Benghazi Timeline and an obstruction of justice charge

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President
Barack Obama hold a press conference about the
Benghazi attack where 4 Americans died

Richard Milhous Nixon was president of the United States during the Watergate scandal.  Because he knew about the break-in and then proceeded to lie about it, he was charged with obstruction of justice.  Before the impeachment proceedings could start, he resigned.

Barack Hussein Obama is our current president (hopefully not for long).  We still don’t know all the details of the Benghazi attack of September 11, 2012 but it appears that Obama is just a culpable now as Nixon was back in 1972 – maybe even more so.

Below is the timeline of the Benghazi attack as we know it now.  Each day more and more damaging stories about who knew what when come out. 

Benghazi Timeline:

·      September 11, 2012, 2:30 pm. (Eastern, 8:30 p.m. Benghazi) – U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens steps outside the consulate to say goodbye to a Turkish diplomat.  There are no protesters in the street.

·      September 11, 3:00 p.m. – Ambassador Stevens retires to his bedroom for the evening.

·      September 11, 4:00-4:45 p.m. – Attack begins on the compound starting with the main building, setting it on fire.  The three people inside were Ambassador Stevens, a regional security officer, and Information Management Officer Sean Smith.  Sean Smith dies soon after the initial attack.

·      September 11, 4:45-5:20 p.m. – U.S. security personnel assigned to the mission annex take on heavy fire as they try to secure the main building and finally gain control.

·      September 11, 6:00-8:30 p.m. – The mission annex comes under fire for the next two hours.  Two additional U.S. personnel were killed, Navy SEALS Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.   On Facebook and Twitter, Ansar al-Sharia claim credit and the State Department Operations Center reports this in an email to the White House, Pentagon, FBI, and other government agencies.   It is also reported that Ambassador Stevens got out of the building and was taken to the hospital; later Ambassador Steven’s body was returned to U.S. personnel at the Benghazi airport.

·      September 11, 10:00 p.m. – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issues a statement confirming that one State official was killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.  In this statement, Clinton makes reference to an anti-Muslim video.

·      September 12 – Clinton confirms that four U.S. officials were killed.  She also continues to mention the video throughout the day.  In a speech from the Rose Garden, Obama address the deaths and says, “No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation.”  He also makes reference to the anti-Muslim video saying, “Since our founding, the United States has been a nation that respects all faiths.”   He uses the term ‘act of terror’ later that night at a campaign event in Las Vegas.   Libya’s deputy ambassador to London tells BBC that Ansar al-Sharia was behind the attack.  Reuters also reported, citing unnamed officials, that the Benghazi attack may have been planned in advance.

·      September 13 – Clinton meets with Moroccan Foreign Minister and condemns the “disgusting and reprehensible” anti-Muslim video and the violence that it triggered.  At a campaign event in Colorado, Obama again uses the phrase ‘act of terror.’  CNN reports that unnamed “State Department officials” say the incident in Benghazi was a “clearly planned military-type attack” unrelated to the anti-Muslim movie.

·      September 14 – Clinton spoke at Andrews Air Force Base at a ceremony to receive the remains of those killed in Benghazi.  She did not call the attack an act of terror or a terrorist attack and neither did Obama.  Later at a White House press briefing, Carney denies reports that it was a preplanned attack.  Even after confronted with questions regarding Pentagon officials informing members of Congress at closed-door meetings that the Benghazi attack was a planned attack, Carney said it was being investigated but White House officials “don’t have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in reaction to the film.”

·      September 14 – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta meets with the Senate Armed Services Committee; Republicans and Democrats came from the meeting with the conclusion that the Benghazi attack was a planned terrorist attack.

·      September 15 – Obama discusses the Benghazi attack in his weekly address and makes no mention of terror, terrorists, or extremists.  He does talk about the anti-Muslim film and the ‘angry mobs’ it inspired.

·      September 16 – Libya President Mohamed Magariaf tells CBS that the attack was planned months in advance.  He also tells NPR, “The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.  We firmly believe that this was a pre-calculated, preplanned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the U.S. consulate.”  In the meantime, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, tells CBS, “We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned.”

