With Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly accepting ‘responsibility’ for the security of all State Department diplomats stationed at the various outposts all over the world – including at the Benghazi consulate – shouldn’t the matter of her closest adviser, Huma Abedin become relevant again?

Hillary’s acceptance of responsibility should also come with a requirement to testify in front of the congressional committee that has decided to take the lead in investigating what happened at Benghazi.

That would be the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).

Testimony given by four State Department officials at an Oversight Committee hearing on October 10th revealed that security – which Hillary has said she is ultimately responsible for – in Benghazi was woefully inadequate, despite repeated requests for additional security assets in Libya. Regional Security Officer (RSO) Eric Nordstrom was so frustrated with the State Department’s refusal to release assets that he said it felt like “the Taliban was on the inside of the building”. Lt. Col. Andrew Wood said of his own attempts to acquire additional security assets:

“We were fighting a losing battle. We couldn’t even keep what we had.”

The failures in Benghazi are becoming painfully obvious. They were political, cultural, procedural and the result of very bad policies implemented as a result of incompetence, negligence, or malice.

In October 10th testimony, Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary for international programs at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomat Security said in response to Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL) that she did not have sole authority to deny requests for security assets. When Adams demanded the names of who did, Lamb begrudgingly provided them:

The two men Lamb singled out as being responsible for having the authority to deny security assets should also be called to testify.

However, while many may consider it admirable for Secretary Clinton to inform us all that the buck stops with her, any such admiration should come with an expectation of transparency and forthrightness. Responsibility without accountability isn’t worth a wooden nickel.

On June 13th, Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other congressmen sent five separate letters to five separate Inspectors General. One of those letters went to the Deputy Inspector General at the State Department. The primary concern expressed in the letters was the possibility that there has been Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. Government. The most controversial name mentioned by Bachmann, et. al. was Huma Abedin, who was singled out in the letter to the State Department. Abedin, Secretary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff and closest adviser, has extensive and irrefutable familial ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and an al-Qaeda financier named Abdullah Omar Naseef.

It has now been widely acknowledged that the attack in Benghazi was either perpetrated by al-Qaeda or entities sympathetic to al-Qaeda.

Remember, al-Qaeda is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Though each group has shared goals, preferred means of achieving them are quite different.

That brings us back to Huma Abein. For twelve years, she worked as an Assistant Editor with the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA), leaving in late 2008 to take a job with Hillary Clinton at the State Department.

Again, the IMMA was founded by none other than al-Qaeda financier Naseef, who served on the IMMA advisory board for many years while Huma sat on the Editorial Board.

While it may not be common protocol to call advisers to testify in front of congressional committees, the case of Huma Abedin does seem to present a unique set of circumstances. Her her mother and the wife of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi being close colleagues in the Muslim Sisterhood.

By accepting responsibility for the security of all State Department diplomats, Hillary Clinton has welcomed the spotlight of scrutiny whether she wants it or not. As her closest adviser, Huma Abedin should not escape that spotlight in light of both her background and her significant influence on Hillary.

Based on Abedin’s connections to entities and individuals that have shown support for al-Qaeda’s agenda in the past, she should be required to testify as well.

Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the book, Unsung Davids, which features a chapter on Walid Shoebat