On March 5, Judicial Watch announced that it had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking details on a nearly $400,000 contract the State Department awarded to a private company for security at the American consulate in Benghazi.
The company was hired prior to the Benghazi attack on Sept. 11, 2012, as the agreements appear to have been signed on Feb. 17 and May 3, 2012.
But as Breitbart News reported, on Sept. 14–just three days after the Benghazi attack–State Dept. spokesperson Victoria Nuland denied that the State Dept. had hired any private security. Said Nuland: “At no time did we plan to hire a private security company for Libya.”
Then, three days after that, on Sept. 17, Wired ran a piece showing that, in fact, the State Dept. had signed a contract with a private security company “on May 3 for $387,413.68”
Suddenly, Nuland remembered that the State Dept. had hired a security company; on Sept. 18 she said the name of the company was “Blue Mountain Group.”
As reported by Breitbart News, Blue Mountain Group “was chosen by State, in part, because it was willing to accept the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya that prohibited security guards at Benghazi from carrying weapons that contained bullets.”
Judicial Watch sent a FOIA request regarding details of the nearly $400,000 security contract on Nov. 7, 2012, which the State Dept. acknowledged receiving on Nov. 20. This request allowed them until Dec. 20, 2012 to turn over information pertinent to the request, yet none has been surrendered.
Judicial Watch has now followed up the Nov. 7 FOIA request with a lawsuit concerning details of the security contract.
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