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Speaker 1: Pushkin previously on Fiasco.

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Speaker 2: There were some mysteries embedded in Benghazi that needed to

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Speaker 2: be answered, so that gave it legs.

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Speaker 1: A number of conservative media outlets were particularly gender.

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Speaker 3: Because you never knew what would get traction.

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Speaker 4: Who told the military to stand down?

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Speaker 5: Where in the world is Hillary Clinton?

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Speaker 2: What's her legacy going to be? Benghazi?

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Speaker 1: This is the final episode of our season on Benghazi.

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Speaker 1: But before we get into how the story ended, I

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Speaker 1: want to stop for a second and dwell on a

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Speaker 1: question that so far we've only come at sideways.

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Speaker 6: Actually a two part question.

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Speaker 1: First, what did the people who were outraged about Benghazi

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Speaker 1: actually think Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did wrong? And second,

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Speaker 1: what did they think their motivations were.

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Speaker 7: There's no question Hillary lied and people died.

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Speaker 1: I don't mean to sound defensive on behalf of Clinton

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Speaker 1: or Obama. I just think it's surprisingly hard to pin

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Speaker 1: this down given how many specific accusations were leveled against

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Speaker 1: the administration.

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Speaker 8: So the administration knew in real time there wasn't a mob.

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Speaker 9: They knew in real time that this was a well

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Speaker 9: coordinated attack.

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Speaker 10: They absolutely lied to the American people from day one.

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Speaker 5: The White House can sign those people to death.

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Speaker 1: What I've been trying to figure out is how did

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Speaker 1: all these accusations fit together, what did they add up to?

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Speaker 1: And the closest I've come to an answer to a

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Speaker 1: unified theory of the Benghazi scandal is that, at a

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Speaker 1: basic level, many Republicans saw the attack as a repudiation

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Speaker 1: of a worldview they had long despised.

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Speaker 5: Son's problems with Benghazi make a bigger point about his

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Speaker 5: approach to governor.

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Speaker 7: Benghazi is the result of the failures of the Obama

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Speaker 7: Clinton foreign policy.

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Speaker 1: The argument was that Obama and Clinton were idealistic liberals

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Speaker 1: who didn't understand the threat of Islamic extremism. They thought

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Speaker 1: America could solve its problems in the Arab world with

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Speaker 1: diplomacy and deference and leading from behind.

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Speaker 5: Maybe they wanted to believe the lie governed by the

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Speaker 5: ideology of hurt feelings. It's hipster diplomacy at its worst.

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Speaker 11: If you're reluctant to call terrorism by its name, can

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Speaker 11: you ever defeat the terrorists?

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Speaker 1: Benghazi was proof that Obama, Clinton and their fellow liberals

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Speaker 1: were fundamentally wrong about America's place in the world.

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Speaker 5: The reason we have Libya is the obama mesress of

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Speaker 5: terrorism has expanded all across the region.

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Speaker 12: Now, mister President, it's your effeckless weak foreign policy that

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Speaker 12: is creating a danger zone for all Americans.

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Speaker 1: At best, the Democrats had gotten people killed with their

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Speaker 1: naivete and at worst, they had deliberately prioritized their liberal

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Speaker 1: values over protecting American lives.

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Speaker 5: Bad things happen when you avoid reality, and unfortunately we've.

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Speaker 6: Just seen that.

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Speaker 1: It was a powerful story. But what strikes me is

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Speaker 1: just how far the debate around Benghazi ended up drifting,

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Speaker 1: how baroque and esoteric it got, Because it seems clear

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Speaker 1: the scandal wasn't really about a foreign policy disagreement between

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Speaker 1: left and right. It was about something deeper and also

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Speaker 1: more shallow, which is why in this season finale, I

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Speaker 1: want to tell you about two very different investigations into

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Speaker 1: Benghazi that were carried out in parallel. One resulted in

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Speaker 1: a trial in which a Libyan militia leader was accused

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Speaker 1: of orchestrating the murder of Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty,

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Speaker 1: and Tyrone Woods. The other ended with emails I'm Leon

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Speaker 1: Nafok from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries this is fiasco,

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Speaker 1: ben Gazi.

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Speaker 13: The word Benghazi the ultimate roar shock test.

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Speaker 14: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, but we put together

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Speaker 14: a Benghazi Special Committee.

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Speaker 3: Congressional investigations are partisan in nature. Their sole purpose is

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Speaker 3: to damage your opponent.

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Speaker 8: They actually printed out tickets. It was like tickets to

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Speaker 8: the circus.

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Speaker 15: What is the psychic told that takes Hillary crooked?

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Speaker 16: Hillary crooked?

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Speaker 6: So crooked?

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Speaker 1: Episode six, our season finale, Radicals, in which everyone has

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Speaker 1: their own reasons for wanting the truth about Benghazi. We'll

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Speaker 1: be right back.

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Speaker 4: It's funny when you see it for the first time

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Speaker 4: and then you see it for the thousandth time, you

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Speaker 4: cannot believe how much you missed.

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Speaker 1: The first Julianne Himmelstein watched the surveillance footage from the

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Speaker 1: Benghazi compound over and over and over.

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Speaker 4: It was grainy, it was black and white. But that

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Speaker 4: was the nugget that we started from.

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Speaker 1: At the time of the attack, Himmelstein was an assistant

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Speaker 1: US attorney, and she was assigned by the Department of

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Speaker 1: Justice to serve as one of the lead federal prosecutors

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Speaker 1: in charge of the criminal inquiry into BEng Ghazi.

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Speaker 4: We really were investigating it as a pure and simple

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Speaker 4: murder case and terrorist attack.

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Speaker 1: Himmelstein's partner and the investigation was an FBI counter terrorism

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Speaker 1: specialist named Mike Clark.

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Speaker 6: You know, we got the.

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Speaker 17: Call on September eleventh to the normal channels, and immediately

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Speaker 17: I was notified that I was going to be the

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Speaker 17: lead case agent. We got our team together, and we deployed.

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Speaker 1: On the night of September twelfth. The diplomatic security agents

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Speaker 1: and CIA contractors who had been in Benghazi during the

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Speaker 1: attack were in Germany, having just evacuated from Libya. Clark

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Speaker 1: and his team needed to debrief them about what they'd seen.

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Speaker 17: My first responsibility was to take my team to our

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Speaker 17: forward operating base in Germany and interview the Americans that

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Speaker 17: had survived the attack, mostly the DSS agents that were

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Speaker 17: there on scene.

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Speaker 1: Afterwards, Clark flew to Libya to personally pick up the

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Speaker 1: surveillance footage that had been pulled off a dozen or

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Speaker 1: so cameras set up around the Benghazi compound. Back in

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Speaker 1: the United States, Clark and Himmelstein watched the videos together,

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Speaker 1: sitting in a small room at an FBI office crowded

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Speaker 1: with boxes and furniture. They would stop every few seconds,

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Speaker 1: then rewind, then stop again, then rewind again. They would

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Speaker 1: do this for hours and eventually years.

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Speaker 17: When you first look at those videos and you don't

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Speaker 17: know who the people are, it does look like a

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Speaker 17: chaotic mess. But once you start being able to identify

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Speaker 17: who the people are, what groups they belonged to, then

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Speaker 17: it becomes clearer and clear.

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Speaker 1: For Clark and Himmelstein, identifying the people in the video

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Speaker 1: was the top priority. They received some promising leads from

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Speaker 1: intelligence reports, but in order to build a case, they

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Speaker 1: needed to connect that intelligence to the nameless individuals in

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Speaker 1: the footage, and to do that, Himmelstein and Clark needed witnesses.

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Speaker 4: The only way that we were able to identify anyone

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Speaker 4: is to talk to people in Benghazi who knew them.

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Speaker 4: It was hard to convince people who were there to

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Speaker 4: talk to the FBI. There was an incredible witness who

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Speaker 4: was in Benghazi and present on the night of the attack,

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Speaker 4: very very young man. He was the first one to

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Speaker 4: identify Abu Katala.

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Speaker 1: Ahmed Abu Katala was a construction worker by trade. During

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Speaker 1: the Libyan Revolution, he had taken up arms against muamargadaf

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Speaker 1: and raised a small battalion in Benghazi called Obeda Benjarra.

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Speaker 1: They were adherents to the ultra conservative solaphist interpretation of Islam,

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Speaker 1: and their vision for Libya involved ridding the country of

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Speaker 1: every imperialist foreign power, particularly the Americans.

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Speaker 17: When you talk about Ubeeda Benjarrah and Abu Katala, you're

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Speaker 17: talking about an extremist militia that doesn't believe that any

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Speaker 17: government entity should be involved in anything involving Libya. He

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Speaker 17: wanted Libya to be governed under strict Sharia law.

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Speaker 1: Investigators learned that Abu Katala had met many of his

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Speaker 1: compatriots in Obeeda Benjarra during the Gaddafi regime when they

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Speaker 1: were imprisoned together at Abu Salim, the prison where more

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Speaker 1: than a thousand inmates were killed in a massacre in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six.

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Speaker 4: Not swear many of them formed their friendships and relationships

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Speaker 4: and it was just, you know, just a horrible environment,

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Speaker 4: just the worst that you could ever think of. And

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Speaker 4: there was torture, and actually Abu Katala was tortured.

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Speaker 1: At some point. Abu Katala affiliated himself with a hard

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Speaker 1: line Islamist militia called Ansar al Sharia. A few months

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Speaker 1: before the attack on the US compound, he and about

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Speaker 1: two hundred other members of Asar Al Sharia took part

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Speaker 1: in a rally through Benghazi intended to show their force.

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Speaker 17: The rebel fighters from Libya's revolution had brought their weapons

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Speaker 17: along while demanding that their country imposed Sharia Islamic law.

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Speaker 1: They drove trucks brandishing artillery and loudly condemned the coming elections,

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Speaker 1: Libya's first since the fall of Gaddafi.

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Speaker 4: We need.

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Speaker 18: To kill them, ko Kofan, Yeah, to kill the infidels.

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Speaker 19: Yes.

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Speaker 20: Yes.

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Speaker 1: It didn't take long for investigators to start circling Abu Katala.

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Speaker 1: Libyan witnesses told the FBI that they had seen him

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Speaker 1: directing fighters during the attack, and sources from various local

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Speaker 1: militias said Abu Katala had approached them several weeks earlier

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Speaker 1: trying to acquire weapons and vehicles.

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Speaker 17: He was also discreetly and diplomatically in some cases, going

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Speaker 17: to other more mainstream militia leaders and basically telling them,

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Speaker 17: you know, it would be a bad idea to interfere

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Speaker 17: with our plans should something happen.

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Speaker 1: The witness interviews that generated these details were hard won.

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Speaker 1: People in Libya were scared of Abu Katala.

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Speaker 17: Those are the people that made the case. Some of

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Speaker 17: them paid the ultimate sacrifice. We had witnesses that were killed.

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Speaker 17: We had witnesses that their houses were burned to the

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Speaker 17: ground by the extremists. Once they found out that they

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Speaker 17: were speaking out against Abu Katala and other militia groups,

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Speaker 17: extremist groups, they risked everything to cooperate with the FBI

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Speaker 17: because they realized how dangerous the extremists were.

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Speaker 13: A Libyan militia leader who has the suspected ringleader behind

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Speaker 13: the deadly attack on the US consul in Benghazi is

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Speaker 13: basically thumbing his nose at American and Libyan investigators.

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Speaker 1: Abu Katala was not exactly keeping a low profile. In October,

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Speaker 1: just a few weeks after the attack, he even made

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Speaker 1: himself available to the American media.

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Speaker 13: His name is Ahmed Abu Katawa. He socialized with journalists

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Speaker 13: last night at a hotel in Benghazi.

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Speaker 1: In meetings with reporters from The New York Times, CNN,

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Speaker 1: and Fox News, Abu Katala spoke in a tone that

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Speaker 1: was described as taunting. During his time's interview, he sipped

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Speaker 1: on a strawberry frape could have been a ringleader.

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Speaker 21: Maybe a suspect may be just bragging about his contentions,

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Speaker 21: but his walking around free as a bird in Benghazi

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Speaker 21: a couple of days ago and talking.

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Speaker 1: To the New York Times, Abu Katala denied playing a

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Speaker 1: role in the attack, but he made no secret of

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Speaker 1: his contempt for the American government and made clear that

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Speaker 1: he wanted the US out of Libya. According to Mike Clark,

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Speaker 1: the FBI agent leading the instigation, Abu Katala was also

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Speaker 1: convinced that the US mission compound in Benghazi was not

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Speaker 1: what the United States had claimed.

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Speaker 17: Abu Katala never believed that the Special Mission was an embassy,

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Speaker 17: was a diplomatic facility. He always believed, even to the

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Speaker 17: time when I interviewed him, that it was a spy

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Speaker 17: base and it was a front for illegal American activities.

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Speaker 1: In this respect, Abu Katala had something in common with

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Speaker 1: a certain subset of Americans, whether he knew it or not.

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Speaker 1: There was a theory popular in conservative media that Chris

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Speaker 1: Stevens's real reason for being in Benghazi was to broker

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Speaker 1: a secret weapons deal with Turkey. The theory didn't exactly

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Speaker 1: say the Benghazi mission was a CIA front, but it

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Speaker 1: suggested Stevens was not acting as an average ambassador. In

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Speaker 1: any event, Abu Katala thought every American in Benghazi was suspect.

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Speaker 1: While the FBA eyes slowly developed their case, Republicans in

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Speaker 1: Congress were focused on a different investigation, a bunch of

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Speaker 1: them actually, all taking place on Capitol Hill, where multiple

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Speaker 1: House committees were looking into various aspects of the attack.

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Speaker 5: I mean five separate House committees are looking into this thing.

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Speaker 5: Four or five different committees that are looking into ben Ghazi.

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Speaker 1: Each committee had its own jurisdiction, So, for example, the

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Speaker 1: House Armed Services Committee was focused on the Pentagon's response

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Speaker 1: to the attack, and the Foreign Affairs Committee was focused

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Speaker 1: on the State Department. The broadest scope belonged to the

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Speaker 1: House Oversight Committee. You heard about their work in our

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Speaker 1: previous episode. They were the ones who interviewed the whistleblowers

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Speaker 1: and asked repeatedly about a stand down order.

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Speaker 22: How did the personnel react at being told to stand down?

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Speaker 6: They were furious, he said, this is the first time.

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Speaker 1: Suzanne Saxmon Grooms was the Chief council for the Oversight

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Speaker 1: Committee's Democratic staff. In that capacity, she worked under Congressman

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Speaker 1: Elijah Cummings, so.

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Speaker 8: The Oversight Committee was called back in immediately after the

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Speaker 8: attacks and had its first hearing in October of twenty twelve,

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Speaker 8: and then continued to heavily and actively aggressively investigate the

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Speaker 8: Bengazi attacks for that full year and a half.

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Speaker 1: Between the Oversight Committee investigation and all the others, the

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Speaker 1: Bengazi attack was being scrutinized from every angle.

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Speaker 8: The Committee's interviewed dozens of witnesses, They reviewed tens of

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Speaker 8: thousands of pages of documents, There was a lot of

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Speaker 8: classified interviews and briefings, and there were a number of

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Speaker 8: public hearings.

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Speaker 1: By mid twenty thirteen, polls were showing that Benghazi was

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Speaker 1: being processed completely differently by Democrats and Republicans.

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Speaker 13: The ultimate roar shock test in American politics today maybe

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Speaker 13: the word Benghazi.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, Republicans were just much more interested in

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Speaker 1: the story. According to a Pew survey, they were twice

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Speaker 1: as likely as Democrats to be followed Benghazi in the news.

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Speaker 1: The same survey showed that among Democrats, sixty percent thought

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Speaker 1: Republicans had gone too far with the investigations. Among Republicans,

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Speaker 1: sixty five percent said the investigations had been handled properly.

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Speaker 1: You could see a corresponding schism on Capitol Hill, where

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Speaker 1: Democratic lawmakers were arguing that Benghazi was a manufactured scandal

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Speaker 1: that Republicans were dragging out for political gain.

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Speaker 3: There's an obsession with Benghazi Hillary Clinton that some of

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Speaker 3: my Republican colleagues have in the House.

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Speaker 1: While Republicans insisted that the real truth had still not

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Speaker 1: come out.

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Speaker 4: You know, I think the Benghazi issue is quite significant

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Speaker 4: because we still don't have truth in regards to what

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Speaker 4: happened there.

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Speaker 23: And that was part of the message of the Tea Party.

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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody leading the charge on the Republican side was

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Speaker 1: a cohort of arch conservatives who felt the existing committees

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Speaker 1: weren't being aggressive enough about Benghazi. That included members of

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Speaker 1: the Tea Party, a flamboyant, anger fueled wing of the

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Speaker 1: GOP that rose to power during Obama's first term. What

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Speaker 1: they wanted was a new investigation into Benghazi, a special

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Speaker 1: select committee that would find the smoking gun that had

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Speaker 1: so far eluded Congress. More than anything, the desire for

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Speaker 1: a select committee was about the promise of a less

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Speaker 1: restrained approach than Republicans had been taking thus far. Part

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Speaker 1: of the appeal was symbolic. Select committees have been created

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Speaker 1: to investigate name brand scandals like Watergate and Iran Contra,

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Speaker 1: so it was only right that Benghazi should get one too.

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Speaker 1: But there was a practical appeal as well. The select

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Speaker 1: committee wouldn't be limited by jurisdiction and could therefore investigate

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Speaker 1: any aspect of the scandal they wanted.

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Speaker 24: There were Republicans who believed that the people leading these

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Speaker 24: other investigations were not sufficiently bloodthirsty.

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Speaker 1: This is Tim alberta author of a book called American

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Speaker 1: Carnage about the recent history of the GOP.

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Speaker 24: They believed desperate times call for desperate measures. And we've

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Speaker 24: got this incident that left four Americans dead, and we

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Speaker 24: have the likely nominee of the Democratic Party right at

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Speaker 24: the center of it, and nobody has even laid a

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Speaker 24: glove on her yet. And so all of these fact

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Speaker 24: finding missions that are playing by the rules of Congress

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Speaker 24: are all fine and well, but isn't it about time

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Speaker 24: that we tested some of those boundaries and that maybe

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Speaker 24: we broke a couple of those rules.

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Speaker 1: Calls for the formation of a select committee began just

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Speaker 1: a few months after the attack, but the drumbeat got louder.

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Speaker 1: Over the course of twenty thirteen. That summer, a freshman

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Speaker 1: congressman from Texas announced that he had collected one thousand

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Speaker 1: signatures from Special Ops veterans in support of a select committee.

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Speaker 1: The congressman planned to unveil the signatures in the form

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Speaker 1: of a sixty foot long scroll that he wanted to

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Speaker 1: spread over the Capitol steps.

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Speaker 24: The sixty foot scroll at noon time.

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Speaker 7: I do believe it's been signed by a thousand Special

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Speaker 7: Offs veterans.

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Speaker 24: Well, this happened today.

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Speaker 12: You're getting resistance on that from Capitol police.

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Speaker 25: Well, the police say that we're not allowed to do it,

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Speaker 25: but we're working with him. Right now, we're going to

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Speaker 25: unfurrel the scroll and just demanding that we have a

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Speaker 25: special investigation. We owe it to the survivors. We also

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Speaker 25: owe it to the victims that were killed there.

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Speaker 1: That more, The power to appoint a select committee on

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Speaker 1: Benghazi lay with one man, House Speaker John Bayner. The

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Speaker 1: surly had strong congressman from Ohio.

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Speaker 6: What you see is what you get. I know who

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Speaker 6: I am.

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Speaker 18: I'm comfortable in my own skin, and everybody who knows

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Speaker 18: me knows that I get emotional about certain things. Trying

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Speaker 18: to catch my breath, so I don't refer to this

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Speaker 18: as a chicken crap, all right? What this is bensense?

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Speaker 23: All right.

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Speaker 1: Bayner had a history as something of a renegade in

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Speaker 1: the GOP, but after twenty years in the House he

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Speaker 1: had evolved into a quintessential establishment figure, someone who would

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Speaker 1: go on to support Jeb Bush and John Kasick in

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Speaker 1: the Republican primary over their more erratic challengers.

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Speaker 24: The term institutionalist gets thrown around a lot in Congress,

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Speaker 24: but there's really no one in Congress at this time

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Speaker 24: who is more of an institutionalist than John Bayner. This

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Speaker 24: is somebody who is really, really, sort of obsessed with

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Speaker 24: the long term health and stability and credibility of the

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Speaker 24: US Congress.

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Speaker 7: Whatever anyone thinks about the Speaker of the House, John

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Speaker 7: Bahner may have the toughest job in Washington.

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Speaker 1: Though Baynor had initially celebrated the Tea Party wave, he

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Speaker 1: quickly found himself at odds with the Republican Party's ascendant

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Speaker 1: right flank, many of whom he regarded as politically immature

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Speaker 1: and unserious about governing.

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Speaker 7: His problem has been the rise of the Tea Party faction,

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Speaker 7: the newly arrived and highly motivated members who do not

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Speaker 7: go along or get along with the wishes of the leadership.

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Speaker 24: And so John Baynor tied after time after time. Since

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Speaker 24: he becomes speaker in January of twenty eleven, he's butting

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Speaker 24: heads with the far right of his conference.

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Speaker 1: While Bayner owes his speakership to the Tea Party, victories

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Speaker 1: that put Republicans in charge, the Tea Parties headstrong confrontations

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Speaker 1: put his leadership on the rocks repeatedly.

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Speaker 24: They are just ready to light fires and lob bombs

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Speaker 24: and sort of engage in these guerrilla tactics against not

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Speaker 24: only the Obama administration, but more and more against members

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Speaker 24: of their own party.

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Speaker 1: The Tea Parties guerrilla tactics included pushing conspiracy based legislation

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Speaker 1: that Bayner opposed, like a bill requiring presidential candidates to

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Speaker 1: show their long form birth certificates. What do Obama and

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Speaker 1: God have in common?

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Speaker 6: Neither has a birth certificate.

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Speaker 12: But this strikes of racism in the very least, he's foreign,

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Speaker 12: he's alien, he's the other.

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Speaker 1: Tea Party members also forced government shut down and tanked

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Speaker 1: several of Bayer's carefully crafted compromises with the Obama way

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Speaker 1: Ight House. On one occasion, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann demanded a

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Speaker 1: spot on a powerful House committee and threatened to go

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Speaker 1: on Sean Hannity's show to disparage Bayner if he didn't

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Speaker 1: see her. This was par for the course for Tea

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Speaker 1: Party members, who regularly used Fox News as a way

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Speaker 1: to bypass Bayner's agenda and gain influence by talking directly

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Speaker 1: to their base in private meetings. Bayner attempted to strong

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Speaker 1: arm the renegades with little effect. He had a stern

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Speaker 1: message for Tea Party or Bayner told them, get your

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Speaker 1: ass in line.

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Speaker 6: Don Bayner's a pissed off Speaker of the House.

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Speaker 1: Bayner declined to be interviewed for this podcast, but Tim

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Speaker 1: Alberta says the Speaker was uncomfortable with how the Republican

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Speaker 1: Party was changing. At the same time, Alberta emphasizes that

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Speaker 1: Bayner's discomfort wasn't about policy or ideology so much as

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Speaker 1: tactics and temperament. Bayner saw himself as the adult in

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Speaker 1: the room, and when he started getting pressure to form

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Speaker 1: a special select committee to reinvestigate Benghazi, he bristled.

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Speaker 24: What's really giving Bayner a great degree of heartburn is

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Speaker 24: he's beginning at this point to appreciate what it is

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Speaker 24: that these folks are really after. They're looking for the

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Speaker 24: House of Representatives to do what traditionally a partisan opposition

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Speaker 24: research firm would do, which is spend a whole lot

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Speaker 24: of money and a whole lot of time and a

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Speaker 24: whole lot of energy trying to dig up dirt on

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Speaker 24: a particular subject. And for Bayner, that makes him extremely

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Speaker 24: uncomfortable because he knows in his bones that that is inappropriate.

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Speaker 1: On some level. Bayner's heartburn was about appearances. He had

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Speaker 1: no problem with cutthroat political maneuvering. He just didn't want

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party to look shameless.

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Speaker 24: There are new developments on Benghazi.

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Speaker 5: Some of the families of the four Americans killed, pressing

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Speaker 5: House Speaker John Bayner to create what's called a select

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Speaker 5: committee and investigate.

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Speaker 1: By the spring of twenty fourteen, the pressure on Bayner

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Speaker 1: to appoint a select committee was building. It was no

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Speaker 1: longer just the zany, angry New Right calling out for it.

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Speaker 1: It was all kinds of Republicans who were hearing from

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Speaker 1: voters back home that not enough was being done about Benghazi.

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Speaker 1: Author Tim Elberta again.

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Speaker 24: Lots of the constituents. Even in these sort of moderate

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Speaker 24: suburban Republican districts. The folks that we thought at the

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Speaker 24: time were just your sort of traditional Republicans, you know,

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Speaker 24: Chamber of Commerce, country Club, give me some tax cuts

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Speaker 24: and Supreme Court justices. Republicans, they're you know, tuning into

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Speaker 24: Fox News every night, and they're bringing these concerns now

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Speaker 24: to their members of Congress, saying, hey, why aren't you

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Speaker 24: looking at the ben Ghazi Why are you letting Hillary

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Speaker 24: Clinton off the hooks.

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Speaker 2: About one hundred and sixty seven members of the Republican

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Speaker 2: Commerce have written to Bayner asking to create this committee.

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Speaker 26: One month of billboards advocating Watergates style committee going up

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Speaker 26: in Bayner's district.

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Speaker 24: And it wasn't just the Tea partiers who were sort

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Speaker 24: of battering at the gates of the House leadership asking

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Speaker 24: for this investigation. More and more the drum beat was

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Speaker 24: coming from across the conference.

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Speaker 1: In April, John Bahner sat for an interview on Fox

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Speaker 1: News with Megan Kelly, in which she pressed him on

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Speaker 1: why he was resisting calls for a new investigation.

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Speaker 11: You've got one hundred and ninety members in the House

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Speaker 11: who are in favor of a select committee, and yet

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Speaker 11: you are overruling or ignoring the will of your own majority.

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Speaker 18: There are four committees that are investigating in BEng Ghazi.

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Speaker 18: These committees all have subpoena power. At this point in time,

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Speaker 18: I see no reason to break up all the work

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Speaker 18: that's been done and to take months and months and

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Speaker 18: months to create some select committee.

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Speaker 6: But want it.

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Speaker 11: You've got one hundred and ninety House Republicans who say

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Speaker 11: they need it.

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Speaker 6: I understand it.

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Speaker 1: It's Later that month, the conservative legal group Didditional Watch

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Speaker 1: published an email they had obtained through a four yer request.

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Speaker 1: In it, a White House communications advisor laid out a

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Speaker 1: series of talking points for Susan Rice's appearance on the

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Speaker 1: Sunday News shows. The memo directed Rice to underscore that

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Speaker 1: the recent unrest in the Arab world, including the Benghazi incident,

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Speaker 1: was quote rooted in an Internet video and not a

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00:25:31,911 --> 00:25:33,471
Speaker 1: broader failure of policy.

443
00:25:34,110 --> 00:25:36,870
Speaker 15: The president of Judicial Watch said the documents read like

444
00:25:36,911 --> 00:25:39,671
Speaker 15: a pr strategy, not an effort to provide the best

445
00:25:39,711 --> 00:25:41,910
Speaker 15: available intelligence to the American people.

446
00:25:42,191 --> 00:25:45,391
Speaker 1: The State Department had not previously disclosed the email when

447
00:25:45,431 --> 00:25:49,630
Speaker 1: responding to document requests from Congress. In a statement, John

448
00:25:49,671 --> 00:25:51,311
Speaker 1: Bahner said he was appalled.

449
00:25:51,711 --> 00:25:55,630
Speaker 27: Speaker Bayner said, quote, the administration's withholding of documents is

450
00:25:55,671 --> 00:25:58,670
Speaker 27: a flagrant violation of trust, and it forces us to

451
00:25:58,711 --> 00:26:01,950
Speaker 27: ask the question, what else about Benghazi is the Obama

452
00:26:01,991 --> 00:26:03,551
Speaker 27: administration still hiding?

