BALTIMORE, Maryland September 16, 2014 - The intrepid and incredible Sharyl Attkisson - formerly of CBS (until they declined to carry her objective reports that were not positive about Obama and his functionaries - has broken a Benghazi story that is, in a word, "explosive." According to Attkisson, a former State Department official who had a role in the department's inquiry into Benghazi, is prepared to testify that he found top department officials, including at least two of Hilary Clinton's top aides, huddled in a basement room at Foggy Bottom one weekend, culling documents from those that were to be turned over to a government investigative body known as the Accountability Review Board (ARB). The official, Raymond Maxwell, told Attkisson that the documents being culled (or removed) were those that cast Hilary in a negative light.
Shocking.
Maxwell's job at the time was as a leader in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which was charged with collecting emails and documents relevant to the Benghazi probe. Despite this position, Maxwell was not invited to the meeting, which started on a Saturday and continued into Sunday. Nevertheless, he got wind of the meeting and decided to check it out that particular Saturday. When he walked in he saw a number of department officials, including one woman who worked for him. He also saw piles of department documents piled everywhere in the room. He asked the woman whom he normally supervised what was going on, and the woman told him they were going through the documents to be turned over to ARB, and removing those that cast "the seventh floor" in a bad light. The seventh floor was department vernacular for Hilary and her top functionaries, whose offices were on the seventh floor at Foggy Bottom.
When Maxwell asked the woman if what they were doing was ethical, she responded, "Ray, those are our orders."
So Shocking.
Subsequently, Maxwell was one of four department officials who were disciplined - but later cleared - for devastating security lapses that were said to have been responsible for the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, including the United States' ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.
After he arrived in the basement room, Maxwell said that in walked two of Hilary's top aides, Cheryl Mills, her chief of staff and an attorney who defended Bill Clinton at his impeachment trial in the Senate, and Jake Sullivan, Hilary's Deputy Chief of Staff. When they arrived and looked around the room, Mills snapped upon seeing Maxwell, "Who's he?" Sullivan responded, saying, "That’s Ray Maxwell, an NEA deputy assistant secretary."
To Sullivan's response, Mills said, ‘Well, OK.’”
Maxwell told Ms. Attkisson that after that exchange, Mills and Sullivan made some cursory inquiries and left. He believes they were there to check on how the work being done in the room was progressing. Maxwell says that he, the woman whom he supervised and an intern, were given a stack of documents and moved into a small office adjacent to the room that he initially entered. He says he looked through this short stack and saw cables from the Tripoli, Libya embassy to Foggy Bottom. The cables were from a period of time prior to the attack, he said. Because he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, Maxwell says he left after only a short period of time.
Maxwell says that he immediately began to wonder if the ARB received a "scrubbed set of documents," to its request to be furnished with all State Department documents concerning, in any way, the incidents at Benghazi. He also was critical of the ARB and questioned its independence, citing an incident in which one of the ARB directors admitted to Congress that he called Hilary and offered her advice after one department employee had testified.
Without reservation, I urge everyone to take the few minutes required to read Ms. Attkisson's report, which she contributed to the news site called the "Daily Signal". The cite for the report is: http://dailysignal.com/2014/09/15/benghazi-bombshell-clinton-state-department-official-reveals-alleged-details-document-review/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
The Select Congressional Committee charged with investigating Benghazi meets for the first time today. Maxwell is not scheduled to testify today, but it is certain that he will be called to testify. Attkisson says in her report that she contacted the current offices of Hilary, Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan to get comments, but none of them have responded to her.
So very shocking.
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