A retired Marine colonel may have crucial information about what happened on the night of 9/11/12 in Benghazi but the Department of Defense (DoD) doesn’t seem interested in helping the House Oversight committee contact him. Sharyl Attkisson has the report.

Via CBS News:

Marine Corps Col. George Bristol was in a key position in the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) chain of command the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. As such, he’s high on the list of people that some Republican members of Congress want to interview. But they don’t know where he is and the Pentagon isn’t telling.

Pentagon spokesman Major Robert Firman told CBS News that the Department of Defense “cannot compel retired members to testify before Congress.”

“They say he’s retired and they can’t reach out to him,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CBS News. “That’s hogwash.”

To Chaffetz’s point, the definition of the word “compel”, which was used by Firman in his explanation to Attkisson, is as follows:

to force or drive, especially to a course of action.

According to Attkisson, all Chaffetz wants to know is where Bristol is. It would seem that simply giving Bristol’s contact information to Congress does not constitute “compelling” him to testify. Hopefully, this apparent obstruction on the part of DoD will only cause Congress to push harder for information that has traditionally been found in a phone book.

One of the best indicators that something doesn’t pass the smell test is when a guilty party addresses a question that isn’t asked.

An example of this might be the DoD responding to a request for contact information for a retired colonel by saying it can’t compel him to testify.

If the DoD won’t locate Bristol, perhaps Chaffetz could give the NSA a call. They’ll likely know how to reach him. Then again, if Bristol reaches out to Congress on his own, they’ll likely know he did that too.

Perhaps it’s excellent reporting like this from Attkisson that is what caused someone to hack her computer: