By Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack
**SHOEBAT EXCLUSIVE**

Far be it from us to offer legal advice to the defense team of Ahmed Abu Khatallah but paradoxically, if taken,  it could ultimately help Americans get the whole truth about Benghazi. In response to an 11-page motion filed by the U.S. Justice Department, which alleges that Khatallah participated in a conspiracy to attack the Special Mission Compound (SMC), Khatallah should blame the video because evidence strongly suggests the Obama administration was involved in both producing and promoting it.

Ahmed Abu-Khatalla

Whether Khatallah was motivated by the video is somewhat inconsequential in this context. The Barack Obama administration’s decision to blame the video is not.  Obama and Hillary Clinton did not just assert that the video was responsible (motion notwithstanding); it alleged the video was responsible for the myriad of protests all over the Middle East. As Shoebat.com reported, protests over the video took place outside dozens of U.S. embassies before, during and after the Benghazi attacks. In fact, protests over the video took place in Benghazi on 9/14/12 and again on 9/21/12. On 9/12/12, protests over the video took place in Derna, Libya (Obama State Department implicated Ansar al-Sharia in Derna in the Benghazi attack as Shoebat.com reported).

Yet, we’re all to believe the only incident that didn’t involve the video is the one where four Americans were murdered?

Why is everyone so eager to accept the premise that the video was responsible in every location except Benghazi? As much as the administration would like to blame the video for the deaths of four Americans, it can’t if it had a hand in actually producing and promoting it.

It’s one thing to use rhetoric about the video being responsible but introducing that argument into a court case is something else entirely… unless your name is Ahmed Abu Khatallah.

Shoebat.com has repeatedly made the case of administration involvement in the video and significant data points come together to form a mosaic of strong probable cause, which is all a grand jury needs to indict in criminal cases.

Unfortunately, when talking about high crimes and misdemeanors committed  by an administration, Congress is the grand jury and an impeachment is the equivalent of an indictment. Today, that Congress is impotent and dysfunctional.

Again, however, there is nothing like the court of public opinion.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula arrested by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. on 9/15/12

Should Khatallah’s defense team open such a can of worms, the American people could start being told the truth. Based on alleged admissions by the filmmaker (Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) that he is himself a Muslim, Khatallah’s attorneys should call on Nakoula to testify about things such as his role as a U.S. federal informant at the time the video was being produced; his association with a Muslim fundamentalist (Eiad Salameh) as a partner in crime; why he attempted to clear Eiad’s name earlier this year; why he was given a lesser sentence to help the Feds catch Eiad but the Feds refused to do so when Eiad was apprehended by Canadian Peel Police; and why he told one of the actors in the video that he is actually a Muslim.

Why would a Muslim make an anti-Muslim video and who could provide a platform large enough to spark protests across the entire Middle East?

The truth is that if Khatallah’s lawyers can put forth a defense that the video was responsible while simultaneously presenting enough evidence that the Obama administration was involved, things could indeed get interesting.

Forget for a moment the absurdity of a video being responsible for mayhem and death anywhere. If it’s a widely accepted paradigm for the administration in every location except Benghazi, why should Benghazi be any different?

Khatallah doesn’t just have to argue that the Obama administration blamed the video for Benghazi. The concession from the administration that the video was responsible for protests everywhere else is a premise that has not been disputed by anyone.

Locations of all protests in response to “Innocence of Muslims” (was Benghazi the only one that wasn’t about video?)

Nonetheless, here are some excerpts from the motion filed by U.S. Attorney Ronald Machen, Jr. against Khatallah:

…the Indictment charges the defendant with conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists… the defendant’s participation in the Attack was motivated by his extremist ideology. The defendant was a commander of Obaidah Ibn Al Jarrah, an extremist brigade that was absorbed into Ansar Al Sharia (“AAS”) after the recent Libyan revolution. AAS is an Islamic extremist militia in Libya that holds anti-Western views and advocates the establishment of Sharia law in Libya… In the days before the Attack, the defendant voiced concern and opposition to the presence of an American facility in Benghazi.

That part about Khatallah being part of the Al Jarrah Brigade was reported on by Shoebat.com nearly one year ago. In that same report, we posted a video of a spokesman for Ansar al-Sharia, uploaded two days after the attacks. In the video, Hani Al-Mansour stated (translated from Arabic):

“The guards inside the headquarters of the consulate – Libyans or the Americans, where it was not sure – initially fired on demonstrators, which led to provoke them…”

Was this not a confession by Ansar al-Sharia that demonstrators were at the Benghazi compound in response to the video?

Perhaps Mr. Khatallah’s defense team could call on the testimony of Mr. Hani Al-Mansour as well.

Here is the full video in Arabic: