GOP Rep Susan Brooks: Admin Spent Two Hours Discussing How To Go Into Benghazi ‘Without Truly Offending Libya’ During Benghazi

On Tuesday’s “MSNBC Live,” Representative Susan Brooks (R-IN) stated that the Benghazi Select Committee, which she served on, uncovered that “there was a White House secure video conference that took place, we did not know that previously. That Secretary Clinton participated in, and other White House officials…and they had discussions for over two hours about how to go in without truly offending Libya, how to send people to Tripoli, never to Benghazi.”

Brooks said, “I, and members of the committee are very concerned as to why the secretary and the State Department didn’t follow recommendations that have made — been made by previous ARBs or Accountability Review Boards. First and foremost, the secretary of state, whether it was Secretary Clinton at the time or Secretary Kerry now, is responsible for security of their people. Security should be a top priority. And in fact, in 2010, when Secretary Clinton ordered a review of processes, there was a strong recommendation made that changes should be made about how the State Department handled security. That was rejected by Under Secretary Kennedy, and they went with the status quo, or what they call regular order. So things should have changed before this incident ever happened. And once Ambassador Stevens…went to Libya, he went with no military assistance. He went and requested multiple times, he and other diplomatic security, to have more agents, to have more physical security, and quite frankly, it was rejected by the State Department.”

She added, “[I]t was really unbelievable to us, that in fact the Defense Department, had no assets, moving toward Benghazi at the time that the annex was attacked. So almost eight hours after the initial attack on the mission compound, and after our brave men had moved to the annex, there were still no military assets moving directly to Benghazi. We also learned that there was a White House secure video conference that took place, we did not know that previously. That Secretary Clinton participated in, and other White House officials, although Secretary Panetta did not, the president did not, and they had discussions for over two hours about how to go in without truly offending Libya, how to send people to Tripoli, never to Benghazi. And so there were some significant, I think, deficiencies and mistakes made, and decisions that were made about how to go rescue our people.”

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