453
00:26:07,311 --> 00:26:10,110
Speaker 1: Appointing the Select Committee would earn Bayner credit with the

454
00:26:10,191 --> 00:26:15,350
Speaker 1: Republican Party's loudest, most ideological voices. In his book, Tim

455
00:26:15,350 --> 00:26:18,031
Speaker 1: Alberta tells a story about Bayner going up to New

456
00:26:18,110 --> 00:26:21,271
Speaker 1: York and meeting with Fox News chairman Roger Ales.

457
00:26:21,791 --> 00:26:24,390
Speaker 24: John Bahner and Roger Ayles have been friends for a

458
00:26:24,671 --> 00:26:28,991
Speaker 24: very long time. They talked frequently. When Ales took over

459
00:26:29,071 --> 00:26:33,031
Speaker 24: Fox News, he and Bayner had long dinner conversations about

460
00:26:33,150 --> 00:26:36,351
Speaker 24: Ales's vision for the network. These two were really, in

461
00:26:36,390 --> 00:26:39,191
Speaker 24: some ways peas in a pod. These guys were buddies.

462
00:26:39,991 --> 00:26:42,470
Speaker 1: Bayner planned to tell Ales that he had decided to

463
00:26:42,551 --> 00:26:45,071
Speaker 1: go ahead and form the Select Committee. So many on

464
00:26:45,150 --> 00:26:49,271
Speaker 1: Fox News had been demanding. What Bayner wanted in exchange

465
00:26:49,311 --> 00:26:52,071
Speaker 1: was for Ales to get Fox News off his back,

466
00:26:52,791 --> 00:26:56,910
Speaker 1: not just about Bengazi, but about everything. Bayner wanted the

467
00:26:56,951 --> 00:27:00,231
Speaker 1: crazies his word, to tone down their criticism of the

468
00:27:00,311 --> 00:27:04,110
Speaker 1: Republican Party, and he wanted Fox News to stop giving

469
00:27:04,150 --> 00:27:05,590
Speaker 1: them a platform.

470
00:27:05,590 --> 00:27:08,951
Speaker 24: Bayner says to Ales, he says, listen, Roger, I want

471
00:27:09,031 --> 00:27:11,951
Speaker 24: you to know that I'm the one given this thing

472
00:27:11,991 --> 00:27:14,910
Speaker 24: the green light, and i want you to know that

473
00:27:14,991 --> 00:27:18,230
Speaker 24: we'll be communicating with you and with your anchors and

474
00:27:18,271 --> 00:27:21,031
Speaker 24: with your hosts about this, and we're going to make

475
00:27:21,071 --> 00:27:23,110
Speaker 24: sure that Fox News has a front row seat for

476
00:27:23,150 --> 00:27:26,991
Speaker 24: everything that's happening with this committee. But Roger, I'm telling

477
00:27:27,031 --> 00:27:29,951
Speaker 24: you this because I need you to call off the hounds.

478
00:27:30,231 --> 00:27:32,830
Speaker 24: I need you to give me a break here. I

479
00:27:32,991 --> 00:27:36,991
Speaker 24: need you to treat this as something of a peace offering.

480
00:27:37,711 --> 00:27:42,191
Speaker 1: Essentially, Bayner was offering to trade Ales more Benghazi content

481
00:27:42,431 --> 00:27:46,791
Speaker 1: for a friendlier Fox News. Bayner had long understood Ales

482
00:27:46,830 --> 00:27:49,751
Speaker 1: to be obsessed with ratings, but he viewed him ultimately

483
00:27:49,830 --> 00:27:54,311
Speaker 1: as a reasonable man. Ales gave Bayner no indication that

484
00:27:54,350 --> 00:27:56,271
Speaker 1: he was willing to tone anything down.

485
00:27:56,991 --> 00:28:03,631
Speaker 24: Ales here's the word ben Ghazi and basically spirals out

486
00:28:03,671 --> 00:28:07,551
Speaker 24: into a little dark world of his own, in which

487
00:28:07,590 --> 00:28:11,350
Speaker 24: he begins to talk about, as Bayner said, black helicopters

488
00:28:11,350 --> 00:28:14,430
Speaker 24: flying all around his head. He talks about how the

489
00:28:14,431 --> 00:28:17,111
Speaker 24: Obama administration is spying on him and how he has

490
00:28:17,150 --> 00:28:19,671
Speaker 24: to create a safe room in his house to make

491
00:28:19,671 --> 00:28:22,510
Speaker 24: sure he's not being monitored, and how his property has

492
00:28:22,671 --> 00:28:26,671
Speaker 24: armed guards to protect against potential assassins coming to take

493
00:28:26,751 --> 00:28:30,271
Speaker 24: him out. Bayner walks out of that meeting thinking, if

494
00:28:30,311 --> 00:28:36,910
Speaker 24: the head of Fox News is this conspiratorial, and this lost,

495
00:28:37,110 --> 00:28:42,031
Speaker 24: and this deep down some of these crazy wormholes believing

496
00:28:42,111 --> 00:28:47,751
Speaker 24: this stuff, then how does that bode for this country

497
00:28:48,111 --> 00:28:52,631
Speaker 24: and for the conservative movement and for the Republican viewers,

498
00:28:52,751 --> 00:28:55,631
Speaker 24: millions of them around the country who are essentially addicted

499
00:28:55,671 --> 00:29:04,151
Speaker 24: to watching his network every single night.

500
00:29:07,711 --> 00:29:10,311
Speaker 15: At this time, I would yield to the jail woman,

501
00:29:10,351 --> 00:29:13,231
Speaker 15: the Speaker of the House, the gentleman, mister Bayner from Ohio.

502
00:29:15,031 --> 00:29:18,271
Speaker 18: I believe the whole House and the American people deserve

503
00:29:18,311 --> 00:29:20,351
Speaker 18: to know how I came to the decision that brings

504
00:29:20,431 --> 00:29:21,391
Speaker 18: us here today.

505
00:29:22,271 --> 00:29:25,311
Speaker 1: Baynor announced the formation of the Select Committee on May two,

506
00:29:25,511 --> 00:29:29,710
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, not long after his meeting with Ales. He

507
00:29:29,751 --> 00:29:33,111
Speaker 1: billed it as the definitive Bengazi investigation, the one that

508
00:29:33,151 --> 00:29:35,111
Speaker 1: would settle the case once and for all.

509
00:29:35,951 --> 00:29:40,230
Speaker 23: This doesn't need to be, shouldn't be, and will not

510
00:29:40,351 --> 00:29:44,351
Speaker 23: be a partisan process, and we will not allow any

511
00:29:44,511 --> 00:29:48,631
Speaker 23: side shows that distract us from those goals.

512
00:29:48,791 --> 00:29:51,791
Speaker 1: Bayner's pick to chair the new committee was Trey Goudy,

513
00:29:52,191 --> 00:29:54,271
Speaker 1: a Tea Party favorite from South Carolina.

514
00:29:54,471 --> 00:29:57,551
Speaker 10: Congressman Trey Goudi now leading the charge with it.

515
00:29:57,551 --> 00:29:59,911
Speaker 1: It was as clear a sign as any that Bayner

516
00:29:59,991 --> 00:30:01,950
Speaker 1: was thinking of the Select Committee as a way to

517
00:30:02,031 --> 00:30:04,911
Speaker 1: appease the Republican Party's most extreme members.

518
00:30:05,271 --> 00:30:09,831
Speaker 28: Goudy, with that wonderful Southern accent, leading that committee hearing.

519
00:30:09,591 --> 00:30:11,871
Speaker 2: So, I think I am not surprised at the President

520
00:30:11,911 --> 00:30:14,311
Speaker 2: of the United States call this a phony scan. I'm

521
00:30:14,351 --> 00:30:17,991
Speaker 2: not surprised, as Secretary Clinton ask, what difference does it make?

522
00:30:18,271 --> 00:30:21,391
Speaker 1: I'm Goudy had the track record of a hardline conservative.

523
00:30:22,271 --> 00:30:25,751
Speaker 1: During Obama's first term, the congressman had advocated for getting

524
00:30:25,831 --> 00:30:30,311
Speaker 1: rid of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. He had also

525
00:30:30,391 --> 00:30:33,391
Speaker 1: been a particularly vocal critic of the administration's handling of

526
00:30:33,391 --> 00:30:34,351
Speaker 1: the Bengazi attack.

527
00:30:34,631 --> 00:30:39,351
Speaker 2: No one has been arrested, no one has been prosecuted,

528
00:30:39,991 --> 00:30:43,111
Speaker 2: no one has been brought to justice. We don't even

529
00:30:43,151 --> 00:30:45,710
Speaker 2: have access to the witnesses.

530
00:30:46,431 --> 00:30:48,951
Speaker 1: At the same time, Goudy was seen as a sort

531
00:30:48,991 --> 00:30:52,471
Speaker 1: of thinking man's Tea partier, someone who could throw punches,

532
00:30:52,591 --> 00:30:56,271
Speaker 1: but wasn't reckless about it. True to that image, Goudy

533
00:30:56,391 --> 00:30:59,111
Speaker 1: vowed to the Select Committee and Benghazi would be fair

534
00:30:59,271 --> 00:31:02,710
Speaker 1: and apolitical, a fact finding mission that had nothing to

535
00:31:02,751 --> 00:31:05,631
Speaker 1: do with attacking Hillary Clinton and everything to do with

536
00:31:05,791 --> 00:31:07,511
Speaker 1: answering the unanswered questions.

537
00:31:07,751 --> 00:31:10,510
Speaker 2: Can you tell me why Chris Stevens was in the Gazi?

538
00:31:11,111 --> 00:31:13,351
Speaker 2: Do you know why we were the last flag flying

539
00:31:13,391 --> 00:31:15,951
Speaker 2: in Benghazi after the British had left and the Red

540
00:31:16,031 --> 00:31:18,871
Speaker 2: Cross had been blonged? Do you know why requests for

541
00:31:18,951 --> 00:31:20,751
Speaker 2: additional security were denied?

542
00:31:21,471 --> 00:31:24,470
Speaker 1: Do you know why this messaging was consistent with Speaker

543
00:31:24,471 --> 00:31:26,671
Speaker 1: Bayner's desire to keep up appearances.

544
00:31:26,951 --> 00:31:30,271
Speaker 2: I have no friends to reward and no foes to punish.

545
00:31:30,311 --> 00:31:32,351
Speaker 2: We're going to go wherever the facts take us. Facts

546
00:31:32,351 --> 00:31:33,031
Speaker 2: are neither.

547
00:31:32,871 --> 00:31:35,671
Speaker 24: Rule, and so Trey Goudi was sort of that rare

548
00:31:35,871 --> 00:31:38,351
Speaker 24: specimen in the eyes of Bayner, who was going to

549
00:31:38,391 --> 00:31:42,271
Speaker 24: make the Tea Party guys happy, but who also could

550
00:31:42,271 --> 00:31:46,111
Speaker 24: be expected to run a professional investigation that was not

551
00:31:46,191 --> 00:31:49,071
Speaker 24: going to bring any sort of embarrassment to the institution.

552
00:31:51,151 --> 00:31:55,791
Speaker 1: Democrats were unconvinced by Goudy and Bayner's promises. Remember this

553
00:31:55,911 --> 00:31:59,111
Speaker 1: was the spring of twenty fourteen, and Hillary Clinton was

554
00:31:59,151 --> 00:32:02,911
Speaker 1: widely expected to run for president in twenty sixteen. No

555
00:32:03,071 --> 00:32:06,231
Speaker 1: matter how a political Goudy and Bayner wanted it to look,

556
00:32:06,911 --> 00:32:09,871
Speaker 1: the Select Committee would inevitably be an early battleground in

557
00:32:09,871 --> 00:32:14,431
Speaker 1: the upcoming election, and initially the Democrats considered boycotting it

558
00:32:14,511 --> 00:32:17,151
Speaker 1: so as to avoid giving it the appearance of legitimacy

559
00:32:17,351 --> 00:32:17,751
Speaker 1: at House.

560
00:32:17,831 --> 00:32:21,710
Speaker 5: Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi calls it a political stunt and

561
00:32:21,751 --> 00:32:24,591
Speaker 5: are still considering whether her party will participate.

562
00:32:25,111 --> 00:32:28,871
Speaker 1: Ultimately, the Democrats decided they couldn't trust Goudy and Bayner

563
00:32:28,991 --> 00:32:31,631
Speaker 1: to run a fair hearing on their own, and so

564
00:32:31,671 --> 00:32:34,911
Speaker 1: they sat five members of their party, including Elijah Cummings,

565
00:32:35,391 --> 00:32:38,711
Speaker 1: alongside the seven Republicans. Bayner had selected.

566
00:32:38,351 --> 00:32:40,911
Speaker 29: Elijah Cummings a seasoned vet when it comes to all

567
00:32:40,951 --> 00:32:45,351
Speaker 29: things Benghazi, having suffered through Daryl IS's House Oversight Committee

568
00:32:45,391 --> 00:32:47,351
Speaker 29: on the very same subject he will be.

569
00:32:47,391 --> 00:32:50,831
Speaker 1: Doing at that point. Suzanne Grooms, the Democratic staffer you

570
00:32:50,871 --> 00:32:53,791
Speaker 1: heard from earlier, transitioned along with her team from the

571
00:32:53,791 --> 00:32:57,511
Speaker 1: Oversight Committee to the new Select Committee. Here's Grooms again.

572
00:32:57,911 --> 00:32:58,671
Speaker 17: We saw our.

573
00:32:58,631 --> 00:33:02,791
Speaker 8: Role as to fact check and ensure that the most

574
00:33:02,831 --> 00:33:05,831
Speaker 8: accurate information about what happened in the Benghazi attacks was

575
00:33:05,831 --> 00:33:09,671
Speaker 8: going to be made public, and that any conspiracy theories

576
00:33:10,271 --> 00:33:11,190
Speaker 8: be done away with.

577
00:33:12,031 --> 00:33:14,671
Speaker 1: To that end, the first thing Grooms and her team

578
00:33:14,751 --> 00:33:16,631
Speaker 1: did was make a website, a.

579
00:33:16,591 --> 00:33:20,711
Speaker 29: Website intended to preemptively push back on the expected avalanche

580
00:33:20,791 --> 00:33:24,631
Speaker 29: of Republican rumors and conspiracy mongering joining me.

