The Heart Of The Benghazi Scandal - Did Obama Know Or Approve Of The Decision To Deny More Security

Who denied the requests for more security in Benghazi and why? Those were the questions directly posed to Obama at the Town Hall Debate, and those were the two questions he did everything but answer. And now today:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered additional security for the U.S. mission in Benghazi ahead of the terrorist attack but the orders were never carried out, according to “legal counsel” to Clinton who spoke to best-selling author Ed Klein. Those same sources also say former President Bill Clinton has been “urging” his wife to release official State Department documents that prove she called for additional security at the compound in Libya, which would almost certainly result in President Obama.

Appearing on The Blaze TV’s “Wilkow!” on Wednesday night, Klein told host Andrew Wilkow that Bill and Hillary Clinton have been having “big fights” for “two or three weeks” about the issue, according to his two sources on Clinton’s legal counsel. While Bill Clinton wishes his wife would “exonerate” herself by releasing the documents that show she wasn’t at fault for the tragic security failure in Libya, the secretary of state refuses to do so because she doesn’t want to be viewed as a traitor to the Democratic party.

Why should we believe this might be true? I have enough experience in the military and with providing security with weapons loaded to know that the people administratively charged with making decisions on security would not possibly have denied the requests absent a policy decision made at a much higher level. And indeed, I cannot see any career employee in the chain of command denying a request for more security in Benghazi, given the availability of assets and all that was known about the deteriorating situation. In other words, I would bet my last dollar that the decision to deny more security was made pursuant to a policy decision in the political chain of command - and that means Clinton and / or Obama. And if there is any truth to the story above, then that person was Obama.

Bottom line, this has huge implications for how we should be evaluating Obama's stewardship. The decision to deny additional security in light of the increasing risks and prior attacks was not merely reckless, it was criminally reckless. And if such a decision was made pursuant to a policy approved by Obama, it shows a foreign policy based on pure fantasy and fairy dust. That proved fatal to Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans. It could prove equally disastrous for our nation. Both Clinton and Obama need to be asked on the record again, who denied the requests for more security in Benghazi and why?

Update: Some fascinating analysis from Bookworm Room on the reliability of Edward Klein and the genesis of this huge leak:

How reliable is Edward Klein? I don’t know. I don’t believe anyone challenged the facts in his book The Amateur, even if they disagreed with their import. One thing that was immediately clear from reading The Amateur was that Klein got a lot of his information from Hillary Clinton’s camp. . . .

. . . Here’s what I think happened:

Events played out exactly as Hillary’s leakers claim. Hillary was silent about the White House’s culpability when it still looked as if Obama could win, because she needed to be on Obama’s good side in the event he won the election. Now that Obama has the stale smell of failure about him, two things have happened. First, Hillary doesn’t believe that Obama’s coat tails will be very useful. And second, the Democrats are launching a preemptive strike against Bill Clinton, claiming that it was his bad advice that led to Obama’s disastrous campaign decisions.

As Bookworm goes on to note, this has the air of revenge by Bill. Do read her whole post.

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