors of the attack, presumably State Department and CIA officials. We featured an excerpt from Bret Baier’s Special Report (EXHIBIT Y) in our Ironclad report, during which Baier read excerpts from the book.
If Brennan would go after journalists in 2010 as Homeland Security Advisor (counter-terrorism czar), why wouldn’t he approve of making said journalists’ jobs more difficult by playing good cop in a game of preventing Benghazi survivors from talking to them or members of Congress, as CIA Director?
As to our “Ironclad” report, we have been making the case that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood was likely involved in the attack. In addition to wanting to protect the Obama administration, anyone wanting to protect the Muslim Brotherhood would also want to stonewall on Benghazi.
Let’s close this report with the claims of former U.S. Marine and FBI Agent John Guandolo, who charged earlier this year that Brennan converted to Islam in the 1990’s while a CIA Station Chief in Saudi Arabia: