By Ben Barrack

House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) knows something big about Benghazi and he’s not telling. One thing he’s not conceding is that the attackers reside firmly under the Muslim Brotherhood umbrella. He likely knows quite a bit about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of our government as well. Those two things alone are damning, especially in light of his betrayal of a fellow member of Congress who sits on his committee. His behavior over the last two years – particularly relative to Benghazi – has been and continues to be increasingly more suspicious, in part because it’s having the effect of providing cover for America’s enemies. Most recently, he slammed conservative media while talking to the New York Times.

Rogers: Radio gig about damage control?

Curious timing always seems to surround Rogers. His interview with the New York Times comes just a few short days after House Speaker Boehner relented amid tremendous political pressure to appoint a Select Committee to investigate Benghazi, something Rogers has been against at every turn. The announcement by Boehner was driven largely by the ‘smoking gun’ email released by Judicial Watch last week. As Shoebat.com reported, that email appears to have a Muslim Brotherhood connection to it as well. Rogers has demonstrated he has no interest in exposing Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. Government.

A rather unexpected and curious announcement came last month when it was revealed that Rogers would be resigning from Congress at the end of his term to take a gig as a talk radio host with Cumulus. As a key figure in the Benghazi investigation, why would he do such a thing at precisely the time when that investigation is heating up?

Before getting into what’s been revealed recently in the context of Rogers’ upcoming radio career, have a look at some big red flags:

1. In the summer of 2012, Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other congressmen raised extremely legitimate questions about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration. The individual Bachmann identified who garnered the most attention was Deputy Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin. Rogers disavowed Bachmann and referred to Abedin as “an American patriot”. When taken together, the list of others who defended Abedin actually helped make Bachmann’s case.

2. Ambassador Christopher Stevens met with the House Intelligence Committee in the days before he was murdered. Rogers was forced to concede this fact when asked on live television by Megyn Kelly and to this point, Rogers has revealed no information about what was said in that meeting.

3. In January of 2013, Senator Rand Paul asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the Benghazi annex being used as a place to ship weapons to Syria through Turkey. Clinton pleaded ignorance. With the passage of time and explosive reports from the likes of Seymour Hersh, relayed by Shoebat.com, Paul’s concerns are all but vindicated. Despite this, Rogers suggested last year that Paul’s concerns were inaccurate, saying, “We have looked at all of that. I can find no information that substantiates that, but if it were there, I would want to find it.” Conversely, Rogers ally John Boehner indicated there was something to Paul’s concerns.

4. As early as March of last year, Rogers opposed a Select Committee on Benghazi, as relayed by Shoebat.com. In light of Stevens’ appearance before his committee, why would Rogers not want to share the details of that appearance with a more powerful committee?

5. In November of last year, after a closed session with witnesses to the Benghazi attack, Rogers’ account of that meeting didn’t just help support the Obama administration’s narrative but was directly at odds with the account of another Committee member – Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). According to Nunes, there was no lull in the fighting. If true, the administration’s line that help was not sent because the fighting was believed to be over, would be discredited. Rogers, on the other hand, asserted that there was a lull in the fighting. When called on this by Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly, Rogers gave a weak explanation; Kelly called him on that too.

6. A gross conflict of interest involving Rogers and former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell was revealed by Catherine Herridge days prior to Rogers’ announcement that he’s going to resign. At issue was House Intelligence Committee majority staff director – and lead Benghazi investigator J. Michael Allen – accepting a job with Morell and Hillary Clinton loyalists at a time when the investigation would have been taking place.

7. Rogers gave a visibly uninspired performance as chairman during the testimony of Morell last month.

8. In the days following Morell’s testimony, Rogers again asserted that he still didn’t believe a Select Committee should be formed. In light of how little it would cost relative to what the government actually spends, Rogers argument that it would be too expensive was silly – and revealing in light of his record chronicled above.

The New York Times interviewed Rogers about his upcoming career in talk radio in an article published one day after Boehner tapped former prosecutor Trey Gowdy (R-SC) to head the Select Committee. Rogers comes across as someone who’s not only checking out more than he is chipping in but as someone aiding in the effort to demagogue and distract from those wanting to get to the truth. By all indications, Rogers is going to brand himself a ‘moderate’ voice on the air. When Republicans tout political moderation to the New York Times, it’s like taming the savage beast (but only for a time). Rogers took it a step further and rubbed the beast’s tummy:

Rogers… says he will not try to outrant Limbaugh or outheckle Hannity. He is, after all, a precise-speaking former F.B.I. agent who is close to Speaker John Boehner and not readily identified with any memorable sound bites.

The congressman received what many conservatives would call a kiss of death from Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), a registered member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) caucus. Said Gutierrez of Rogers according to the New York Times, “(he) is a voice for moderation and consensus-building”.

Rep. Gutierrez – Registered Socialist praises Rogers as ‘voice of moderation’.

That’s a tried and failed formula for successful talk radio but there may be a larger agenda at work. Also interviewed by the Times for the article was Mike “more conversation and less confrontation” Huckabee, who seems to be pining for politicians – who very often have baggage that comes with the dirty nature of politics – to do what Rogers is doing and compares it to NFL players resigning and doing television. That’s dangerous because it would allow politicians to crowd out media figures that would otherwise hold them accountable. I’ve been doing radio in one market for years and Rogers gets a national gig because he’s a congressman? In some ways, it’d be an assault on the first amendment and could conceivably give cronyism a new venue. Incidentally, Rogers has been a frequent – and rather ponderous – guest on Huckabee’s show.

The man behind giving the job to Rogers is Cumulus C.E.O. Lew Dickey, who also seems to yearn for expanding such a model. The Times explains how things went after Dickey and Rogers were introduced at a wedding:

They kept in touch over a few months, during which Dickey told him they were not looking for someone to replicate Limbaugh or Hannity. “I think there is room for a more productive, you-might-actually-learn-something kind of talk radio in the marketplace,” Rogers says.

Perhaps coincidentally, one day after the New York Times piece was published, a curious announcement was made, via the Washington Examiner:

Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media’s exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.

If Hersh is right, that the U.S. presence in Benghazi was about an operation begun nearly a year before the attacks there and run by CIA Director David Petraeus, it’s at least feasible that Rogers – as Intelligence Committee chairman – knew about it too. He’s certainly behaving more like someone who knew than someone who didn’t. Hersh asserts that the operation was funded by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey with Petraeus in charge of the logistics. Those logistics – according to Hersh – involved shipping weapons out of the Benghazi annex to Turkey and then onward to the Syrian jihadists. If Hersh is right, a consequence of that already illegal operation would have been the deaths of Stevens and three other Americans on 9/11/12 as well as the countless deaths of Syrian Christians who were on the wrong side of those weapons.

CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell and CIA Director David Petraeus during Benghazi attacks.

Anyone who knew of that operation before Benghazi and allowed it to continue would be complicit in the commission of very serious crimes that helped lead to those murders, which is itself a serious crime.

It’s quite possible that any such individual(s) would not come clean because they are afflicted with Strassmeir Syndrome.