Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington

by Sharyl Attkisson

  Special Operations Command deputy commander Lieutenant General John Mulholland later made a provocative statement about the CIF’s movements that night. He seemed to introduce an entirely different explanation than the idea that the CIF simply couldn’t get there in time. “Those forces worked as advertised, and they were in position,” he tells a Special Operations conference in Washington, D.C., on November 28, 2012. “I’ll leave it at that because other decisions came into play that perhaps aren’t privy to [Special Operations Command]. . . . [O]ther decisions took place . . . that other commanders can speak to.”

  Other decisions. What decisions?

  Obama administration officials insist there were no other decisions. Everything that could be done was done. Period. No one was ever stopped from moving. Nobody—not even a single U.S. military aircraft—could get to Benghazi over the course of eight hours.

  Later, in secret closed sessions with Congress, there would be many qualifiers. General Carter Ham, the head of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), would concede that assets were available. Just as my sources had said. But it was decided they wouldn’t be used. And it was decided that a potential rescue of Americans under attack on foreign soil wasn’t in line with the military’s mission.

  Speaking of the lull between the attacks in Benghazi, Major General Darryl Roberson, one of the principal military advisors to the president, told the House Armed Services Committee that

  the mentality of everybody was, it doesn’t make sense to launch an F-16 now, given what we know about the situation. Now, in hindsight, 20/20, we know that there was another attack at 5:15 in the morning. But again, given the environment, the circumstances, what these systems are designed to do, the F-16s are not on a mission to respond. It is not like a fire station. We don’t have assets to respond like a fire call, jump down the pole and respond for any American that is under fire anywhere in the world. That is not [Department of Defense’s] role. Our role is to support the State Department, whose primary responsibility is for security of their mission.

  Roberson acknowledged that aircraft could have buzzed the hostile crowd to try to scatter it. But that, too, was ruled out because it wasn’t seen as a sure bet.

  “So there is a potential you could have flown a show of force and made everyone aware that there was a fighter airborne,” Roberson conceded. “Would it have changed anything? Certainly, we couldn’t have gotten there before the ambassador was dead. We know that. But even if we had gotten there before the annex attack, in my experience, again, it doesn’t necessarily stop the fighting, especially if they are conditioned to it. . . . And so I can’t tell you if it would have been effective or not in Benghazi with a show of force.”

  Representative Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, responds, “And General, I guess what the shame is, we didn’t even try.”

  These admissions in six months of closed hearings in 2013 wholly contradict the administration’s public story line, which is still widely advanced to this day, with the assistance of many in the news media who frankly haven’t dug deeply into the facts. After all, Benghazi is a phony, political scandal. And old news. And most members of the House Armed Services Committee are satisfied with what they hear. Clearly, they tell the military officers in sympathetic tones, you did all you could. We hate to even have to be asking you these pesky questions. We thank you for your brave service. Republicans and Democrats pat themselves on the back for their “rigorous oversight” and go home.

  On May 1, 2014, yet another military general provides testimony that contradicts the Obama administration’s we-did-everything-we-could-possibly-do posture. At a House Oversight Committee hearing, Retired Air Force Brigadier General Robert Lovell acknowledges to Chaffetz that there were military assets in the region but says that there was no attempt to move them.

  “We had assets there in Europe. Did they actually go into the sound of the guns? Did they actually go into Benghazi?” Chaffetz asks.

  “No sir, those assets did not,” Lovell replies.

  “Why not?”

  “Basically, there was a lot of looking to the State Department for what they wanted and the deference to the Libyan people and the sense of deference to the desires of the State Department in terms of what they would like to have.”

  “Did they ever tell you to go save the people in Benghazi?” asks Chaffetz.

  “Not to my knowledge, sir,” says Lovell.

  But none of this information is public yet when I begin posing my first questions to White House officials in mid-October 2012 and they push back. Hard. I’m on the phone with National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor and Deputy National Security Advisor (later White House chief of staff) Denis McDonough. They try to push my questions off track and won’t give straight answers to most of them. And they won’t provide an on-camera interview with anyone representing the administration.

  On Saturday, October 20, I publish a report on CBS This Morning titled, “Could U.S. Military Have Helped During Libya Attack?” Although most of my sources can’t appear on camera, I’m able to use their information and round out the report with additional on-camera experts.

  The story says, in part:

  The Pentagon says it did move a team of special operators from central Europe to the large Naval Air Station in Sigonella, Italy, but gave no other details. Sigonella is just an hour’s flight from Libya. Other nearby bases include Aviano and Souda Bay. Military sources tell CBS News that resources at the three bases include fighter jets and Specter AC-130 gunships, which the sources say can be extremely effective in flying in and buzzing a crowd to disperse it. . . . Add to the controversy the fact that the last two Americans didn’t die until more than six hours into the attack, and the question of U.S. military help becomes very important.