581
00:33:24,631 --> 00:33:27,831
Speaker 1: He was titled Benghazi on the Record, Asked and Answered,

582
00:33:28,431 --> 00:33:30,751
Speaker 1: and its purpose was to address more than a dozen

583
00:33:30,831 --> 00:33:35,351
Speaker 1: frequently asked questions about Benghazi, including why was security in

584
00:33:35,391 --> 00:33:40,271
Speaker 1: Benghazi inadequate despite repeated requests? And did Secretary of State

585
00:33:40,351 --> 00:33:45,111
Speaker 1: Quinton order the military to stand down? The website was

586
00:33:45,151 --> 00:33:48,671
Speaker 1: based on a very earnest premise that if the Democrats

587
00:33:48,711 --> 00:33:51,431
Speaker 1: could just get all the relevant information in one place,

588
00:33:52,071 --> 00:33:54,591
Speaker 1: anyone who was intrigued by the conspiracy theories they were

589
00:33:54,631 --> 00:33:57,591
Speaker 1: hearing about on Fox News could just consult the record

590
00:33:57,711 --> 00:34:02,271
Speaker 1: and set themselves straight. According to Suzanne Grooms, the Democrats

591
00:34:02,311 --> 00:34:05,311
Speaker 1: even thought there was a chance that, upon seeing the website,

592
00:34:05,511 --> 00:34:08,631
Speaker 1: Trey Goudi himself would be compelled to narrow the scope

593
00:34:08,631 --> 00:34:09,871
Speaker 1: of the committee's investigation.

594
00:34:10,831 --> 00:34:14,311
Speaker 8: Our hope was at the beginning that if there was

595
00:34:14,351 --> 00:34:18,671
Speaker 8: some chance for bipartisanship, Trey Goudi would sort of look

596
00:34:18,710 --> 00:34:21,631
Speaker 8: at some of these conspiracy theories that had been debunked

597
00:34:21,631 --> 00:34:26,631
Speaker 8: already and make a powerful statement pointing to these factual

598
00:34:27,270 --> 00:34:30,190
Speaker 8: pieces of evidence that were already in existence, and we

599
00:34:30,230 --> 00:34:32,711
Speaker 8: could take those off the table, and maybe we could

600
00:34:32,750 --> 00:34:38,031
Speaker 8: stop the right wing media from kind of constantly repeating

601
00:34:38,071 --> 00:34:41,230
Speaker 8: them by having an authoritative source say that they were

602
00:34:41,270 --> 00:34:43,991
Speaker 8: not true. Maybe that was overly hopeful.

603
00:34:46,591 --> 00:34:49,071
Speaker 1: Now, normally, this is where I'd tell you that the

604
00:34:49,111 --> 00:34:52,750
Speaker 1: Republicans were taking a much more relentless tack than the Democrats,

605
00:34:53,311 --> 00:34:56,191
Speaker 1: that they were focusing less on humbly educating the public

606
00:34:56,671 --> 00:35:00,791
Speaker 1: and more unscoring direct hits against their opponents. But that's

607
00:35:00,831 --> 00:35:04,791
Speaker 1: not really what happened after the Select Committee was formed. Instead,

608
00:35:05,230 --> 00:35:09,911
Speaker 1: Trey Goudi's investigation got off to a conspicuously slow start.

609
00:35:10,071 --> 00:35:14,311
Speaker 30: Democrats explicitly said that they didn't know where this committee

610
00:35:14,391 --> 00:35:14,791
Speaker 30: was going.

611
00:35:14,831 --> 00:35:17,151
Speaker 6: They said that it was rudderless. Essentially, they had.

612
00:35:16,991 --> 00:35:20,671
Speaker 31: No organizational meetings, that they had no long term timeline.

613
00:35:20,831 --> 00:35:21,391
Speaker 6: They did not know.

614
00:35:21,511 --> 00:35:24,951
Speaker 1: During the first year of the committee's existence, Goudy presided

615
00:35:24,991 --> 00:35:28,111
Speaker 1: over just three days of public hearings, and none of

616
00:35:28,151 --> 00:35:30,631
Speaker 1: them offered much in the way of fireworks.

617
00:35:31,031 --> 00:35:33,031
Speaker 5: Where is the outrage from Republicans.

618
00:35:33,351 --> 00:35:35,951
Speaker 11: I heard Brettber's reporting today earlier.

619
00:35:35,591 --> 00:35:37,031
Speaker 22: And he was laying it out, It's going to be

620
00:35:37,111 --> 00:35:38,111
Speaker 22: kind of like a slow role.

621
00:35:38,750 --> 00:35:40,951
Speaker 5: When is the role part of the slow coming.

622
00:35:40,871 --> 00:35:43,631
Speaker 1: To Brad Pudliska, who joined the Republican staff of the

623
00:35:43,631 --> 00:35:46,710
Speaker 1: SECT Committee as an investigator in September of twenty fourteen,

624
00:35:47,471 --> 00:35:50,031
Speaker 1: it looked like his new colleagues weren't doing much of

625
00:35:50,071 --> 00:35:50,910
Speaker 1: anything at all.

626
00:35:51,431 --> 00:35:54,191
Speaker 3: It was well known that staffers were surfing the web,

627
00:35:55,190 --> 00:35:58,390
Speaker 3: staffers were drinking in the office. It was just very,

628
00:35:58,471 --> 00:35:59,031
Speaker 3: very slow.

629
00:35:59,311 --> 00:36:03,551
Speaker 1: Pudliska says he was disappointed. He was a military intelligence analyst,

630
00:36:03,791 --> 00:36:06,830
Speaker 1: and he says he really wanted to conduct a meaningful investigation,

631
00:36:07,951 --> 00:36:10,871
Speaker 1: and so he buried his nose and State depart documents,

632
00:36:11,111 --> 00:36:14,031
Speaker 1: including a bunch of Hillary Quinton's emails that had previously

633
00:36:14,031 --> 00:36:15,830
Speaker 1: been obtained by the oversight committee.

634
00:36:16,190 --> 00:36:19,631
Speaker 3: Basically, there was like no day to day oversight. He

635
00:36:19,671 --> 00:36:22,471
Speaker 3: would show up at nine o'clock in the morning, go

636
00:36:22,511 --> 00:36:25,831
Speaker 3: down to the document room and look through documents, although

637
00:36:25,831 --> 00:36:28,870
Speaker 3: he long with no director from above, nothing to look

638
00:36:28,911 --> 00:36:31,031
Speaker 3: for in particular. It was just start to look through

639
00:36:31,031 --> 00:36:33,710
Speaker 3: the documents to see if you find anything interesting, and

640
00:36:33,750 --> 00:36:35,031
Speaker 3: then at the end of the day you would simply

641
00:36:35,071 --> 00:36:36,230
Speaker 3: clock out and go home.

642
00:36:36,351 --> 00:36:38,430
Speaker 6: You just pull out a random one from a boxer.

643
00:36:38,190 --> 00:36:42,431
Speaker 3: Like basically, and it was just start shuffling through documents.

644
00:36:42,471 --> 00:36:44,391
Speaker 3: If you found anything good, you would simply highlight it,

645
00:36:44,551 --> 00:36:47,471
Speaker 3: set it aside with marking, and then move on to

646
00:36:47,511 --> 00:36:48,031
Speaker 3: the next one.

647
00:36:49,710 --> 00:36:52,390
Speaker 1: I should mention here that Brad Pugliska went on to

648
00:36:52,431 --> 00:36:55,431
Speaker 1: sue Trey Goudi and the Select Committee for wrongful termination,

649
00:36:56,311 --> 00:36:59,510
Speaker 1: so he's not exactly an unbiased source, but he says

650
00:36:59,591 --> 00:37:02,271
Speaker 1: the lack of urgency around the investigation was an open

651
00:37:02,351 --> 00:37:06,071
Speaker 1: joke at the office, especially after Elijah Cummings, the lead

652
00:37:06,071 --> 00:37:09,470
Speaker 1: Democrat on the committee, criticized Goudy for the glacial pace

653
00:37:09,511 --> 00:37:10,631
Speaker 1: of the committe.

654
00:37:10,750 --> 00:37:13,710
Speaker 30: He says quoted every turn, the Select Committee comes up

655
00:37:13,750 --> 00:37:17,310
Speaker 30: with new excuses to further delay its work and then

656
00:37:17,391 --> 00:37:19,750
Speaker 30: blames the glacial pace on someone else.

657
00:37:20,351 --> 00:37:23,471
Speaker 1: Cummings was suggesting that the Republicans were slow walking the

658
00:37:23,471 --> 00:37:26,591
Speaker 1: investigation on purpose so that they could extend it further

659
00:37:26,631 --> 00:37:29,911
Speaker 1: into the twenty sixteen race, when each little morsel of

660
00:37:29,951 --> 00:37:32,631
Speaker 1: information could do more damage to Hillary Clinton.

661
00:37:33,031 --> 00:37:35,551
Speaker 3: He suspected that we were trying to draw this investigation

662
00:37:35,631 --> 00:37:38,830
Speaker 3: into the election year, and you know, we took that

663
00:37:38,911 --> 00:37:43,351
Speaker 3: in jest. Soon a staff member had designed and produced

664
00:37:43,351 --> 00:37:45,991
Speaker 3: a lapel pen that said glacial pace on it. Another

665
00:37:46,031 --> 00:37:49,350
Speaker 3: staff member designed and produced wineglasses that said glacial pace

666
00:37:49,431 --> 00:37:51,991
Speaker 3: on it, and this became a running joke within the office.

667
00:37:53,351 --> 00:37:56,071
Speaker 1: Trey Goudi said, the problem was that the Obama administration

668
00:37:56,311 --> 00:37:59,511
Speaker 1: wasn't responding quickly enough to document requests and subpoenas.

669
00:37:59,911 --> 00:38:02,230
Speaker 2: It would be shame on us if we intentionally drag

670
00:38:02,270 --> 00:38:05,471
Speaker 2: this out for political expediency. On the other hand, if

671
00:38:05,511 --> 00:38:09,190
Speaker 2: an administration is slow walking document production, I can't end

672
00:38:09,230 --> 00:38:11,830
Speaker 2: a trial because the defense won't cooperate.

673
00:38:12,951 --> 00:38:16,390
Speaker 1: Regardless, not much was happening, and that was the state

674
00:38:16,431 --> 00:38:21,270
Speaker 1: of play on the committee until early twenty fifteen. Meanwhile,

675
00:38:21,631 --> 00:38:26,151
Speaker 1: over at the Department of Justice, Prosecutor Juliannehimmelstein and FBI

676
00:38:26,190 --> 00:38:28,431
Speaker 1: agent Mike Clark were making progress.

677
00:38:28,951 --> 00:38:30,270
Speaker 19: Sunday night, on.

678
00:38:30,311 --> 00:38:33,271
Speaker 32: Orders from the Commander in Chief, the United States Military

679
00:38:33,270 --> 00:38:36,791
Speaker 32: conducted in Operation to Capture Ahmed Abu.

680
00:38:36,431 --> 00:38:41,591
Speaker 1: Kaitala on June fifteenth, twenty fourteen, almost two years after

681
00:38:41,631 --> 00:38:45,071
Speaker 1: the attack, the FBI in a team of special forces

682
00:38:45,190 --> 00:38:49,671
Speaker 1: arrested Ahmed Abu Katala in Benghazi. They then transported him

683
00:38:49,671 --> 00:38:51,711
Speaker 1: by ship to the US to stand trial.

684
00:38:52,230 --> 00:38:55,391
Speaker 32: Katala has been charged for his role in the attacks

685
00:38:55,431 --> 00:39:00,551
Speaker 32: on US facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September eleventh, twenty twelve.

686
00:39:01,270 --> 00:39:03,911
Speaker 1: It was the climax of a process that, unlike the

687
00:39:03,951 --> 00:39:08,031
Speaker 1: political drama on Capitol Hill, had unfolded almost entirely out

688
00:39:08,071 --> 00:39:11,991
Speaker 1: of sight, with FBI eight working with confidential informants in

689
00:39:12,031 --> 00:39:14,991
Speaker 1: Libya to build the case against Abu Katala before taking

690
00:39:15,071 --> 00:39:16,351
Speaker 1: him into custody.

691
00:39:16,071 --> 00:39:19,710
Speaker 25: Katala was lured to a location south of Benghazi.

692
00:39:19,991 --> 00:39:24,551
Speaker 21: Intelligence gleaned from local Libyans helped draw Katala to the location.

693
00:39:25,551 --> 00:39:28,391
Speaker 1: Among the informants was a man whom the FBI paid

694
00:39:28,431 --> 00:39:32,031
Speaker 1: seven million dollars as a reward for infiltrating Abu Katawa's

695
00:39:32,031 --> 00:39:34,831
Speaker 1: inner circle, once again, Mike Clark.

696
00:39:35,591 --> 00:39:41,351
Speaker 17: He basically went in and befriended Abu Katala and developed

697
00:39:41,471 --> 00:39:44,991
Speaker 17: enough information to allow us to develop a pattern of

698
00:39:45,031 --> 00:39:50,351
Speaker 17: life and then get him legally captured and then transported

699
00:39:50,391 --> 00:39:52,991
Speaker 17: back to the United States, fore he faced justice in Washington,

700
00:39:53,071 --> 00:39:53,310
Speaker 17: d C.

701
00:39:54,391 --> 00:39:57,310
Speaker 11: There's also the question of how they plan to prosecute him.

702
00:39:57,311 --> 00:40:00,351
Speaker 5: The Obama administration says Abu Katala will be tried in

703
00:40:00,471 --> 00:40:01,391
Speaker 5: civilian court.

704
00:40:01,831 --> 00:40:05,111
Speaker 1: The fact that the Obama administration wanted Abu Katala to

705
00:40:05,151 --> 00:40:08,111
Speaker 1: stand trial as a civilian rather than sending him to

706
00:40:08,111 --> 00:40:11,790
Speaker 1: Guantanamo Bay and prosecuting him as an enemy combatant was

707
00:40:11,831 --> 00:40:14,071
Speaker 1: instantly controversial among conservatives.

708
00:40:14,431 --> 00:40:16,870
Speaker 29: Send him to GITMA. That is the course of action

709
00:40:16,991 --> 00:40:21,151
Speaker 29: recommended by one Republican senator after another, Rubio Cruz.

