Thanks to declassified documents from testimony given by military officials to the House Armed Services Committee, we now know that the attack on the U.S. Special Mission Compound (SMC) was identified as a terrorist attack within minutes. We also know that then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey were both told this very thing directly by Gen. Carter Ham minutes after the attack started and moments prior to their meeting with President Obama.
Hillary: Benghazi about a video we ‘had nothing to do with’.
In response to a question from a lawmaker on the committee, about the nature of the attack being terrorist in nature and what he relayed to Panetta and Dempsey, Ham’s testimony included the following response, via James Rosen at Fox News:
“Well, and with General Dempsey and Secretary Panetta, that is the nature of the conversation we had, yes, sir.”
We can then logically conclude that both Panetta and Dempsey relayed that information to Obama after having received it just moments before by Ham.
Subsequent to those meetings, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed the false narrative that the attack was the result of the anti-Muhammad video. In Hillary’s case, she began to do so before Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were murdered (Ex. G of our “Ironclad” Report). How do we know Obama and Hillary were behind this?
No one was fired and in the case of then U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice – who became the face of this false narrative – she was promoted.
It is a logical supposition as well, that both Obama and Hillary felt more comfortable with this lie than with the truth. Politicians are downright paranoid about controlling situations that pose harm. Rarely, if ever, do they endorse a position unless they know all that can be known about the realities behind it. Not knowing such things leaves them incredibly exposed.
One question still lingers: Why was the administration (Obama and Hillary) so comfortable pushing the movie narrative for so long? It’s difficult to see Hillary Clinton issuing a press release implying that Benghazi was about a video after Ham had informed Obama – through Panetta and Dempsey – that it was a terrorist attack, without having a significant amount of information she thought she could control. Otherwise, she’d risk being broadsided after putting a lie in writing for public consumption.
How much did the Feds know about the maker of the film – Nakoula Basseley Nakoula?
Answer: A lot.
Nakoula became an informant for the Feds during the Obama administration and there’s significant indicators that he was an informant dating back to the… Clinton administration.
Check out this portion of Nakoula’s rap sheet from 1997 in which he got off with an extremely light sentence after he was arrested over his involvement in a drug ring, via the Daily Beast:
Nakoula nonetheless only spent just two days in jail, getting off with three years’ probation when he could have gotten hard time.
“Sounds like he’s an informant,” observes a law-enforcement official familiar such matters, though not with the particulars of this case.
The bust came around the time the feds were launching Operation Mountain Express, which would become a huge investigation into pseudoephedrine-dealing involving numerous people of a Middle Eastern background. The authorities initially insisted there were no links to terrorism, but suddenly switched and decided that a chunk of the money was going to Hizbullah.
If Nakoula was a federal informant in 1997, there were likely Clinton administration officials who are very familiar with his work. Fifteen years later, Clinton herself felt comfortable enough blaming him for an attack in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11 after her boss was told it was a terror attack.
That’s not all.
In 2009, Nakoula was confirmed to be a Federal informant after he was arrested as part of a bank fraud scheme. He was given a lesser sentence in exchange for helping to lead the Feds to the scheme’s ringleader – Eiad Salameh.
Via the Smoking Gun:
Though many key documents from the U.S. District Court case remain sealed, a June 2010 sentencing transcript provides an account of Nakoula’s cooperation with federal investigators in Los Angeles (and how his prison sentence was reduced as a result).
As we have reported previously, Salameh is Walid’s cousin whom he’s known for many years. In early 2011, Salameh was arrested in Canada by the Peel Police. Perhaps most curious is the fact that when Canadian authorities attempted to hand Salameh over to the U.S. Feds, there was no interest in taking him. Canada put Salameh on a plane back to the Palestinian territories.
Logical question: If the Feds had no interest in taking Salameh into custody, why was Nakoula given a lighter sentence?
Of course, as Walid has attested to many times, his cousin is a Muslim fundamentalist who hates Coptic Christians. Yet, Eiad and Nakoula have been longtime partners in crime. Why would a such a partnership endure?
In fact, as was reported just recently, Walid was contacted directly by Nakoula, who wanted him to help clear Eiad’s name.
Again, why?
How about a re-cap of some facts:
- Nakoula became a Federal informant no later than 2010.
- Nakoula may have been a Federal informant as far back as 1997.
- Nakoula (an alleged Coptic Christian) and Eiad Salameh (a Muslim fundamentalist) have a long history of being partners in crime.
- Nakoula lied to the actors of his film and dubbed in more incendiary language later.
- Nakoula was issued a reduced sentence in 2010 to help the Feds apprehend Salameh.
- The Feds refused to take Salameh when the Canadian authorities attempted to hand him over.
- Nakoula recently attempted to clear Salameh’s name
If Hillary Clinton knew about the background of Nakoula and the video prior to the Benghazi attacks, how likely would it be that she might go out of her way to tell the American people that the video was something the U.S. Government “had nothing to do with”, while the coffins of four dead Americans rest just feet away and their family members in the audience?