carnage and culture: Sharyl Attkisson

Showing posts with label Sharyl Attkisson. Show all posts

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Sharyl Attkisson: I Don't Think I Was the Only Reporter the Government Surveilled

https://pjmedia.com/video/sharyl-attkisson-i-dont-think-i-was-the-only-reporter-the-government-surveilled/

July 27, 2018

Although investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson has strong forensic evidence that her home computer was remotely accessed by government entities, nothing has been done about it. The Department of Justice should be paying attention, because Attkisson believes she wasn't the only person who was improperly spied on during the Obama years.

Attkisson shared her story during a House Oversight and Reform hearing on Tuesday about H.R. 4382, the Free Flow of Information Act, which would enshrine journalist-source protection into federal law.

Reps Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) introduced the Free Flow of Information Act in November of 2017 "to protect the exercise of freely reporting critical information to the American public by establishing federal protection from compulsory disclosures for journalists."

Attkisson was reporting on the Benghazi scandal for CBS News in late 2012 when her computer records were surveilled by a government entity on multiple occasions. She is now the host of Full Measure, a Sunday public affairs program.

She told Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) at the hearing on Tuesday that there was no doubt in her mind that the government had intruded into her computer.

"There's an actual fingerprint on the software that is used for this that they recognize themselves -- or that can be recognized -- that it's very unique," she explained. "It's a government proprietary software. And not only that, they didn't just look at my computer records, according to forensics. They planted three classified documents in my computer, they had a keystroke monitoring program in there, they used Skype -- which was on my computer -- to secretly activate it to exfiltrate files and listen in on audio."

She noted that a lot of people, including her, didn't know that Skype could be used for such purposes, but it's just one of many tools spooks use to access your computer remotely.

"I don't believe I was unique in terms of the only journalist this happened to," she added. "I was just one who found out about it because I had intel sources."

Attkisson explained to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) that it had never occurred to her that the government would be spying on her, as it sounded "so wildly crazy." However, two different individuals in the intelligence community -- who didn't know each other -- had approached her with the information indicating that she was being surveilled. She said the intelligence sources told her that they were seeing practices being employed that "used to be strictly forbidden or controlled, but were now being done more liberally."

Attkisson continued: "With help of another confidential source, and a FBI unit chief who helped connect me, we were able to get the first forensics exam, and they were literally blown away, according to them, when they saw this evidence. They were so shocked because there was a time when this would never have been done."

She noted that she could not and would not reveal her source, but "it's a government-connected person who knows exactly what government surveillance software does and looks like," she explained.

Before she and her legal team were able to present all of the evidence in court, her case was dismissed, Attkisson said.

"We presented some overviews and it was considered at the time plausible and we survived many motions to dismiss along the way, but after we added a telephone company to the lawsuit a couple months back, there was new considerations and the case was dismissed."

But Attkisson encouraged interested parties to look at the forensics -- especially at the DOJ, "for the sake of trying to find who did it or identify for their own purposes. Because I think they should be concerned and I don't think I was the only one. I think they really ought to be on that, personally," Attkisson added.

Attkisson has good reason to feel frustrated.

In 2013, she turned to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz for help, handing over one of her personal home laptops to be examined. The investigation seemed to begin honestly and diligently, but over time became a half-baked exercise in obfuscation and stonewalling.

In a post at The Hill on March 1, 2018, Attkisson admits that she was advised by some of her intel sources not to trust the IG with her computer. She writes: “But I figured there was little downside. We already had our irrefutable forensics findings from our examinations. If the IG probe was competent and honest, as I expected it might be, then it could turn up names of the government actors responsible. If not, no harm done.”

When the investigation was complete, the IG’s office stonewalled Attkisson, refusing to let her see the final report. She was advised to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. She writes: “I did so; under the law, a response was due within about 30 days. It’s been years.”

The IG eventually released what Attkisson's attorney called a “wiped summary -- not the actual report or notes -- with spin that implied there had been no intrusion. This was quickly presented, publicly, by then-Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who had gotten a copy of the summary with lightning speed; and it was dutifully reported by some in an unquestioning press."

In late February of this year, Attkisson discovered that the hard drive of one of her personal computers was secretly switched out with another while it was in the custody of the Justice Dept. inspector general:

Attkisson explains:

Not long ago, my forensics team asked if I used that Apple computer after the IG returned it. My team was conducting a new exam. “No,” I replied, “it hasn’t functioned since before I gave it to the IG. I just stored it when they returned it. Why?”

“Because -- that’s not your hard drive inside the computer they gave back to you,” they told me. “ … We know the serial number on the hard drive when you bought it. We recorded the same serial number on our earlier forensics exams. This is a different hard drive. Completely different serial number. Not even close.”

I would never have known if we hadn’t gone back in that computer for additional forensics.

In addition to somebody changing the scope of the IG investigation midstream, and the office withholding from me the notes and the report on my own complaint, somebody also switched out my hard drive before the IG returned it to me.

Attkisson asks: "What does all this mean to the integrity of the DOJ’s inspector general?"

Nothing good obviously, since the same IG botched its report on the FBI Hillary Clinton email investigation, and is currently investigating the FISA abuse scandal involving the FBI and DOJ.

Thursday, September 21, 2017

It looks like Obama did spy on Trump, just as he apparently did to me

By Sharyl Attkisson

http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/351495-it-looks-like-obama-did-spy-on-trump-just-as-he-did-to-me

September 20, 2017

Many in the media are diving deeply into minutiae in order to discredit any notion that President Trump might have been onto something in March when he fired off a series of tweets claiming President Obama had “tapped” “wires” in Trump Tower just before the election.

According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed “wiretap” the former head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected. If Trump officials — or Trump himself — communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.

But we’re missing the bigger story.

If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.

Besides Manafort, the officials include former Trump advisers Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Last week, we discovered multiple Trump “transition officials” were “incidentally” captured during government surveillance of a foreign official. We know this because former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly admitted “unmasking,” or asking to know the identities of, the officials. Spying on U.S. citizens is considered so sensitive, their names are supposed to be hidden or “masked,” even inside the government, to protect their privacy.

In May, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates acknowledged they, too, reviewed communications of political figures, secretly collected under President Obama.

Weaponization of intel agencies?

Nobody wants our intel agencies to be used like the Stasi in East Germany; the secret police spying on its own citizens for political purposes. The prospect of our own NSA, CIA and FBI becoming politically weaponized has been shrouded by untruths, accusations and justifications.

You’ll recall DNI Clapper falsely assured Congress in 2013 that the NSA was not collecting “any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans.”

Intel agencies secretly monitored conversations of members of Congress while the Obama administration negotiated the Iran nuclear deal.

In 2014, the CIA got caught spying on Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, though CIA Director John Brennan had explicitly denied that.

There were also wiretaps on then-Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in 2011 under Obama. The same happened under President George W. Bush to former Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.).

Journalists have been targeted, too. This internal email, exposed by WikiLeaks, should give everyone chills. It did me.

Dated Sept. 21, 2010, the “global intelligence” firm Stratfor wrote:

[John] Brennan [then an Obama Homeland Security adviser] is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources.

Note -- There is specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode...

The government subsequently got caught monitoring journalists at Fox News, The Associated Press, and, as I allege in a federal lawsuit, my computers while I worked as an investigative correspondent at CBS News. On Aug. 7, 2013, CBS News publicly announced:

… correspondent Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was hacked by ‘an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions,’ confirming Attkisson’s previous revelation of the hacking.

Then, as now, instead of getting the bigger story, some in the news media and quasi-news media published false and misleading narratives pushed by government interests. They implied the computer intrusions were the stuff of vivid imagination, conveniently dismissed forensic evidence from three independent examinations that they didn’t review. All seemed happy enough to let news of the government’s alleged unlawful behavior fade away, rather than get to the bottom of it.

I have spent more than two years litigating against the Department of Justice for the computer intrusions. Forensics have revealed dates, times and methods of some of the illegal activities. The software used was proprietary to a federal intel agency. The intruders deployed a keystroke monitoring program, accessed the CBS News corporate computer system, listened in on my conversations by activating the computer’s microphone and used Skype to exfiltrate files.

We survived the government’s latest attempt to dismiss my lawsuit. There’s another hearing Friday. To date, the Trump Department of Justice — like the Obama Department of Justice — is fighting me in court and working to keep hidden the identities of those who accessed a government internet protocol address found in my computers.

Evidence continues to build. I recently filed new information unearthed through forensic exams. As one expert told the court, it was “not a mistake; it is not a random event; and it is not technically possible for these IP addresses to simply appear on her computer systems without activity by someone using them as part of the cyber-attack.”

Patterns

It’s difficult not to see patterns in the government’s behavior, unless you’re wearing blinders.

The intelligence community secretly expanded its authority in 2011 so it can monitor innocent U.S. citizens like you and me for doing nothing more than mentioning a target’s name a single time.

In January 2016, a top secret inspector general report found the NSA violated the very laws designed to prevent abuse.

In 2016, Obama officials searched through intelligence on U.S. citizens a record 30,000 times, up from 9,500 in 2013.

Two weeks before the election, at a secret hearing before the FISA court overseeing government surveillance, NSA officials confessed they’d violated privacy safeguards “with much greater frequency” than they’d admitted. The judge accused them of “institutional lack of candor” and said, “this is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.”

Officials involved in the surveillance and unmasking of U.S. citizens have said their actions were legal and not politically motivated. And there are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry to be made by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But look at the patterns. It seems that government monitoring of journalists, members of Congress and political enemies — under multiple administrations — has become more common than anyone would have imagined two decades ago. So has the unmasking of sensitive and highly protected names by political officials.

