…(the Muslim Brotherhood’s) work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. – Muslim Brotherhood document, 5/19/91
…the (State) Department’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members – her late father, her mother and her brother – connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. Her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making. – Rep. Michele Bachmann, in letter to State Department Deputy Inspector General, 6/13/12
“I am not a signatory to that letter… and I don’t share the feelings that are in that letter.” Senator Marco Rubio in response to Bachmann’s letter, 7/19/12
That we operated with a skeleton staff in such a precarious environment is clear evidence that we failed to connect the dots. That is a mistake we simply can’t afford to make again – in Libya or anywhere else with an American diplomatic presence.- Senator Marco Rubio on the Benghazi attack, 12/26/12
With its report on the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi, the Accountability Review Board (ARB) singled out the State Department – where Huma Abedin holds a high level position – for blame.
Earlier this week, in an op-ed, Senator Marco Rubio wrote that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should testify about what she knew and why her Department ‘failed’ to protect the consulate Special Mission Compound (SMC) in Benghazi:
Last month, while on a trip to Peru, Secretary Clinton said she that she took full responsibility for the events in Benghazi. I take her at her word. As the nation’s top diplomat, she should therefore appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in both open and classified hearings to discuss the ARB’s findings. She should explain why her department failed to adequately secure the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi and what her personal level of knowledge was of Libya security deficiencies, warnings about which Deputy Secretary of State William Burns testified were circulated to the highest levels of the State Department, presumably including Secretary Clinton. More importantly, Secretary Clinton should elaborate on how the State Department plans to fix the broad systemic failures that the Board identified.
We both agree with and applaud Senator Rubio for taking this position but would also encourage the Senator to re-think the views he expressed in the wake of the letter sent by Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other congressmen to the State Department’s Deputy Inspector General less than three months before the attack on the Benghazi consulate SMC.
In July, during an NPR radio interview, Rubio defended Abedin while saying he didn’t know her but understood her to be a “professional and hardworking and patriotic American who loves her country”. Based on Abedin’s very quantifiable relationships, coupled with her position, why wouldn’t Rubio want to dig a bit deeper, especially after Abedin’s Department was found to be at fault by the ARB over what happened in Benghazi?
In the months after the attack, a central argument about who was involved centered around whether Al-Qaeda was responsible. The resignation of General Carter Ham, head of the U.S. Military’s Command in Africa (AFRICOM), was announced shortly after Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said Ham told him the General was never asked to provide military support to the Benghazi consulate SMC. That account didn’t jibe with what Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said. A few weeks later, and prior to resigning his post, Ham said that some of the attackers were part of Al-Qaeda’s North Africa arm.
Let us not forget that as Gadhafi’s time was running out, the National Transitional Council (NTC) appointed Al-Qaeda ally and ‘brother’ – Abdel Belhaj – as head of security in Tripoli from 8/30/11 – Spring of 2012, to include the U.S. Embassy where Christopher Stevens would work from May of 2012, until his death on 9/11/12. Stevens had been a Special Representative to the NTC during Belhaj’s tenure as head of Security.
As the two sides debated the issue of any Al-Qaeda involvement, the larger point has been consistently missed: did the attackers have similar objectives to those of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Once that question can be sufficiently answered in the affirmative, Abedin’s irrefutable familial connections to the Muslim Brotherhood instantly become more relevant, especially in light of the fact that the contents of her Form 86, which she necessarily should have completed before getting her security clearance, remain a mystery.
Another question that should be asked: Does the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt – Mohammed Morsi – have an interest in seeing such Al-Qaeda linked forces prevail in Libya?
Once that question can be sufficiently answered in the affirmative, the relationship of Huma’s mother – Saleha Abedin – to Morsi’s wife instantly becomes more relevant as well; both women are among the 63 leaders of the Muslim Sisterhood.
Where are the in-depth investigations into Abedin’s relationships and background, in the wake of the ARB’s determination that the failings in Benghazi should be laid at the feet of the State Department, where Abedin is among the Secretary’s most trusted confidants? In fact, at the time of this post, a Google news search of “Huma Abedin” and “Benghazi” yields one result, while substituting “Hillary Clinton” for Huma yields 8240 results:
Senator Rubio stated that, “…fail(ing) to connect the dots… is a mistake we simply can’t afford to make again.”
We take the Senator at his word. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees, he should do his part to make sure dots aren’t left un-connected when it comes to the background of a top-level official inside the State Department.
Connecting those dots might just reveal an elephant in the room.
Here is the relevant excerpt from Rubio’s interview with NPR’s Diane Rehm on July 19th of this year: