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Repeated investigations of Benghazi have debunked the Republican conspiracy theories but that doesn’t keep Darrell Issa from continuing to try to find someone who will give testimony which agrees with him. Newly released testimony confirms yet again that his witch hunts have been failures as nine military officers disputed the common Republican claim that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton gave an order to “stand down” to deny military protection to the embassy. From AP:
The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by Republican lawmakers that a “stand-down order” held back military assets that could have saved the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans killed at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya.
The “stand-down” theory centers on a Special Operations team of four — a detachment leader, a medic, a communications expert and a weapons operator with his foot in a cast — who were stopped from flying from Tripoli to Benghazi after the attacks of Sept. 11-12, 2012, had ended. Instead, they were instructed to help protect and care for those being evacuated from Benghazi and from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.
The senior military officer who issued the instruction to “remain in place” and the detachment leader who received it said it was the right decision and has been widely mischaracterized. The order was to remain in Tripoli and protect some three dozen embassy personnel rather than fly to Benghazi some 600 miles away after all Americans there would have been evacuated. And the medic is credited with saving the life of an evacuee from the attacks.
Transcripts of hours of closed-door interviews with the military leaders by the House Armed Services and Oversight and Government Reform committees were made public for the first time on Wednesday. The Associated Press had reviewed the material ahead of its release.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Oversight panel, has suggested Hillary Rodham Clinton gave the order, though as secretary of state at the time, she was not in the military chain of command.
Despite lingering public confusion over many events that night, the testimony shows military leaders largely in agreement over how they responded to the attacks…
Fox has been the primary source of the “stand-down” conspiracy theory and we can be sure that Darrell Issa will continue to try prove the claims coming from Fox no matter how many people testify that the claims are untrue.
Originally posted at Liberal Values