710
00:40:20,871 --> 00:40:24,710
Speaker 1: Even John McCain on Fox News. The administration also took

711
00:40:24,710 --> 00:40:27,591
Speaker 1: criticism for not capturing Abu Katala sooner.

712
00:40:28,071 --> 00:40:30,750
Speaker 12: It certainly doesn't look like it was a top priority.

713
00:40:31,071 --> 00:40:33,151
Speaker 12: Let's face it, six hundred and forty two days. It

714
00:40:33,190 --> 00:40:35,951
Speaker 12: took us that long. But again, I don't know the details.

715
00:40:35,991 --> 00:40:38,071
Speaker 12: I can't make that accusation. What I can tell you

716
00:40:38,111 --> 00:40:40,871
Speaker 12: what is not a priority. This administration is holding members

717
00:40:40,871 --> 00:40:42,790
Speaker 12: of his administration accountable for.

718
00:40:42,750 --> 00:40:45,350
Speaker 1: Their day election to do both. Himmelstein and Clark told

719
00:40:45,391 --> 00:40:47,551
Speaker 1: me they were able to mostly tune this stuff out

720
00:40:48,190 --> 00:40:50,991
Speaker 1: along with the rest of the public dialogue around Benghazi.

721
00:40:51,391 --> 00:40:56,190
Speaker 4: We were protected, the investigation team was protected from so

722
00:40:56,391 --> 00:40:59,631
Speaker 4: much of the noise that was happening all around us,

723
00:41:00,031 --> 00:41:05,431
Speaker 4: and we never thought about any of the silliness. I

724
00:41:05,471 --> 00:41:07,151
Speaker 4: don't know if I should use that word, but it's

725
00:41:07,190 --> 00:41:08,551
Speaker 4: the only word that came to mind.

726
00:41:08,710 --> 00:41:10,751
Speaker 6: People have used ruder words NaNs.

727
00:41:10,911 --> 00:41:26,031
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be right back. Despite the capture of Abu Katala,

728
00:41:26,551 --> 00:41:29,031
Speaker 1: it's fair to say that the Benghazi story was stuck

729
00:41:29,111 --> 00:41:34,111
Speaker 1: in neutral. Then, on March second, twenty fifteen, The New

730
00:41:34,190 --> 00:41:38,391
Speaker 1: York Times published an article about Hillary Clinton's personal email account.

731
00:41:39,270 --> 00:41:41,870
Speaker 1: According to the article, the account had come to light

732
00:41:42,111 --> 00:41:45,671
Speaker 1: after the Select Committee on Benghazi sought correspondence between Missus

733
00:41:45,671 --> 00:41:47,871
Speaker 1: Clinton and her aides about the attack.

734
00:41:48,071 --> 00:41:49,951
Speaker 6: Hillary Clinton has some explaining to do.

735
00:41:50,391 --> 00:41:52,391
Speaker 5: A New York Times story this morning about when she

736
00:41:52,471 --> 00:41:54,911
Speaker 5: was Secretary of State, she never had a government account,

737
00:41:54,911 --> 00:41:58,991
Speaker 5: she exclusively communicated using a personal email account.

738
00:41:58,791 --> 00:42:02,511
Speaker 1: And the story, written by reporter Michael Schmidt, said that

739
00:42:02,591 --> 00:42:06,071
Speaker 1: while serving as Secretary of State, Clinton had declined to

740
00:42:06,230 --> 00:42:09,871
Speaker 1: use a government email address and instead had relied exclusively

741
00:42:10,071 --> 00:42:13,911
Speaker 1: on a personal one HDR twenty two at clinton email

742
00:42:14,031 --> 00:42:18,391
Speaker 1: dot com. Schmidt noted that federal law required government officials

743
00:42:18,391 --> 00:42:22,031
Speaker 1: to preserve all their correspondents on government servers, and that

744
00:42:22,071 --> 00:42:25,350
Speaker 1: Clinton's staff had handpicked which emails to hand over to

745
00:42:25,391 --> 00:42:28,951
Speaker 1: the State Department. Schmid's reporting was immediately picked up by

746
00:42:28,951 --> 00:42:31,471
Speaker 1: the news networks and amplified far and wide.

747
00:42:31,871 --> 00:42:33,831
Speaker 23: Our lead story, email.

748
00:42:33,511 --> 00:42:37,671
Speaker 17: Gate, Hillary Clinton email mess This story is something for everyone.

749
00:42:37,710 --> 00:42:40,870
Speaker 7: How Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email address while

750
00:42:40,951 --> 00:42:44,511
Speaker 7: Secretary of State shielded her and the department from a

751
00:42:44,631 --> 00:42:46,431
Speaker 7: probe of her public records.

752
00:42:47,190 --> 00:42:49,991
Speaker 1: Brad Pudliska told me he was caught off guard when

753
00:42:49,991 --> 00:42:53,671
Speaker 1: the Time story broke. As an investigator on the Republican

754
00:42:53,750 --> 00:42:56,350
Speaker 1: staff of the SEUECT Committee, he had seen some of

755
00:42:56,351 --> 00:42:59,190
Speaker 1: Clinton's emails, and it hadn't even occurred to him that

756
00:42:59,270 --> 00:43:02,431
Speaker 1: her use of a personal account might be seen as problematic.

757
00:43:02,831 --> 00:43:05,991
Speaker 3: We always knew that Secretary Clinton used private emails in

758
00:43:06,031 --> 00:43:09,671
Speaker 3: her capacity a Secretary of State, and it was just like, okay, well,

759
00:43:09,671 --> 00:43:13,350
Speaker 3: everybody to use this private email if necessary, not a

760
00:43:13,351 --> 00:43:15,991
Speaker 3: big deal. We simply want access to those to those emails.

761
00:43:16,190 --> 00:43:18,710
Speaker 1: You had come across emails from her that had the

762
00:43:18,750 --> 00:43:19,311
Speaker 1: email address.

763
00:43:19,431 --> 00:43:22,391
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly we knew her private email address, and like

764
00:43:22,431 --> 00:43:23,830
Speaker 3: I said, we didn't think anything of it.

765
00:43:26,991 --> 00:43:31,031
Speaker 1: Pudliska was perplexed. Not only was everyone suddenly talking about

766
00:43:31,071 --> 00:43:33,671
Speaker 1: Clinton's private email server as if it were a huge deal,

767
00:43:34,391 --> 00:43:37,551
Speaker 1: but the original Time story by Michael Schmidt credited the

768
00:43:37,591 --> 00:43:40,990
Speaker 1: Select Committee with discovering it. It was hard to tell

769
00:43:41,031 --> 00:43:44,910
Speaker 1: from the story how Schmidt was defining discovered, because it's

770
00:43:44,951 --> 00:43:47,190
Speaker 1: not like the committee had officially made an issue out

771
00:43:47,230 --> 00:43:50,310
Speaker 1: of Clinton's email use. The Times did that after an

772
00:43:50,311 --> 00:43:54,751
Speaker 1: anonymous source told Michael Schmidt about it. Much like Podliska,

773
00:43:54,911 --> 00:43:58,151
Speaker 1: Schmidt didn't think much of it at first, figuring Clinton

774
00:43:58,190 --> 00:44:01,311
Speaker 1: probably used her official address for some things but not others.

775
00:44:02,151 --> 00:44:04,350
Speaker 1: It was only months later, when he asked some other

776
00:44:04,391 --> 00:44:07,631
Speaker 1: sources about it, that Schmidt realized he had stumbled onto

777
00:44:07,671 --> 00:44:11,031
Speaker 1: a major story. Here, Schmidt an interview on Fresh Air.

778
00:44:11,270 --> 00:44:14,830
Speaker 30: I knew that the committee had these personal email messages,

779
00:44:15,230 --> 00:44:18,031
Speaker 30: but it wasn't until the end of the reporting, right

780
00:44:18,071 --> 00:44:19,750
Speaker 30: before I was about to publish that I learned that

781
00:44:20,111 --> 00:44:24,111
Speaker 30: she did not have a State Department email account, and

782
00:44:24,151 --> 00:44:27,231
Speaker 30: she was using this personal account to do government work.

783
00:44:27,791 --> 00:44:31,431
Speaker 30: So that was a pretty significant fact because it showed

784
00:44:31,951 --> 00:44:36,991
Speaker 30: that her email system had operated very differently than any

785
00:44:36,991 --> 00:44:38,231
Speaker 30: other government official.

786
00:44:38,991 --> 00:44:43,310
Speaker 1: Practically, overnight, the Clinton email story injected new vigor into

787
00:44:43,391 --> 00:44:46,351
Speaker 1: John Bayner and Trey Goudi's Select Committee on Benghazi.

788
00:44:47,111 --> 00:44:49,991
Speaker 30: I thought that maybe the story had a month long

789
00:44:50,311 --> 00:44:52,911
Speaker 30: shelf life at the time, meaning that it would have

790
00:44:52,951 --> 00:44:55,871
Speaker 30: been over by April of twenty fifteen.

791
00:44:58,671 --> 00:45:01,951
Speaker 1: From that point forward, Clinton's use of the private email

792
00:45:01,991 --> 00:45:05,951
Speaker 1: server became the focus of the investigation, while the events

793
00:45:05,951 --> 00:45:10,790
Speaker 1: surrounding the Benghazi attack took an unmistakable backseat. Spugliska put

794
00:45:10,791 --> 00:45:13,591
Speaker 1: it to me, the Republicans on the committee could smell

795
00:45:13,671 --> 00:45:14,631
Speaker 1: blood in the water.

796
00:45:15,071 --> 00:45:17,750
Speaker 3: It was no longer a sleepy investigation. This was now

797
00:45:18,190 --> 00:45:21,071
Speaker 3: front and center in terms of the political world. And

798
00:45:21,111 --> 00:45:24,191
Speaker 3: this became, you know, very much hyper focused on Hillary Clinton.

799
00:45:24,270 --> 00:45:25,950
Speaker 6: Why why do you think the email story took off?

800
00:45:25,991 --> 00:45:28,071
Speaker 3: Oh, it feeds into that Clinton narrative of their their

801
00:45:28,111 --> 00:45:31,111
Speaker 3: hiding things. So you know, going back to Bill Clinton

802
00:45:31,151 --> 00:45:34,870
Speaker 3: with the Lewinsky scandal and Whitewater and all that, it's

803
00:45:34,951 --> 00:45:37,391
Speaker 3: the Clintons are hiding things. And so this becomes a

804
00:45:37,391 --> 00:45:40,591
Speaker 3: self looking ice cream cone. If you're the Clintons and

805
00:45:40,671 --> 00:45:43,391
Speaker 3: you you know, no matter what you say or do you,

806
00:45:43,551 --> 00:45:45,190
Speaker 3: someone you know sees that the wrong way. And you're

807
00:45:45,190 --> 00:45:47,391
Speaker 3: an investigation, So what do you do? Okay, you isolate

808
00:45:47,391 --> 00:45:49,710
Speaker 3: yourself more and you make really really dumb decisions that

809
00:45:49,871 --> 00:45:52,111
Speaker 3: as setting up a email server in your basement of

810
00:45:52,111 --> 00:45:54,551
Speaker 3: your house, and then this is discovered. Okay, now this

811
00:45:54,631 --> 00:45:57,991
Speaker 3: is you know, leading to more investigations, and so you know,

812
00:45:57,991 --> 00:45:59,870
Speaker 3: it became a self looking ice cream cone. In terms

813
00:45:59,871 --> 00:46:01,471
Speaker 3: of political scandals.

814
00:46:01,991 --> 00:46:04,431
Speaker 1: The self liaking ice cream cone is a great image,

815
00:46:04,951 --> 00:46:07,471
Speaker 1: but as a metaphor, it kind of falls apart when

816
00:46:07,511 --> 00:46:11,151
Speaker 1: you imagine the ice cream gradually melting away or being eaten.

817
00:46:11,871 --> 00:46:15,390
Speaker 1: Because the Clinton email scandal, like Benghazi before, it never

818
00:46:15,471 --> 00:46:19,951
Speaker 1: did melt away. It just got bigger, especially after Hillary

819
00:46:19,951 --> 00:46:22,671
Speaker 1: Clinton formally declared that she was going to be running

820
00:46:22,710 --> 00:46:23,271
Speaker 1: for president.

821
00:46:23,431 --> 00:46:27,191
Speaker 11: Hillary Clinton making it official with a two minute, nineteen

822
00:46:27,230 --> 00:46:29,831
Speaker 11: second video launching her second White House campaign.

823
00:46:29,991 --> 00:46:32,471
Speaker 21: Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be

824
00:46:32,631 --> 00:46:33,271
Speaker 21: that champion.

825
00:46:33,631 --> 00:46:35,390
Speaker 1: So you can do more than just get by.

826
00:46:35,951 --> 00:46:38,151
Speaker 21: You can get ahead and stay ahead.

827
00:46:38,591 --> 00:46:41,871
Speaker 1: For the next six months, John Bayner and Trey Goudi

828
00:46:41,991 --> 00:46:44,190
Speaker 1: made the most of the new Clinton scandal that had

829
00:46:44,230 --> 00:46:48,870
Speaker 1: fallen into their laps. The subpoenas and the press releases flew.

830
00:46:48,831 --> 00:46:51,870
Speaker 5: Hillary Clinton using not only private email, but her own

831
00:46:52,071 --> 00:46:55,790
Speaker 5: private server, and that's causing all kinds of questions and

832
00:46:55,911 --> 00:46:56,551
Speaker 5: new actions.

833
00:46:56,591 --> 00:47:00,911
Speaker 28: Today, a House committee investigating the Bengazi terror attack subpoenaed

834
00:47:01,031 --> 00:47:04,271
Speaker 28: private emails from Clinton's time as Secretary of State.

835
00:47:04,431 --> 00:47:08,351
Speaker 1: The committee sat down with witnesses, including Clinton's longtime confidant

836
00:47:08,471 --> 00:47:10,671
Speaker 1: and email correspondent, Sydney Blumenthal.

837
00:47:10,871 --> 00:47:13,071
Speaker 10: He is a close friend to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

838
00:47:13,351 --> 00:47:17,190
Speaker 10: Apparently mister Bloomenthal had private business interests in Libya at

839
00:47:17,190 --> 00:47:21,711
Speaker 10: the same time he was emailing missus Clinton about policy there.

