Hillary Clinton's Criminality in Benghazi

Last week, former Secretary of State and presumed Democratic 2016 presidential nominee Hillary Clinton writes that her handling of the Benghazi crisis of September 11, 2012 actually provides more impetus for a White House run.

Clinton told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, “It’s more of a reason to run, because I do not believe our great country should be playing minor league ball. We ought to be in the majors.” Characterizing four dead Americans and the investigations surrounding them as “minor league ball” is nothing new for the woman who infamously screamed that the rationale behind their murder was irrelevant. In her book, Hillary stated that she would not be “part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans.” She said that even as he claimed that there would never be “perfect clarity” on what happened in Benghazi. Which is true, given that Hillary won’t tell the truth about what was going on there.

Rather than trotting around the book circuit claiming the mantle of White House frontrunner thanks to her inaction and malfeasance in Benghazi, she should be sitting in the defendant’s chair in a court of law.

As I argue in my new book, The People vs. Barack Obama, those Americans are dead because of Hillary Clinton’s negligence. Clinton may not merely be guilty of negligent homicide – she could also be guilty of violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the Espionage Act for her department’s movement of guns into Libya and Syria without Congressional authorization.

Typically, negligent homicide is charged at the state level. The crime involves three elements: someone was killed, the act leading to the death was inherently dangerous, and the defendant knew that the conduct threatened the lives of others. Certainly, all three are true with regard to Clinton: four Americans died, they died because Hillary failed in her fundamental duty to protect State Department personnel by rejecting security requests and approving drawdowns, and she knew that such action was dangerous. That’s why Hillary claims ignorance as to the myriad of cables directed to her office regarding the insufficiency of security at the Benghazi annex.

But that’s not the only count on which charges should be brought against Clinton.

On October 9, 2011, Hillary visited Tripoli, where she told leaders of the Libyan opposition that millions in American aid would be forthcoming. She did not mention publicly that America was shipping arms through Qatar to the opposition in Libya – the opposition manned, at least in part, by known terrorist entities. In February 2011, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb stated, “We declare our support for the legitimate demands of the Libyan revolution.” Libyan rebel leader Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi stated that the core of his opposition movement sprang from jihadists who had fought against Americans in Iraq. Admiral James Stavridis, NATO supreme commander for Europe, admitted, “we have seen flickers in the intelligence of potential al Qaeda, Hezbollah.” Terrorist leaders ended up heading security in major Libyan cities including Tripoli, Benghazi, and Derna.

President Obama never got authorization for intervention in Libya, of course. On March 30, 2011, ABC News reported that President Obama had secretly signed a presidential finding to send covert aid to the al-Qaeda-linked rebels, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits supporting terrorists. Obama could have waived it. He didn’t, because that would have made his activities public. The Washington Post reported that same day that the CIA was arming Libyan rebels. Such action also violated the covert action statute (50 US Code Section 413b).

That wasn’t the end of the gunrunning. After Qaddafi’s fall, America reportedly began arming Syrian terror groups in the anti-Bashar Assad opposition via shipments through Libya. On September 14, 2012, three days after the Benghazi attacks, the Times of London reported that a Libyan ship loaded with the “largest consignment of weapons for Syria since the uprising began has docked in Turkey and most of its cargo is making its way to reels on the front lines.” In March 2013, the New York Times reported that the CIA had been shipping weapons into Syria for a year. Many of these weapons ended up in the hands of terrorist groups.

For years, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and others have questioned whether the CIA annex in Benghazi was being used as a thoroughfare for gun smuggling. If it was, and if Hillary’s State Department knew about it, as the evidence suggests, then she would have been in violation of several elements of American law.

All of this leaves aside questions about the State Department’s role in attempting to silence whistleblowers, which violates federal law and could be prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

It leaves aside questions about Hillary’s response to the attacks themselves – she spoke with Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya Greg Hicks just once, at 2 a.m., and then never called him back. There is likely tape of that call. It has never been released.

It leaves aside questions about Clinton’s repeated justification of the attacks – to this day – with reference to a YouTube video that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks, and the intervention of her State Department in rewriting talking points presented to the American people by the administration in the aftermath of the attacks.

The question for Hillary Clinton is not whether she should be president. The question is whether she should be in prison. Meanwhile, the media fawns over the former First Lady while she cynically pumps her book with a picture of the Benghazi coffins coming home on the jacket. It is Hillary who is fighting a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans. And thanks to her enablers in the federal government and the media, she is winning. Because, after all, what difference does obedience to law make in the most lawless administration in American history?

Ben Shapiro is Senior Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the new book, The People vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against The Obama Administration (Threshold Editions, June 10, 2014). He is also Editor-in-Chief of TruthRevolt.org. Follow Ben Shapiro on Twitter @benshapiro.