‘…this all points to Benghazi’
In an interview on The Steve Malzberg Show, Attkisson discusses Hilary Clinton’s email scandal. Attkisson believes that on Clinton’s personal email server that got wiped clean there must have been some really bad or embarrassing information, especially information on Benghazi. Attkisson says the deleted data had to have been worse than the scandal that was created by erasing it. She also briefly touches on the state of the news media.
In my experience, there must’ve been some very, very bad or embarrassing things on there, because it appears as if she’d rather take the heat for the actions erasing the server at a time when she knew it was being sought by Congress and under Freedom of Information Act request, and probably lawsuits … than turn over what was really in them. To me, this all points to Benghazi…I’ve spoken to current and former high-ranking intelligence officials who are appalled by the fact that this happened, as well as her explanation. [A]t the very least, they consider [the decision] extremely naïve and would make that person totally unqualified to be in the position she served if she really believes the things she was saying about security.
[T]oo often, in my view, the media waits for the daily news stories to be handed to them. They’re not often doing a lot of their own independent digging.
Attkisson: Obama called Benghazi terror attack
Attkisson writes in Stonewalled that after Pres. Obama confronted Romney in the second presidential debate about Romney’s decision to label the Benghazi attack ‘terrorism,’ she learned that CBS’s Steve Kroft did a 60 Minutes interview with Obama the day following the attack. She says she was instructed to do a story on the debate using the 60 Minutes script, but found out later that parts of it were never aired, including part that showed Obama also apparently calling the attack an act of terror. Unaired exchange:
KROFT: Mr. President, this morning you went out of your way to avoid the use of the word terrorism in connection with the Libya attack.
OBAMA: Right.
KROFT: Do you believe that this was a terrorist attack?
OBAMA: Well, it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved, but obviously it was an attack on Americans.
She says this was done intentionally:
I couldn’t get past the fact that upper-level journalists at CBS had been a party to misleading the public.
She says CBS posted the transcript to its website the night before the election, but it was lost in the final hours of the campaign. An internal investigation was promised but never happened.
Says computer was hacked, stories killed
Attkisson writes in Stonewalled that an administration source she names Number One who she held meetings with in a McDonalds in Northern Virginia in early 2013 informed her that he had accessed her computer. He says the surveillance was:
…worse than anything Nixon ever did.
Attkisson is reported to give evidence that both her CBS computer and her personal iMac were repeatedly hacked and files were accessed, including one on Benghazi. Attkisson:
[…] the interlopers were able to co-opt my iMac and operate it remotely, as if they were sitting in front of it.
An inspection reveals that an extra fibre-optics cable was installed in her home without her knowledge. In fall 2013 when White House officials accused Attkisson of bias in her Benghazi reporting, files in her MacBook Air began deleting at hyperspeed. She videotaped the process and showed it to two computer experts. One of the experts:
They’re trying to send you a message
The experts found evidence that the intruders had tried to cover their tracks by erasing 23 hours of log-in information. Attkisson says blocking of her work became routine under CBS anchor Pelley and his executive producer at the time, Shevlin. Attkisson:
They rarely said the story wasn’t going to air. They just let it sit around and ‘loved it’ until it began to stink like old fish.
She says stories were repeatedly rewritten, watered down and delayed until they never made air. She says they weren’t only stories about the administration but also about government waste and corporate conduct, such as questions about the Boeing Dreamliner.