840
00:47:21,831 --> 00:47:23,910
Speaker 33: We want to talk to all the folks who were

841
00:47:23,911 --> 00:47:27,750
Speaker 33: providing information to decision makers, and mister Bloomenthal's part of that.

842
00:47:28,431 --> 00:47:31,031
Speaker 1: Every little push and pull between the Select Committee and

843
00:47:31,071 --> 00:47:34,871
Speaker 1: its target became news, and the decisions Hillary Clinton and

844
00:47:34,911 --> 00:47:37,511
Speaker 1: her staff had made about her emails started to look

845
00:47:37,631 --> 00:47:39,031
Speaker 1: more and more suspicious.

846
00:47:39,351 --> 00:47:42,431
Speaker 15: Will this not be a psychic overhang for her? That

847
00:47:42,471 --> 00:47:45,870
Speaker 15: people were reminded of? Man, all of that stuff from

848
00:47:45,911 --> 00:47:49,111
Speaker 15: the nineteen nineties, all the Clinton wars, right that was

849
00:47:49,151 --> 00:47:52,071
Speaker 15: just that was a There was impeachment and all of that.

850
00:47:52,270 --> 00:47:55,470
Speaker 15: If this stretches out in Republicans with Benghazi and there's

851
00:47:55,511 --> 00:47:57,431
Speaker 15: more subpoenas and there's more of this, and there's more

852
00:47:57,431 --> 00:48:00,031
Speaker 15: of that, what is the psychic toll? That that takes

853
00:48:00,111 --> 00:48:02,551
Speaker 15: on the electorate in terms of her prospects. I can't

854
00:48:02,551 --> 00:48:04,631
Speaker 15: tell you, but it's not good if.

855
00:48:04,471 --> 00:48:07,231
Speaker 1: The Select Committee was on some level a pr battle

856
00:48:07,631 --> 00:48:11,551
Speaker 1: the Republicans were now winning. In September of twenty fifteen,

857
00:48:12,031 --> 00:48:15,071
Speaker 1: a Gallup poll found that Clinton's favorability ratings were just

858
00:48:15,190 --> 00:48:18,310
Speaker 1: forty one percent, the lowest they'd been in more than

859
00:48:18,351 --> 00:48:22,951
Speaker 1: twenty years. Later that month, one elected official went on

860
00:48:22,991 --> 00:48:25,790
Speaker 1: television and couldn't stop himself from gloating about it.

861
00:48:26,230 --> 00:48:30,190
Speaker 14: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right, but we put

862
00:48:30,190 --> 00:48:34,671
Speaker 14: together a Benghazi Special Committee. What are her numbers today?

863
00:48:35,270 --> 00:48:36,671
Speaker 14: Her numbers are dropping?

864
00:48:36,750 --> 00:48:37,071
Speaker 23: Why?

865
00:48:37,311 --> 00:48:38,431
Speaker 14: Because she's untrustable.

866
00:48:38,951 --> 00:48:42,230
Speaker 1: Congressman Kevin McCarthy's comments were a perfect example of what

867
00:48:42,270 --> 00:48:45,591
Speaker 1: people in Washington like to call a Kinsley gaff, when

868
00:48:45,631 --> 00:48:50,071
Speaker 1: a politician tells the truth by accident. McCarthy had essentially

869
00:48:50,111 --> 00:48:52,151
Speaker 1: admitted that the point of the Select Committee had been

870
00:48:52,230 --> 00:48:55,750
Speaker 1: to hurt Hillary Clinton in the polls. Many of McCarthy's

871
00:48:55,750 --> 00:48:57,431
Speaker 1: fellow Republicans were enraged.

872
00:48:57,750 --> 00:49:00,471
Speaker 12: As you see all the hammering he's getting today for

873
00:49:00,591 --> 00:49:02,430
Speaker 12: that statement he made on Fox last night.

874
00:49:02,471 --> 00:49:06,231
Speaker 22: Well, I think rightfully, so that's an absolutely inappropriate statement,

875
00:49:06,551 --> 00:49:09,031
Speaker 22: it is not how this started. We wanted to get

876
00:49:09,071 --> 00:49:09,790
Speaker 22: to the truth of it.

877
00:49:10,111 --> 00:49:13,190
Speaker 1: For months, Kevin McCarthy had been considered a likely replacement

878
00:49:13,230 --> 00:49:16,270
Speaker 1: for John Bayner as House Speaker. After his comment, his

879
00:49:16,391 --> 00:49:19,671
Speaker 1: chances were completely shot. It appeared that at least some

880
00:49:19,791 --> 00:49:23,471
Speaker 1: Republicans still shared Bayner's allergy to appearing shameless.

881
00:49:23,991 --> 00:49:25,071
Speaker 6: I think I shocked some you.

882
00:49:25,111 --> 00:49:27,071
Speaker 23: Huff Sligiam mccartman.

883
00:49:27,151 --> 00:49:30,151
Speaker 12: How much did your comments about Bank Dazzi last week's

884
00:49:30,151 --> 00:49:32,471
Speaker 12: we playing into decision.

885
00:49:32,230 --> 00:49:34,871
Speaker 14: A step aside to day, Well, that wasn't helpful.

886
00:49:37,151 --> 00:49:37,790
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean.

887
00:49:38,511 --> 00:49:41,230
Speaker 1: Brad Pudliska by this point was no longer on the

888
00:49:41,230 --> 00:49:44,991
Speaker 1: Select Committee staff. He had been fired back in June

889
00:49:45,151 --> 00:49:47,350
Speaker 1: for reasons he thought were related to his lack of

890
00:49:47,431 --> 00:49:51,830
Speaker 1: enthusiasm for going after Clinton over her emails. Now Pudliska

891
00:49:51,911 --> 00:49:55,310
Speaker 1: was going public with his long simmering discontent about how

892
00:49:55,351 --> 00:49:56,911
Speaker 1: the Select Committee was being run.

893
00:49:57,351 --> 00:50:00,230
Speaker 31: But Liska says in March the investigation took a turn

894
00:50:00,431 --> 00:50:02,551
Speaker 31: after The New York Times broke the story of Hillary

895
00:50:02,551 --> 00:50:06,391
Speaker 31: Clinton using a personal email server for State Department business.

896
00:50:06,710 --> 00:50:10,951
Speaker 31: After that happened, the investigation's broader focus narrow, he says.

897
00:50:10,951 --> 00:50:13,390
Speaker 3: And I was told that things were now changed. There

898
00:50:13,471 --> 00:50:17,190
Speaker 3: was this great hubris with the committee after that March

899
00:50:17,230 --> 00:50:21,350
Speaker 3: second New York Times article of we're kind of on

900
00:50:21,391 --> 00:50:23,511
Speaker 3: the side of good to go after Clinton because of

901
00:50:23,551 --> 00:50:29,911
Speaker 3: this email server. And honestly, like to me, you know,

902
00:50:29,991 --> 00:50:34,471
Speaker 3: congressional investigations are partisan in nature. Their sole purpose, arguably

903
00:50:34,591 --> 00:50:37,390
Speaker 3: is to damage your opponent, and so I didn't see

904
00:50:37,511 --> 00:50:41,591
Speaker 3: McCarthy's comment as controversial as it turned out to be,

905
00:50:42,230 --> 00:50:44,631
Speaker 3: but it certainly was damaging to the committee.

906
00:50:44,791 --> 00:50:48,391
Speaker 1: The timing for the Republicans couldn't have been worse. On

907
00:50:48,431 --> 00:50:51,431
Speaker 1: the heels of the Kevin McCarthy incident and Pudliska's emergence

908
00:50:51,431 --> 00:50:54,710
Speaker 1: as a quasi whistleblower, the country's attention was about to

909
00:50:54,750 --> 00:50:58,351
Speaker 1: turn to Hillary Clinton, who, finally, after more than a year,

910
00:50:58,431 --> 00:51:01,230
Speaker 1: would be sitting down before the Select Committee for questioning.

911
00:51:02,111 --> 00:51:04,631
Speaker 1: It would be her second time appearing before Congress and

912
00:51:04,671 --> 00:51:07,710
Speaker 1: addressing Benghazi, but it would be her first as a

913
00:51:07,710 --> 00:51:08,710
Speaker 1: presidential candidate.

914
00:51:09,230 --> 00:51:09,390
Speaker 6: Well.

915
00:51:09,431 --> 00:51:13,230
Speaker 28: This morning, Hillary Clinton testifies before the House Committee investigating

916
00:51:13,270 --> 00:51:16,751
Speaker 28: the attacks on the US diplomatic mission in Bengazi, Libya.

917
00:51:17,311 --> 00:51:19,351
Speaker 1: The plan was for each member of the committee to

918
00:51:19,391 --> 00:51:22,350
Speaker 1: ask questions for ten minutes before handing it off to

919
00:51:22,391 --> 00:51:26,111
Speaker 1: the next person in line. After all twelve members got

920
00:51:26,111 --> 00:51:28,631
Speaker 1: a chance to ask their questions, they would then go

921
00:51:28,671 --> 00:51:32,310
Speaker 1: around again for a second time, and then again for

922
00:51:32,391 --> 00:51:36,031
Speaker 1: a third Democratic staffer Suzanne Grooms again.

923
00:51:36,551 --> 00:51:39,350
Speaker 8: Chairman Goudi had told us that he was going to

924
00:51:39,351 --> 00:51:42,471
Speaker 8: have three rounds, and three rounds in a Congressional hearing

925
00:51:43,031 --> 00:51:46,031
Speaker 8: is not ever done because it takes forever.

926
00:51:46,391 --> 00:51:49,591
Speaker 1: The Democrats suspected that taking forever was exactly the.

927
00:51:49,551 --> 00:51:52,031
Speaker 8: Point, because we knew that it was going to be

928
00:51:52,230 --> 00:51:56,470
Speaker 8: such an incredibly long day. One of the larger sort

929
00:51:56,471 --> 00:52:00,510
Speaker 8: of thought processes around the hearing was whether Clinton would

930
00:52:00,551 --> 00:52:02,350
Speaker 8: just have the stamina to get through it.

931
00:52:03,190 --> 00:52:06,551
Speaker 1: Everyone remembered that last time Clinton appeared before Congress as

932
00:52:06,591 --> 00:52:09,591
Speaker 1: part of a Bengazi investigation, she had lost her cool

933
00:52:10,111 --> 00:52:12,430
Speaker 1: and uttered a SoundBite that had been used against her

934
00:52:12,511 --> 00:52:13,071
Speaker 1: ever since.

935
00:52:13,471 --> 00:52:16,031
Speaker 7: The former Secretary of State will try to avoid an

936
00:52:16,031 --> 00:52:20,151
Speaker 7: outverst like this one before a Senate panel in twenty thirteen.

937
00:52:20,551 --> 00:52:23,071
Speaker 21: What difference at this point does it make?

938
00:52:23,871 --> 00:52:27,551
Speaker 8: Certainly, the concern was that if the goal was just

939
00:52:27,671 --> 00:52:31,391
Speaker 8: make it last all day long and see if she

940
00:52:31,551 --> 00:52:34,430
Speaker 8: has a bad moment in that time period, there wasn't

941
00:52:34,471 --> 00:52:36,790
Speaker 8: really anything in that space that the Democrats could do

942
00:52:36,871 --> 00:52:40,111
Speaker 8: about that other than spend some of our time kind

943
00:52:40,111 --> 00:52:43,671
Speaker 8: of calling out Republicans on their abuses, and so we

944
00:52:43,710 --> 00:52:44,511
Speaker 8: obviously did that.

945
00:52:45,071 --> 00:52:48,031
Speaker 1: It felt like the whole Benghazi scandal had been leading

946
00:52:48,111 --> 00:52:51,391
Speaker 1: up to this final high stakes confrontation between the former

947
00:52:51,471 --> 00:52:54,111
Speaker 1: Secretary of State and the Republicans who had been pressing

948
00:52:54,190 --> 00:53:02,511
Speaker 1: the case against her for more than two years.

949
00:53:08,270 --> 00:53:11,671
Speaker 2: Morning, Committee will come to order the share notes the

950
00:53:11,710 --> 00:53:15,911
Speaker 2: presidence of a quorum. Good morning, Welcome, Madam Secretary. Welcome

951
00:53:16,071 --> 00:53:17,911
Speaker 2: to each of you. This is a public hearing of

952
00:53:17,951 --> 00:53:19,431
Speaker 2: the Bengazi Select Committee.

953
00:53:20,031 --> 00:53:22,671
Speaker 8: It was crowded. There were a lot of members who

954
00:53:22,750 --> 00:53:26,351
Speaker 8: came to sit behind Clinton. They actually printed out tickets

955
00:53:26,750 --> 00:53:29,991
Speaker 8: to the hearing, little paper tickets, which I thought looked

956
00:53:30,270 --> 00:53:32,230
Speaker 8: just like a terrible thing. It was like tickets to

957
00:53:32,270 --> 00:53:35,551
Speaker 8: the circus. Everybody was there who could get a ticket

958
00:53:35,591 --> 00:53:36,031
Speaker 8: to get in.

959
00:53:36,911 --> 00:53:40,671
Speaker 1: Clinton answered questions for a total of eleven hours, with

960
00:53:40,750 --> 00:53:44,710
Speaker 1: both Democratic and Republican members trying to create big, memorable

961
00:53:44,710 --> 00:53:48,270
Speaker 1: moments for the next day's news cycle. For Democrats, the

962
00:53:48,311 --> 00:53:51,351
Speaker 1: goal was to show just how thoroughly the Bengazi attack

963
00:53:51,391 --> 00:53:55,310
Speaker 1: had already been litigated, and how little evidence there was

964
00:53:55,351 --> 00:53:57,870
Speaker 1: that Clinton had done anything wrong, either in the run

965
00:53:57,951 --> 00:53:59,071
Speaker 1: up or the aftermath.

966
00:53:59,631 --> 00:54:02,830
Speaker 34: I know the ambassador was a friend of yours, and

967
00:54:03,311 --> 00:54:07,230
Speaker 34: I wonder if you would like to comment on what

968
00:54:07,270 --> 00:54:09,911
Speaker 34: it's like to be the subject of conallegation that you deliver

969
00:54:10,431 --> 00:54:12,031
Speaker 34: interfered with security that cost.

970
00:54:11,911 --> 00:54:12,671
Speaker 17: The life of a friend.

