“…no one will hold us more accountable than we hold ourselves.” – State Department Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy on October 10, 2012.

Patrick Kennedy: Conflict of Interest in Benghazi investigation?

As the Media Research Center points out, Sharyl Attkisson was briefly allowed out of her journalistic cage yesterday by CBS after nearly half a year. The last time she issued a televised report was on May 8th – the day State Department whistleblower Gregory Hicks testified in front of Congress (for some perspective, that’s before the IRS scandal broke).

Note the central theme of Attkisson’s very brief report involves conflict of interest. In particular, Kennedy allegedly…

“…supervised selection of the ARB staff even as his own role was part of the investigation.”

Does this mean that Kennedy put Thomas Pickering at the top of the ARB? As part of this assignment, was Pickering told by Kennedy that Kennedy would not be interviewed or found accountable by the Accountability Review Board? Here is Attkisson’s report:

So it appears that Kennedy may have had a conflict of interest when supervising “the selection of the ARB staff”. Does one conflict of interest beget or point to another? The following question still needs to be answered is:

Did Pickering have a conflict of interest, reflected in his attendance at a Muslim Brotherhood conference in Doha, Qatar?

It’s clear that the vast majority of those in attendance did not want to have any Muslim Brotherhood role in the Benghazi attacks come to light.

Back on Sunday, May 12th, four days after Hicks’ testimony and one month before Pickering was in Qatar, Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa appeared alongside Thomas Pickering on Meet the Press. A testy exchange between Issa and Pickering starts shortly after the 16:00 mark: