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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

The Obama Pentagon's Benghazi Papers

The DC Establishment hopes if you drag out disclosure about a scandal long enough, it loses a bit of its "wow factor" along the way. That would seem to be the view of the Obama administration regarding many of its wanton acts of mismanagement. Among a long list that ranges from embarrassing stumbles to a flagrant disregard for the rule of law is the disaster that occurred at our Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya. Adding insult to injury (and death) are the lies that were told and the foot-dragging that continues in an effort to minimize the true accountability that this administration and its alumni (such as Hillary Clinton) so justly deserve. Well, this stalling game may work on a media (which is often a co-conspirator in cover-up) and on a hapless Congress. But it doesn't work on Judicial Watch.

In our two-years' of court battles (which include at least eight federal lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act), Judicial Watch has had yet another victory. We released this week hundreds of pages of documents about the military response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack.

It is extraordinary that we had to wait for over two years and had to force the release of documents that provide the first glimpse into the military response to the terrorist attack in Benghazi. Where has Congress been? We are happy to do the work of independent oversight of the government on behalf of the American people, but one has to ask why the rest of Washington has broken down in providing citizens accountable government.

Altogether, the Pentagon produced a total of 486 pages to us in response to a federal court order in our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. This particular lawsuit was filed back on September 4, 2014, and you are seeing the results of that effort today. Almost all of the documents had been previously classified as secret. Much of the withheld information, we are told, concerns "military plans and operations," "intelligence" activities, and other legitimate exemptions.

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