  As is often the case, the Obama administration wishes to take issue with the story after refusing to provide the requested public information. The White House’s Vietor begins an email exchange with me, criticizing the experts we consulted after the administration rejected our interview requests. I tell Vietor the main question remains: Why no outside military help?

  “What options were considered by whom and what decisions were made for what reasons (which you guys won’t say),” I ask via email. “Most of the questions I have, you folks haven’t answered. . . . Would you like to reconsider putting someone on camera and answer more of these questions?”

  Vietor writes back arguing that “forces were sent from Tripoli to Benghazi as reinforcements. . . . That’s a relevant data point.”

  “How many military reinforcements were sent and what time did they arrive on site at the compound?” I ask that same question three times. Surely, Vietor knows the answers or can find them, but he doesn’t budge.

  “Why is the number required for you to include it?” he retorts. “I give up, Sharyl. . . . I’ll work with more reasonable folks that follow up, I guess.”

  That remark makes me recall Vietor’s colleague, Eric Schultz, telling me during Fast and Furious, “Goddammit it, Sharyl! The Washington Post is reasonable, the L.A. Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, you’re the only one who’s not reasonable!”

  Maybe I’m on to something here, too.

  The White House isn’t filling in the blanks as to the commander in chief’s actions that night so I have to brainstorm other ways to get pieces of that information. My mind turns to the White House photo office. Your tax dollars pay to have a professional photographer cover most every aspect of the president’s work life. The positive images may be tweeted, posted, and sometimes autographed by the president himself and sent as souvenirs to those who appear in them. Remember the dramatic picture taken in the White House Situation Room during the successful raid on Osama bin Laden? It depicts the president and his top advisors as they watched the drama unfold in real time. They’re concerned. They’re engaged. From the standpoint of the administra
tion, it’s great publicity. But not all of the photos taken by the White House photo office are released to the public.

  Absent real information, I’m left to theorize. A photograph like the one taken during the bin Laden raid might have been taken during the Benghazi attacks. If not an image of the president in the Situation Room, there might be images taken in other White House locations. And they might give some insight into what the president was or wasn’t doing at what time.

  For a few minutes, I try to think like a politician. There was a time during the attacks before anybody knew that Stevens was dead. When the administration might have thought there could be a “hero moment.” And, just in case the night would end positively, and with the presidential election campaign in full force, wouldn’t this administration—wouldn’t any administration—want to have a photograph memorializing the president and his advisors on the job? Concerned and engaged as the United States falls under attack in Libya as they mounted the rescue effort?

  Getting such a photograph from the White House photo office, if it exists, should be easy. At least in a nonpolitical world. And when my producer Kim first calls on November 1, 2012, and asks for all photos taken that night, the office promises an answer by day’s end. But two months later, we still hadn’t heard back. The White House photo office ended up saying it needed permission from press officer Josh Earnest at the White House, who never returned a single of our phone calls or emails. No matter how many times we called the photo office and explained that Earnest was nonresponsive, the photo office would just send us back to Earnest, who wouldn’t return our calls. (I’m pretty sure nobody’s ever explained to him that he works for the public.)

  My communications with the White House aren’t much more fruitful when we discuss some issues to be raised in my next story.

  “Why wasn’t the Counterterrorism Security Group convened during the attacks?” I ask. Sources have told me that presidential directive requires the interagency Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG) to be convened in the event of a possible terrorist act. The CSG is made up of designated experts on coordinating assets and responses, the ones deemed best suited to brief agency leaders on what’s possible and what’s advisable. My sources tell me the CSG inexplicably wasn’t called upon during the Benghazi attacks.

  “What moron is pushing this?” Vietor shoots back when I ask the question. “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  He goes on to tell me that my information on the CSG “conjures up antiquated notions” and is “fake, a misimpression.” He says the CSG wasn’t needed because the principals were already engaged at a higher level and had access to all the advisors who make up the CSG. He says the CSG was used differently under the Bush administration, but now things have changed. Under Obama, the group is considered to be more policy analysts than emergency advisors.

  Vietor will neither confirm nor deny whether the White House violated a presidential directive by the decision not to convene the CSG experts as a group. But considering the night’s tragic outcome, it makes sense to ask whether the CSG might have been able to provide helpful information and advice. Or an outcome that was less tragic.

  I move on to another topic.

  “Why wasn’t the FEST team deployed?”

  FEST is short for Foreign Emergency Support Team, which is billed as “the U.S. government’s only interagency, on-call, short-notice team poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide.” Its members have hostage-negotiating expertise, something that it seems could have been potentially useful when U.S. Ambassador Stevens was reported missing shortly after the launch of the first attack.

  To my surprise, Vietor and Deputy National Security Advisor McDonough indicate they haven’t heard of FEST before. They also seem befuddled by my questions as to the status of “Tier 1 assets” and “in extremis” forces. Nonetheless, Vietor implies I’m the one who’s ill-informed.