971
00:54:13,671 --> 00:54:18,230
Speaker 21: Well, Congressman, it's a very personally painful accusation.

972
00:54:19,351 --> 00:54:19,551
Speaker 8: You know.

973
00:54:19,631 --> 00:54:22,710
Speaker 21: I've would imagine I've thought more about what happened than

974
00:54:22,750 --> 00:54:25,750
Speaker 21: all of you put together. I've lost more sleep than

975
00:54:25,791 --> 00:54:28,991
Speaker 21: all of you put together. I have been racking my

976
00:54:29,111 --> 00:54:34,031
Speaker 21: brain about what more could have been done or should

977
00:54:34,071 --> 00:54:35,511
Speaker 21: have been done, And.

978
00:54:35,511 --> 00:54:38,551
Speaker 1: So Republicans used their time to cast Clinton as an

979
00:54:38,551 --> 00:54:42,591
Speaker 1: absentee leader at best and a liar at worst. At

980
00:54:42,591 --> 00:54:45,350
Speaker 1: one point, she was asked to recount in detail what

981
00:54:45,431 --> 00:54:47,151
Speaker 1: she was doing on the night of the attack.

982
00:54:47,351 --> 00:54:49,430
Speaker 8: Okay, and who else was at your home?

983
00:54:49,471 --> 00:54:50,270
Speaker 24: Were you alone?

984
00:54:50,710 --> 00:54:51,471
Speaker 21: I was alone?

985
00:54:51,671 --> 00:54:52,910
Speaker 4: Yes, the whole night.

986
00:54:53,791 --> 00:54:54,870
Speaker 21: Well, yes, the whole night.

987
00:54:57,631 --> 00:54:58,831
Speaker 23: Well. I don't know why that's funny.

988
00:54:58,911 --> 00:55:01,231
Speaker 6: I mean, did you have any in person briefing? Since

989
00:55:01,311 --> 00:55:02,791
Speaker 6: I don't find it funny at all.

990
00:55:04,230 --> 00:55:04,751
Speaker 24: I'm sorry.

991
00:55:04,750 --> 00:55:07,351
Speaker 21: A little note of levity at seven fifteen.

992
00:55:07,431 --> 00:55:09,391
Speaker 9: Well, I mean the reason I say it's not funny

993
00:55:09,431 --> 00:55:10,431
Speaker 9: is because through.

994
00:55:10,311 --> 00:55:13,831
Speaker 1: It all, Clinton kept her cool, answering every question patiently,

995
00:55:14,031 --> 00:55:16,430
Speaker 1: while also making it clear that she viewed at least

996
00:55:16,471 --> 00:55:19,991
Speaker 1: some of the people attacking her as political opportunists. Why

997
00:55:19,991 --> 00:55:22,511
Speaker 1: didn't you just speak plain to the American people?

998
00:55:22,591 --> 00:55:24,831
Speaker 21: I did, and I said it again in more detail

999
00:55:24,911 --> 00:55:28,631
Speaker 21: the next morning, as did the President. I'm sorry that

1000
00:55:28,791 --> 00:55:32,190
Speaker 21: it doesn't fit your narrative, Congressman, I can only tell

1001
00:55:32,190 --> 00:55:34,310
Speaker 21: you what the facts were, and the facts as the

1002
00:55:34,311 --> 00:55:38,230
Speaker 21: dem juz am grooms again, our goal was.

1003
00:55:38,591 --> 00:55:45,631
Speaker 8: To have the top takeaways be that there was essentially

1004
00:55:45,831 --> 00:55:50,750
Speaker 8: nothing new found out about Clinton's role in the Bengazi attacks,

1005
00:55:50,951 --> 00:55:53,951
Speaker 8: and that there were Republican abuses in the Select Committee,

1006
00:55:53,991 --> 00:55:56,751
Speaker 8: and that the committee was not legitimate. And I think

1007
00:55:56,911 --> 00:55:58,831
Speaker 8: if you look back at the press from that day,

1008
00:55:59,351 --> 00:56:00,790
Speaker 8: I think those were the takeaways.

1009
00:56:00,951 --> 00:56:03,631
Speaker 3: There was nothing big, There was no major bombshell, and

1010
00:56:03,911 --> 00:56:05,671
Speaker 3: for Hillary Clinton, that's a great thing.

1011
00:56:05,831 --> 00:56:10,350
Speaker 1: Clinton did receive very positive reviews for her performance from

1012
00:56:10,391 --> 00:56:13,671
Speaker 1: some conservatives, who felt the Republicans had blown an opportunity

1013
00:56:13,710 --> 00:56:14,830
Speaker 1: to take Clinton down.

1014
00:56:15,071 --> 00:56:16,511
Speaker 33: I just got up the phone a few moments ago

1015
00:56:16,551 --> 00:56:19,151
Speaker 33: with the Republican operative, and this person said there was

1016
00:56:19,151 --> 00:56:21,750
Speaker 33: a total wipeout for the Republicans on the committee. Now,

1017
00:56:21,791 --> 00:56:25,591
Speaker 33: maybe he's exaggerating, but she did look presidential. She did

1018
00:56:25,631 --> 00:56:28,111
Speaker 33: look in command today.

1019
00:56:27,431 --> 00:56:29,431
Speaker 1: Just like she did it in the weeks that followed.

1020
00:56:30,071 --> 00:56:33,551
Speaker 1: Clinton's poll numbers in the Democratic primary started going up,

1021
00:56:34,151 --> 00:56:37,431
Speaker 1: and even as Republicans continued beating the Benghazi drum as

1022
00:56:37,471 --> 00:56:40,750
Speaker 1: much as they could, the narrative around her testimony was

1023
00:56:40,750 --> 00:56:44,991
Speaker 1: that she had defeated the final boss. Eight months later,

1024
00:56:45,230 --> 00:56:48,471
Speaker 1: when the Republicans on the Select Committee published their majority report,

1025
00:56:49,230 --> 00:56:51,911
Speaker 1: what stood out was how stale most of it felt,

1026
00:56:52,511 --> 00:56:55,391
Speaker 1: and how little there was to personally tie Clinton to

1027
00:56:55,471 --> 00:56:58,471
Speaker 1: any of the decisions that made the Bengazi attack so deadly.

1028
00:56:58,991 --> 00:57:01,751
Speaker 26: Along with waited House Republican report on ben Ghazi found

1029
00:57:01,750 --> 00:57:05,071
Speaker 26: no new evidence of wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton or anyone else,

1030
00:57:05,391 --> 00:57:08,310
Speaker 26: but the report blasted the Obama administration for failures and

1031
00:57:08,391 --> 00:57:11,471
Speaker 26: intelligence coordination and security.

1032
00:57:11,151 --> 00:57:13,790
Speaker 9: And with the report paints is a narrative of the

1033
00:57:13,831 --> 00:57:17,991
Speaker 9: Bengazi outpost as a bureaucratic and diplomatic no man's land,

1034
00:57:18,071 --> 00:57:22,071
Speaker 9: which made it unnecessarily hard to get funding and security.

1035
00:57:22,231 --> 00:57:27,071
Speaker 4: I don't see evidence of anything further than what we

1036
00:57:27,111 --> 00:57:31,071
Speaker 4: already knew, and so there's no smoking gun at all

1037
00:57:31,111 --> 00:57:32,111
Speaker 4: about Hillary Clinton.

1038
00:57:32,391 --> 00:57:34,271
Speaker 6: And in fact, what we knew.

1039
00:57:34,231 --> 00:57:38,111
Speaker 8: It was clear that the report just did not have

1040
00:57:39,391 --> 00:57:43,311
Speaker 8: the kind of smoking gun evidence that Hillary Clinton had

1041
00:57:43,311 --> 00:57:47,111
Speaker 8: blood on her hands that a number of Republican folks

1042
00:57:47,151 --> 00:57:51,151
Speaker 8: had wanted. That's just simply because those facts didn't exist,

1043
00:57:51,511 --> 00:57:54,111
Speaker 8: and Trey Goudy couldn't come up with them because they

1044
00:57:54,231 --> 00:57:55,031
Speaker 8: weren't there.

1045
00:57:55,791 --> 00:57:58,231
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, Trey Goudy was coming in for

1046
00:57:58,271 --> 00:58:02,151
Speaker 1: criticism from his party's most conservative members, the same ones

1047
00:58:02,191 --> 00:58:04,791
Speaker 1: who had push John Bayner to launch the new investigation

1048
00:58:04,991 --> 00:58:06,071
Speaker 1: back in twenty fourteen.

1049
00:58:06,511 --> 00:58:09,431
Speaker 16: Trey Goudi should be impeached for wasting my time.

1050
00:58:10,231 --> 00:58:11,351
Speaker 23: He promised us a lot.

1051
00:58:11,391 --> 00:58:15,151
Speaker 30: Remember Trey Goudi, Trey Goudi, the Great Tea Party, Trey Goudy,

1052
00:58:15,231 --> 00:58:16,071
Speaker 30: Everyone loved him.

1053
00:58:16,671 --> 00:58:19,311
Speaker 1: At an event at the National Press Club, a member

1054
00:58:19,351 --> 00:58:22,910
Speaker 1: of the far right Citizens Commission on Benghazi asked if

1055
00:58:22,951 --> 00:58:26,111
Speaker 1: maybe the GOP leadership had tampered with the evidence in

1056
00:58:26,231 --> 00:58:27,311
Speaker 1: order to benefit Clinton.

1057
00:58:27,671 --> 00:58:32,791
Speaker 4: Has someone in the GOP leadership gotten their fingers involved

1058
00:58:33,151 --> 00:58:36,951
Speaker 4: in watering down some of this against Secretary.

1059
00:58:36,431 --> 00:58:40,431
Speaker 1: Clinton and Republican voters around the country had wanted Goudy

1060
00:58:40,471 --> 00:58:44,791
Speaker 1: to produce new evidence of Clinton's wrongdoing, something anything about

1061
00:58:44,791 --> 00:58:47,791
Speaker 1: her giving a stand down order or leaving Chris Stevens

1062
00:58:47,791 --> 00:58:51,711
Speaker 1: for dead out of political expediency. Among the disappointed was

1063
00:58:51,791 --> 00:58:54,431
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, who by this point was well on his

1064
00:58:54,511 --> 00:58:58,031
Speaker 1: way to securing the Republican nomination, and who had referred

1065
00:58:58,071 --> 00:59:00,911
Speaker 1: to Trey Goudy on Twitter as a Bengazi loser.

1066
00:59:01,191 --> 00:59:04,711
Speaker 33: So Trump now says Goudy is a loser for failing

1067
00:59:04,751 --> 00:59:07,631
Speaker 33: to nail Hillary Clinton on Ben Gazzi.

1068
00:59:07,991 --> 00:59:11,471
Speaker 1: The following month, at the Republican National Convention, the Trump

1069
00:59:11,511 --> 00:59:14,471
Speaker 1: campaign invited the mother of Sean Smith to deliver a

1070
00:59:14,511 --> 00:59:16,591
Speaker 1: primetime speech for.

1071
00:59:16,671 --> 00:59:20,871
Speaker 19: All of this loss, for all of this grief the

1072
00:59:20,991 --> 00:59:25,551
Speaker 19: tragedy in vain Ghazi has brought upon America. I blame

1073
00:59:25,791 --> 00:59:30,351
Speaker 19: Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son personally.

1074
00:59:32,311 --> 00:59:35,510
Speaker 1: By then, the issue of Clinton's email server had become

1075
00:59:35,511 --> 00:59:39,631
Speaker 1: a reliable set piece at Trump's campaign rallies. Exhibit a

1076
00:59:39,871 --> 00:59:42,231
Speaker 1: of Quinton's corrupt and untrustworthy nature.

1077
00:59:42,351 --> 00:59:45,151
Speaker 16: In other words, Hillary's secret email server existed for the

1078
00:59:45,191 --> 00:59:49,191
Speaker 16: reason we all know, to keep her emails from ever

1079
00:59:49,271 --> 00:59:53,871
Speaker 16: being read by the public rigged system, folks, remember I

1080
00:59:53,991 --> 00:59:55,831
Speaker 16: used to saying I'm the one that brought.

1081
00:59:55,591 --> 00:59:56,191
Speaker 23: That word up.

1082
01:00:05,951 --> 01:00:09,391
Speaker 1: In November of twenty seventeen, five years after the attack

1083
01:00:09,431 --> 01:00:14,271
Speaker 1: in Benghazi, Ahmed Abu Katala was found guilty on terrorism charges.

1084
01:00:14,831 --> 01:00:17,751
Speaker 1: He was eventually sentenced twenty two years in prison by

1085
01:00:17,751 --> 01:00:19,431
Speaker 1: a US District Court judge.

1086
01:00:19,591 --> 01:00:23,711
Speaker 3: The jury convicted him of material support for terrorism, conspiracy,

1087
01:00:23,951 --> 01:00:27,271
Speaker 3: malicious destruction of property, and also got him on a

1088
01:00:27,311 --> 01:00:28,111
Speaker 3: weapons offense.

1089
01:00:28,591 --> 01:00:32,631
Speaker 1: According to prosecutor Julianne Himmelstein, only one of the Republican

1090
01:00:32,671 --> 01:00:35,391
Speaker 1: Congressmen from the Select Committee made a point of attending

1091
01:00:35,471 --> 01:00:36,751
Speaker 1: Abu Katala's trial.

1092
01:00:37,351 --> 01:00:40,511
Speaker 6: What did it tell you that everybody else didn't show up.

1093
01:00:41,311 --> 01:00:44,271
Speaker 4: I really can't say why they didn't. You know, we

1094
01:00:44,391 --> 01:00:48,430
Speaker 4: just cared so much about the case. You know, we've

1095
01:00:48,631 --> 01:00:52,711
Speaker 4: spent six years traveling all over the world trying to

1096
01:00:52,951 --> 01:00:57,471
Speaker 4: find out desperately who did this, Who attacked our facilities,

1097
01:00:57,471 --> 01:01:01,111
Speaker 4: who attacked our mission. That's all we thought about. Really,

1098
01:01:01,151 --> 01:01:04,111
Speaker 4: I'm not making a judgment. I'm just saying that they

1099
01:01:04,111 --> 01:01:04,831
Speaker 4: didn't show up.

