(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released a 17-page draft Vaughn Index document obtained from the U.S. Department of State on May 1, revealing that the Obama administration is still refusing to provide the full details of how top officials arrived at the now-discredited talking points released to the public following the deadly assault on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya. The new documents, containing more than 50 paragraphs of justifications to withhold information, were obtained in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Action (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch, Inc., v. U.S. Department of State, (Civil Action No. 13-cv-00951 (EGS)) filed on June 21, 2013.
A Vaughn Index is a document prepared by a federal agency to justify and detail the withholding of material from public disclosure. The State Department sent the Benghazi draft Vaughn Index to Judicial Watch on May 1, 2014, in accordance with a court order of October 1, 2013.
The new document seeks to justify withholding internal exchanges within the Obama administration about the Benghazi attack dating back to a September 11, 2013, interagency email exchange containing redactions of an opinion offered on how to respond Benghazi attack updates. Though the State Department document repeatedly describes the material as “Unclassified” or “Sensitive But Unclassified,” it nonetheless justifies scores of extensive redactions and exemptions.
The majority of material in the draft Vaughn Index document pertains to “various drafts, and comments related to the drafts, of a proposed letter from United States Mission to the United Nations (USUN) Ambassador Susan Rice in response to various Congressional inquiries regarding the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya.” The internal debate about the Rice response apparently continued until October 30, 2012. The material obtained by Judicial Watch included the following descriptions related to redacted or exempted material:
I think that Trey Gowdy should call Judicial Watch testify, and ask if they would be willing to share evidence that the Administration gave the court but refused to Congress.
Don’t forget to thoroughly investigate these incidents. We need answers!
January 22, 2002; US Consulate at Kolkata, 5 killed
June 14, 2002 US Consulate at Karachi, 12 killed
February 28, 2003; US Embassy at Islamabad, 2 killed.
June 30, 2004 US Embassy at Tashkent, 2 killed
December 6, 2004 US Compound at Saudi Arabia, 9 killed
March 2, 2006 US Consulate in Karachi, 2 Killed
September 12, 2006: US Embassy at Syria, 4 killed
March 18, 2008: US Consulate at Yemen, 2 killed
July9, 2008 US Consulate at Istanbul, 6 killed
September 17, 2008 US embassy at Yemen, 16 killed
Total Deaths: 60
Outraged Republicans:0
While were at it, let’s get a look at ALL the PDBs related to 911. We already know with the one that was released that Bush ignored the wrings.
Let’s investigate all the lies to the run up to the war which killed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of people.
As usual, Stewart puts it all in perspective:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/05/06/jon-stewart-rips-gop-and-fox-where-was-your-outrage-and-sanctimony-over-iraq/
@This one: Hillary lied and four died.
@This one:
What about these?
Feb. 1993; First World Trade Center bombing. Six killed, 1.042 wounded.
Nov. 1995; Car bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 7 killed, 5 of them Americans.
June, 1996; Air Force installation bombed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 killed (all Americans) and 515 wounded.
Aug. 1998: Embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Nairobi; 12 Americans killed among the total of 291 killed; Dar es Salaam; 10 killed.
Oct. 2000; U.S. S. Cole, 17 Americans killed.
Total deaths: 350
Outraged Democrats; 0
This does not include the deaths at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City where 168 people lost their lives, all Americans.
Perhaps we should demand the PDBs on all of those bombings. We know that Bill Clinton mentioned the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole one time only. But then, not one Democrat wanted to talk about the Gorelik wall.
@retire05, #4:
I suppose republicans could have looked into some of those incidents, had they not been so concerned with the far more important matter of a private consensual sexual encounter between two adults, one of which happened to be Bill Clinton. It’s fortunate for the nation that republicans can always keep our priorities straight.
President Bush condemned this attack.
He’s a Republican, right?
After it, Saudi Arabia began a harsh crackdown on the insurgency, arresting more than 600 terrorist suspects and seizing bomb-making materials, bomb belts, and thousands of weapons.http://www.arabnews.com/node/239296
On 7 June 2003, an official Saudi statement identified twelve men as the perpetrators of this attack. http://saudinf.com/main/y5802.htm
Most killed themselves in the attack, some were later killed by drone strikes, others in attacks by the Saudis.
In other words, justice was meted out.
All the perps are dead.
Outrage might be part of a response when justice is NOT meted out, but it doesn’t make as much sense (see Islamic Rage Boy) to do it when all the perps are dead.
@Greg:
Greg, like his fellow hypocrites on the left, consider marital infidelity by a politician as a minor matter unless it is committed by a Republican (or a primary opponent running against a socialist Democrat). When it is a political opponent the left shriek like holier-than-thou bible-thumpers and the MSM is plastered with near endless reports about “the scandal”, but when it is one of their anointed (JFK, LBJ, Clinton, etc.) It’s “Nothing to see here, move along.”
@Greg:
Thanks for reminding us how a man, clearly the most powerful in the world at the time, reduced himself to simple lecher taking advantage of a young woman three decades his junior and barely out of her teens. And thanks for reminding us how the Democrats, not the Republicans, waged a war on that far too impressionable young woman in order to save a man who had already raped another woman. The “war on women” was clearly waged by Democrats, destroying a young woman who was awed by a man who could not keep his business in his pants.
The only reason Democrats are never held to moral standards is because they don’t seem to possess any.
How do you diffuse a “conspiracy”? Become the “most transparent administration in history” instead of remaining the “most secretive administration in history”.
Just release the documents. Sure, you are going to look incompetent, but now you look like an incompetent, lying crook.
USA Today is reporting on this today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/07/white-house-hiding-more-benghazi-documents/8799351/
USA Today is actually covering this story?
Once the media shields on the SS Obama collapse, he will be toast. I don’t think he is smart enough to pull off a Corbomite Maneuver, especially since his credibility is so non-existent that we wouldn’t believe his bluff anyway….
(A bottle of Macallen to the first who can name the reference….without using Google/Bing/DuckDuckGo….)
@Greg: You missed the point on that again. Clinton lied. He was also disbarred because he was guilty or did you forget that
@Pete:
“The Video” was the administrator’s Corbomite Maneuver. Only low information far-left Obamadrones bought it, while the leftist MSM tried desperately to bolster what they knew was a total bluff. Now that they are having their face rubbed in it, they can not afford to support the lie without losing what little credibility they have left.
Captain James T. Kirk’s famous bluff – Original Series, I’m almost positive the first season. Ron Howard’s brother (Clint?) played the alien Kirk bluffed and then befriended.
@Ditto:
DING DING DING! We have a winnah! And you are correct as to the first season of the series.
So where should I send the bottle of scotch?
Heck, I rarely drink. Send it to Curt our compliments, he’s the one who really deserves it for keeping Flopping Aces running so smoothly.
@Ditto: I would never turn down a bottle of Macallen…already have a 12 year in my cabinet however so the bottle is all yours. Appreciate the compliment.
@Curt:
Oh, well in that case Curt please go ahead and share my email with Pete, We can converse in the real world and perhaps synchronize a toast to FA. I have to admit that while I do like scotch every now and then, I’ve never had the pleasure of drinking Macallen.
@Pete:
I’ve been a Trekkie, a Trekker and a Whovian since I first watched the shows in my childhood. They and our space program was what got me interested in the space sciences. I still wish they would have arranged to have the Enterprise crew run into the good Doctor. With all the temporal plot lines a convergence should happen. Maybe we’ll luck out and J. J. Abrams will “make it so.”
(Nothing personal to the FA forum folk , but I refuse to post personal information openly in political forums because we know how some on the left like to SWAT conservatives. Tsk tsk, not nice or funny.)
@Pete: @Ditto: @Curt:
What was the name of Clint Howard’s ship?
😉
@drjohn:
LOL….now I am going to be distracted all day trying to remember that…all I recall is the ship was from the First Federation…..but tbe ship name escapes me and in the spirit of my original challenge I am not going to google it…..
Curt, I will toast you with an 18 year old Macallen tonight then, in honor of all you do to keep FA running.
Ditto – that would have been an interesting story line. I have to admit being such a geek about star trek I built a theoretical.antimatter reactor for my 8th grade science fair project….and believe it or not I won. LOL.
And I think based on my present occupation I could give McCoy a run for his money.
Happy to email so Curt am happy to exchange emails with you and Ditto.
@Pete:
Phesarius
I too was a Trekkie. Also loved Fireball XL5 before that.
@Ditto:
You have to try the Macallan 18. It’s stands alone. You’d really enjoy trying the 12, 15 and then 18 in succession to appreciate the differences.
Neat, of course.