  “I don’t know what [FEST] is,” he barks dismissively. “It sounds like a bogus, made-up effort. It’s antiquated. . . . You’re coming to me with low-level antiquated information . . . it’s a fake story.”

  Moron. Bogus. Fake. Phony. The same kinds of words administration officials used to try to discredit Fast and Furious. Before they were forced to admit it was true. To me, this song has a similar tone and timbre. Their words and arguments aren’t based in facts. They sound like petulant middle school kids.

  Oh yeah!!?? Who says!?

  After our phone conversation, Vietor asks around and gets briefed on FEST—he learns that, yes, it does exist—and he follows up with me the next day. But now he contends the team, based in the United States, wouldn’t have gotten to Benghazi in time to help. Of course, since nobody knew at the start how long the crisis would last, it doesn’t explain why FEST wasn’t sent in the beginning.

  Vietor doesn’t see FEST as the on-call, short-notice team with hostage-negotiating expertise poised to respond to terrorist incidents worldwide, as the team is described on the government’s website. The website also states FEST “has deployed to over 20 countries since its inception in 1986, [and] leaves for an incident site within four hours of notification, providing the fastest assistance possible.” Apparently, Vietor has his own unique and much more limited definition of FEST as logistical experts “used in the past to re-establish infrastructure, communications, etc. after a devastating attack. . . . That wasn’t the need here.”

  This is at sharp odds with FEST’s own view of its training and mission. In fact, I later learn from an Obama administration source that FEST team members “instinctively started packing” as soon as they heard of the Benghazi attacks but that Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy advised against sending them. They wanted to go, but weren’t allowed.

  We also later learn in testimony from the Accountability Review Board that nobody from the administration tried to get air clearance from Libya for a rescue attempt. Nobody asked NATO for assistance. (The review board’s Admiral Mike Mullen said there was “zero” likelihood that NATO could have responded, but I wonder who decided not to try to clear the way for all options—since the president said he had ordered officials to take all necessary actions.)

  All of this information contributes to a report I publish on November 2, 2012. It states, in part:

  Without the Counterterrorism Security Group being convened, as required by presidential directive, the response to the crisis became “more confused.”

  The FBI received a call during the attack representing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking for agents be deployed but the FBI agreed it “would not make any difference without security and other enablers to get them in the country and synch their efforts with military and diplomatic efforts to maximize their success.”

  A hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds.

  A counterterror force official stationed in Europe said components of AFRICOM were working on a course of action but no plan was put to use.

  “Forces were positioned after the fact but not much good to those that needed it,” according to a military source.

  “The response process was isolated at the most senior level,” says an official referring to top officials in the executive branch. “My fellow counterterrorism professionals and I [were] not consulted.”

  The story is factually indisputable, with all opinions clearly sourced. But when it’s published, Vietor fires off a lengthy email complaint calling the article “fundamentally inaccurate.” He copies my bureau chief Chris Isham, as well as CBS News president David Rhodes and Rhodes’s brother Ben. Ben Rhodes is a top national security advisor to President Obama. Also copied on the email are Pentagon spokesman George Little, secretary of state spokesman Philippe Reines, and Paul Bresson. (I don’t know Bresson, but there’s a Paul Bresson listed as an employee at the FBI’s Terrorist Screeni
ng Center.) I do know Reines. He’s a longtime Clinton confidant considered to be quite the character. About a month earlier, when reporter Michael Hastings had persisted with questions about Benghazi that were similar to mine, Reines emailed him to “have a good day. And by good day, I mean Fuck Off.” Reines and other Clinton advocates would later form a Washington PR firm called Beacon Global Strategies. The same firm would hire CIA deputy director Mike Morell, who defended Clinton’s State Department and bucked his own CIA boss, Director David Petraeus, in their internal dispute over the Benghazi talking points.

  In his November 2012 email to me, Vietor repeats that the Counterterrorism Security Group didn’t need to be convened because higher-level officials met, including “Denis McDonough, John Brennan, [Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James] Winnefeld, [and] Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns . . . And the notion that the individuals I listed and others in these meetings don’t have decades of experience working these issues is wrong.”

  The thing is, the “notion” with which Vietor takes umbrage appears nowhere in my story. Nobody claims that he and his colleagues lack “decades of experience.” But despite that experience, neither Vietor nor McDonough apparently knew FEST existed when I first asked them about it. And after they got briefed, they had a mistaken interpretation of its capabilities, as well as the Counterterrorism Security Group’s mandate, according to some of the men who actually serve on and supervise the teams. Sometimes decades of experience don’t add up to all that much.

  Vietor’s email complaint recommends that my report be “pulled down” from the Web “until the facts are corrected.” Of course, since the story is entirely accurate, it remains on the Web and no correction is warranted.