·      September 18 – Obama appears on David Letterman’s show and continues to blame the anti-Muslim video. 

·      September 19 – Matt Olsen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, tells a Senate subcommittee that the four State Department officials in Benghazi “were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy.”  It is the first time an administration official labeled it a “terrorist attack.”  However, Carney continues to use the line, “We do not yet have indication that it was preplanned or premeditated.”

·      September 20 – At a town hall meeting, Obama says “extremists” took advantage of the “natural protests” to the anti-Muslim video.  He does not call it a “terrorist attack.”

·      September 21 – Clinton calls the Benghazi attack a “terrorist attack” for the time.

·      September 25 – Speaking at the United Nations, Obama condemns the anti-Muslim video as “crude and disgusting.”  He does not describe the Benghazi attack as a terrorist attack.

·      September 27 – At a press briefing, Panetta says that “it was a terrorist attack,” but declines to say when he came to that conclusion.  At the same briefing, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addresses what the U.S. knew in advance of the Benghazi attack.  He said, “A thread of intelligence reporting that groups in . . . eastern Libya were seeking to coalesce.”

·      October 9 – A senior state department official reveals there were no protests prior to the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi – contrary to what administration officials have been saying for weeks.

·      October 10 – At a press briefing, Carney is asked why the president and administration officials described the anti-Muslim video as the underlying cause of the attack.  Charlene Lamb, a State Department official who denied the request for additional security in Libya, tells the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the State Department had been training local Libyans for nearly a year and additional U.S. security personnel were not needed.  “We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi on the night of 9/11.”

·      October 15 – Clinton, in an interview on CNN, blamed the “fog of war” when asked why the administration initially claimed the attack began with the anti-Muslim video.

·      October 24 – Reuters reports the White House, Pentagon, and other government agencies learned just two hours into the Benghazi attack that Ansar al-Sharia, an Islamic militant group, had “claimed credit” for it.  The Reuters report was based on three emails from the State Department’s Operations Center.  The report verifies what Reuters originally reported on September 12.

So it stills comes down to what is believable and who knew what when.  Stories will continue to come out but don’t count on seeing this subject covered on the major television stations.  Do research and keep informed.

Now it is time to learn about the Watergate incident.

Watergate Timeline:

·      September 9, 1971 – The White House “plumbers” unit, named for their orders to plug leaks in the administration, burglarizes a psychiatrist’s office to find the files on Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers that the New York Times published on June 13. 

·      June 17, 1972 – Five men, one of whom says he used to work for the CIA, are arrested at 2:30 a.m. trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate hotel and office complex. 

·      October 10, 1972 – The Washington Post reports FBI agents establish that the Watergate break-in stems from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of the Nixon reelection effort. 

·      November 11, 1972 – Nixon is reelected.

·      June 3, 1973 – The Washington Post reports John Dean told Watergate investigators that he discussed the Watergate cover-up with President Nixon at least 35 times. 

·      July 13, 1973 – Alexander Butterfield, former presidential appointments secretary, reveals in congressional testimony that since 1971 Nixon had recorded all conversations and telephone calls in his offices.

·      July 23, 1973 – Nixon refuses to turn over the presidential tape recordings to the Senate Watergate committee or the special prosecutor.

·      November 17, 1973 – Nixon declares, “I’m not a crook,” maintaining his innocence in the Watergate case.

·      December 7, 1973 – The White House can’t explain an 18 1/2 – minute gap in one of the subpoenaed tapes.

·      July 24, 1974 – The Supreme Court rules unanimously that Nixon must turn over the tape recordings of 64 White House conversations, rejecting the president’s claims of executive privilege.

·      July 27, 1974 – House Judiciary Committee passes the first of three articles of impeachment, charging obstruction of justice. 

·      August 8, 1974 – Richard Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to resign.

So, Nixon lied, tried to claim executive privilege, and was eventually forced to resign.  Obama is lying and has used executive privilege many times to get out of turning over files.  He may try to do it again if reelected.  Would the Supreme Court and Congress be willing to bring an obstruction of justice charge against Obama?

However, the difference between Watergate and Benghazi is that no one died when Nixon’s men tried to bug the Watergate.