1100
01:01:15,471 --> 01:01:18,631
Speaker 1: When I first started learning about Ambassador Chris Stevens and

1101
01:01:18,711 --> 01:01:21,431
Speaker 1: what he represented in the world of American foreign policy.

1102
01:01:22,191 --> 01:01:25,431
Speaker 1: What really stopped me cold was how unlikely a martyr

1103
01:01:25,431 --> 01:01:29,951
Speaker 1: he was for the conservative movement. Throughout his career, Stevens

1104
01:01:29,991 --> 01:01:34,111
Speaker 1: had revealed himself to be distinctly unconservative in terms of

1105
01:01:34,111 --> 01:01:37,111
Speaker 1: how he thought about the Arab world, how he conceived

1106
01:01:37,111 --> 01:01:39,831
Speaker 1: of his role as a diplomat, and what he believed

1107
01:01:39,831 --> 01:01:43,911
Speaker 1: America's posture should be towards political Islam. This was a

1108
01:01:43,951 --> 01:01:46,510
Speaker 1: guy who once expressed hope that the US government would

1109
01:01:46,511 --> 01:01:50,551
Speaker 1: give Hamas a chance. He also opposed the Iraq War

1110
01:01:50,711 --> 01:01:53,831
Speaker 1: so strenuously that he refused to be posted there afterwards

1111
01:01:53,831 --> 01:01:56,351
Speaker 1: out of principle, even though at the time it was

1112
01:01:56,391 --> 01:01:59,111
Speaker 1: widely seen as the best way to advance your career

1113
01:01:59,191 --> 01:02:03,271
Speaker 1: in the State department. Stephens was also a risk taker.

1114
01:02:04,151 --> 01:02:07,151
Speaker 1: Starting in the nineteen eighties, a string of deadly terrorist

1115
01:02:07,191 --> 01:02:10,431
Speaker 1: attacks in Lebanon had caused American embassies all over the

1116
01:02:10,431 --> 01:02:14,431
Speaker 1: world to become more like militarized fortresses, where diplomats were

1117
01:02:14,431 --> 01:02:17,031
Speaker 1: expected to hole up in safety instead of going out

1118
01:02:17,071 --> 01:02:20,551
Speaker 1: and really getting to know their host countries. Stevens didn't

1119
01:02:20,591 --> 01:02:23,231
Speaker 1: want to be that kind of diplomat, and when he

1120
01:02:23,271 --> 01:02:26,471
Speaker 1: was first posted in Benghazi during the Libyan revolution. He

1121
01:02:26,551 --> 01:02:29,511
Speaker 1: went out running every morning, stopped to talk to people

1122
01:02:29,511 --> 01:02:32,071
Speaker 1: in the street, and reveled in his freedom to meet

1123
01:02:32,111 --> 01:02:33,391
Speaker 1: with locals in their homes.

1124
01:02:34,111 --> 01:02:39,071
Speaker 20: What Chris felt about security was making friends increases security,

1125
01:02:39,431 --> 01:02:41,511
Speaker 20: and he wanted to be out there with the people

1126
01:02:41,591 --> 01:02:43,951
Speaker 20: and communicating and being on the ground.

1127
01:02:44,671 --> 01:02:48,271
Speaker 1: This is Ann Stevens, Chris's sister, speaking to a Washington

1128
01:02:48,271 --> 01:02:50,591
Speaker 1: Post reporter a few months after the attack.

1129
01:02:51,231 --> 01:02:53,591
Speaker 20: I think what really came out in his work is

1130
01:02:54,071 --> 01:02:57,911
Speaker 20: how inclusive he was. And you know, at a personal level,

1131
01:02:58,111 --> 01:03:00,311
Speaker 20: when we were deciding who to invite to your wedding,

1132
01:03:00,351 --> 01:03:02,910
Speaker 20: you invite everybody. When you go out into the world,

1133
01:03:02,911 --> 01:03:05,511
Speaker 20: who do you talk to? We talked to everybody. I

1134
01:03:05,591 --> 01:03:06,871
Speaker 20: think that's a wonderful.

1135
01:03:06,511 --> 01:03:07,031
Speaker 17: Way to live.

1136
01:03:09,111 --> 01:03:13,071
Speaker 1: After her brother's death, Ann Stevens emerged as a spokesperson

1137
01:03:13,111 --> 01:03:16,311
Speaker 1: for her family, and in a series of media appearances,

1138
01:03:16,551 --> 01:03:18,591
Speaker 1: she made it clear that they didn't blame the State

1139
01:03:18,631 --> 01:03:22,551
Speaker 1: Department or Hillary Clinton for what happened. He decided to

1140
01:03:22,591 --> 01:03:24,911
Speaker 1: take the risk to go there, Stevens told The New Yorker,

1141
01:03:25,671 --> 01:03:29,271
Speaker 1: it is not something they did to him. Pretty Much

1142
01:03:29,311 --> 01:03:32,151
Speaker 1: every State Department person I've talked to for this podcast

1143
01:03:32,311 --> 01:03:35,711
Speaker 1: told me Stevens knew that Benghazi was dangerous and decided

1144
01:03:35,751 --> 01:03:39,910
Speaker 1: to go anyway. In other words, he wasn't naive about

1145
01:03:39,911 --> 01:03:43,391
Speaker 1: the risks. From what I understand, he made the trip

1146
01:03:43,431 --> 01:03:45,831
Speaker 1: to Benghazi because he thought it was that important for

1147
01:03:45,911 --> 01:03:48,831
Speaker 1: the future of Libya that the United States have a

1148
01:03:48,911 --> 01:03:53,511
Speaker 1: strong diplomatic presence there. The Benghazi attack helped put an

1149
01:03:53,671 --> 01:03:58,391
Speaker 1: end to all of that. Afterwards, the internal divisions left

1150
01:03:58,391 --> 01:04:02,591
Speaker 1: over from Gaddafi's overthrow grew sharper and more violent. As

1151
01:04:02,631 --> 01:04:06,191
Speaker 1: one former diplomat told me in an email, despite all

1152
01:04:06,231 --> 01:04:09,950
Speaker 1: the US's imperfections, we can be a force for good

1153
01:04:10,071 --> 01:04:13,271
Speaker 1: and are often uniquely capable of preventing or ending conflict

1154
01:04:13,311 --> 01:04:17,391
Speaker 1: around the globe. When Chris Stevens died, this person said,

1155
01:04:17,991 --> 01:04:21,111
Speaker 1: we not only lost our ability to understand Benghazi and

1156
01:04:21,151 --> 01:04:24,791
Speaker 1: therefore Libya, but Libya lost its best advocate in the

1157
01:04:24,871 --> 01:04:29,711
Speaker 1: United States. The country became political kryptonite, so that no

1158
01:04:29,951 --> 01:04:32,831
Speaker 1: US politician could see the point in risking anything to

1159
01:04:32,911 --> 01:04:37,551
Speaker 1: help slow or stop its downward slide. In twenty fourteen,

1160
01:04:37,911 --> 01:04:41,391
Speaker 1: the American mission, once led by Ambassador Stephens, was effectively

1161
01:04:41,431 --> 01:04:43,391
Speaker 1: suspended due to security concerns.

1162
01:04:43,791 --> 01:04:46,711
Speaker 28: The United States has closed and evacuated its embassy in

1163
01:04:46,751 --> 01:04:49,311
Speaker 28: Libya as the security situation deteriorates.

1164
01:04:49,311 --> 01:04:52,831
Speaker 1: In the capital of Tripoli, Benghazi became a war zone

1165
01:04:53,311 --> 01:04:56,351
Speaker 1: as local militias faced off against an army led by

1166
01:04:56,391 --> 01:04:59,871
Speaker 1: Khalifa Haftar, an ex member of the Gadathi regime who

1167
01:04:59,871 --> 01:05:02,551
Speaker 1: had defected to the US and returned to Libya after

1168
01:05:02,591 --> 01:05:06,791
Speaker 1: the revolution. Amid the fighting between Haftar and the militias,

1169
01:05:07,591 --> 01:05:12,511
Speaker 1: large parts of Benghazi were reduced to.

1170
01:05:09,831 --> 01:05:13,791
Speaker 21: R To this day, people are dying because they just

1171
01:05:13,831 --> 01:05:14,191
Speaker 21: want to.

1172
01:05:14,111 --> 01:05:15,111
Speaker 22: Return to their homes.

1173
01:05:16,671 --> 01:05:20,071
Speaker 1: For years now, the State Department has urged all Americans

1174
01:05:20,111 --> 01:05:24,071
Speaker 1: to stay out of Libya, while other foreign powers like Russia,

1175
01:05:24,271 --> 01:05:27,591
Speaker 1: the UAE, Turkey, and Egypt have flooded the country with

1176
01:05:27,671 --> 01:05:28,991
Speaker 1: mercenaries and weapons.

1177
01:05:29,311 --> 01:05:32,871
Speaker 28: Classes between rival militias are growing more fierce and violent.

1178
01:05:33,191 --> 01:05:36,631
Speaker 28: American travelers are also being advised to steer clear of Libya.

1179
01:05:36,711 --> 01:05:40,991
Speaker 1: It's always hard to definitively establish cause and effect, and

1180
01:05:41,031 --> 01:05:43,551
Speaker 1: it would be too simple to say that America's diplomatic

1181
01:05:43,631 --> 01:05:46,831
Speaker 1: withdrawal is the reason why Libya descended into a bloody

1182
01:05:46,831 --> 01:05:50,631
Speaker 1: civil war, but it is clear that the fallout from

1183
01:05:50,631 --> 01:05:55,191
Speaker 1: the Bengazi attack did not just transform American politics. It

1184
01:05:55,311 --> 01:05:56,871
Speaker 1: also transformed Libya.

1185
01:05:57,151 --> 01:05:59,991
Speaker 14: They call it the Second Libyan Civil War, as warlord

1186
01:06:00,031 --> 01:06:03,311
Speaker 14: Khalifa Haftar advances on the capital of Tripoli.

1187
01:06:03,591 --> 01:06:06,631
Speaker 1: Back in twenty twenty, when this season of Fiasco was

1188
01:06:06,631 --> 01:06:09,431
Speaker 1: first released, I said that the prospect of building a

1189
01:06:09,431 --> 01:06:13,831
Speaker 1: democracy in Libya was tenuous but real. At the time,

1190
01:06:14,111 --> 01:06:17,511
Speaker 1: the Biden administration was exploring the possibility of reopening the

1191
01:06:17,551 --> 01:06:21,711
Speaker 1: American embassy in Tripoli. A State Department spokesman was quoted

1192
01:06:21,751 --> 01:06:24,551
Speaker 1: as saying that the US's intent was to begin to

1193
01:06:24,551 --> 01:06:29,031
Speaker 1: resume operations in Libya as soon as the security situation permits.

1194
01:06:30,471 --> 01:06:35,511
Speaker 1: Five years later, the embassy in Tripoli remains closed, while

1195
01:06:35,551 --> 01:06:41,271
Speaker 1: in Washington, Benghazi remains a shorthand for scandal. The difference

1196
01:06:41,471 --> 01:06:45,631
Speaker 1: is that scandal no longer feels like a distraction from politics.

1197
01:06:45,991 --> 01:06:56,751
Speaker 1: It's now the raw material. That's it for this season

1198
01:06:56,791 --> 01:06:59,591
Speaker 1: of Fiasco. You can check out our other seasons on

1199
01:06:59,671 --> 01:07:03,351
Speaker 1: Bush v. Gore, the AIDS Epidemic, and Iran Contra. All

1200
01:07:03,431 --> 01:07:10,511
Speaker 1: in this feed for a list of books are articles

1201
01:07:10,511 --> 01:07:13,751
Speaker 1: and documentaries we used in our research. Follow the link

1202
01:07:13,791 --> 01:07:17,471
Speaker 1: in our show notes. Fiasco is a production of prolog

1203
01:07:17,551 --> 01:07:21,471
Speaker 1: projects and it's distributed by Pushkin Industries. The show is

1204
01:07:21,511 --> 01:07:25,151
Speaker 1: produced by Andrew Parsons, Ulla Kulpa, Sam Lee and me

1205
01:07:25,591 --> 01:07:29,591
Speaker 1: Leon Mayfock, with editorial support from Sam Graham Felsen and

1206
01:07:29,631 --> 01:07:34,311
Speaker 1: Madeline Kaplan. Our researcher was Frances Carr. Our score was

1207
01:07:34,351 --> 01:07:38,671
Speaker 1: composed by Dan English, Joe Valley and Noah Hecht. Additional

1208
01:07:38,751 --> 01:07:42,671
Speaker 1: music by Nick Sylvester, Joel Saint, Julian Billy Libby and

1209
01:07:42,711 --> 01:07:46,711
Speaker 1: Little Cheddar Studios. Our theme song is by Spatial Relations

1210
01:07:47,391 --> 01:07:51,151
Speaker 1: Audio mixed by Rob Buyers, Michael Raphael and Johnny Vince Evans.

1211
01:07:51,871 --> 01:07:54,591
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips and Y

1212
01:07:55,911 --> 01:07:59,831
Speaker 1: Copyright Council. Provided by Peter Yassi at Yass Butler PLLC.

1213
01:08:00,951 --> 01:08:05,751
Speaker 1: Thanks to Archive dot Org, maraud Adrise, Nicole Hemmer, Ben Fishman,

1214
01:08:06,111 --> 01:08:11,951
Speaker 1: Ethan Chorn, Frederick Warehey, David Kirkpatrick, Hannah Groach, beegwi Aya Burwela,

1215
01:08:12,311 --> 01:08:17,630
Speaker 1: Stephen Fischer, Percia, Verlin, Ed Claris, Alexei Abadott, Matt Sachs,

1216
01:08:17,911 --> 01:08:22,831
Speaker 1: Jamie Lyons, Mark Silverstein, Kyle Ranson, Walsh Langston, Dillard, Evan Bell,

1217
01:08:23,271 --> 01:08:27,031
Speaker 1: Lisa de Leone and everyone at Luminary. I also want

1218
01:08:27,071 --> 01:08:31,031
Speaker 1: to thank Alexandra Garriton, Sarah Bruguer, and everyone at Pushkin

1219
01:08:31,151 --> 01:08:34,031
Speaker 1: who helped bring this season to life. Special Thanks to

1220
01:08:34,111 --> 01:08:37,790
Speaker 1: Carrie Baker and Alice Gregory, and thank you for listening.