Those deflecting with minutiae are missing the point. To me, they sound like the ones who aren’t thinking.

http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/351495-it-looks-like-obama-did-spy-on-trump-just-as-he-did-to-me

Sharyl Attkisson (@SharylAttkisson) is an Emmy-award winning investigative journalist, author of The New York Times bestsellers “The Smear” and “Stonewalled,” and host of Sinclair’s Sunday TV program “Full Measure.”

TAGS SHARYL ATTKISSON TRUMP TOWER WIRETAPPING ALLEGATIONS PAUL MANAFORT JAMES CLAPPER CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY UNITED STATES FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE COURT FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION JOHN BRENNAN

Thursday, January 22, 2015

The Attkisson File

The reporter’s computer was hacked, possibly by the feds, but the DOJ and the media turn a blind eye.

By Scott W. Johnson

http://www.nationalreview.com/

January 22, 2015

Sharyl Attkisson

Sharyl Attkisson was one of the most distinguished investigative journalists in television news, covering everything from the dangers of certain prescription drugs to mismanagement at the Red Cross to TARP to K Street. Over a career that spanned more than 20 years at CBS News, she received numerous awards for her work, including multiple Emmys.

In her memoir Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington, Attkisson looks back on the final years of her network career. One concludes from her book that Attkisson encountered more difficulty practicing her profession at CBS News during Obama’s tenure than at any other time. She reached an agreement for her departure from CBS News in March 2014, well before her contract was to expire.

The book’s subtitle refers to the difficulties Attkisson encountered in “Obama’s Washington.” The term is in part a euphemism for the Obama administration, but it also reflects the support for the administration within CBS News. The head of CBS News is David Rhodes, brother of Obama national-security adviser Ben Rhodes.

Attkisson is a dogged reporter, and Stonewalled is a gripping book, organized around the Obama-administration scandals she covered at CBS News. With the exception of the IRS scandal, she covered just about all of them: Fast and Furious, green-energy crony capitalism, Benghazi, and Obamacare. Attkisson devotes a chapter to her work on each one.

Each of the scandals falls into a larger pattern of scandal management practiced by the Obama White House. (The reader can infer how the IRS scandal fits the pattern precisely to a T.) Her book is invaluable for how it analyzes and exposes this pattern, combining her reportage and her behind-the-scenes work at CBS News.

The pattern begins with blatant denials — bald lies — and stonewalling. Attkisson deftly articulates one of the bona fide occupational qualifications for service as a spokesperson in the Obama administration. Referring specifically to HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters, whom Attkisson had caught lying to her, she writes: “It takes a certain kind of person to be untruthful and then display utter lack of contrition when caught.”

Next in the pattern, when the lies fail, comes the attribution of responsibility to the lowest level of bureaucrat. Also, rather than responding to straightforward inquiries, administration spokesmen pump reporters for the information they have so they can undermine it. Attkisson calls this technique “pump and mine.” The administration then plants slanted leaks to friendly bloggers and reporters; next, it characterizes any advances in the story as “old news.”

Attkisson also shows how the administration, using a technique she calls “controversialization,” disparages any sources and reporters who move the story forward. As she recounts in the book, Attkisson has extensive personal experience being at the receiving end of this technique.

She singles out Media Matters as the main outlet that moves administration spin into the mainstream media. As Attkisson demonstrates, however, the power of Media Matters derives from the complicity and cooperation of its many allies in the media, i.e., the many Obama allies in the media.

She writes:

Perhaps the greatest PR coup of all is that the administration’s expert spinners successfully lead the media by the nose down the path of concluding there’s no true controversy unless there’s a paper trail that lays blame directly on the president’s desk. Time and again, with each scandal and each damaging fact, Democrats and the White House read from the script that says, “there’s no evidence President Obama knew” or “there’s no evidence of direct White House involvement.” Anything short of a signed confession from the president is deemed a phony Republican scandal, and those who dare to ask questions are crazies, partisans, or conspiracy theorists. . . .

Under President Obama, the press dutifully regurgitates the line “no evidence of White House involvement,” ignoring the fact that if any proof exists, it would be difficult to come by under an administration that fails to properly respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, routinely withholds documents from Congress, and claims executive privilege to keep documents secret.

Stonewalled covers two kinds of scandal: first, the various scandals within the Obama administration; second, the scandalous treatment of these White House scandals by CBS News. With each White House scandal, Attkisson demonstrates the success, more or less, of the Obama administration’s scandal management inside the newsroom at CBS.

Her account of CBS’s journalistic dereliction culminates in her description of how CBS suppressed a portion of the September 12, 2012, 60 Minutes interview with President Obama — the precise portion in which Obama clearly explained why he did not characterize Benghazi as a “terrorist” attack. The release of this interview might have been of interest, shall we say, in the aftermath of the second Obama–Romney debate, during which Obama successfully promulgated the line — the lie — that he had very quickly characterized Benghazi as a “terrorist” attack, with a timely assist from CNN moderator Candy Crowley, who broke with debate-moderator protocol and backed up Obama’s lie. It was only after Attkisson and others inside CBS News belatedly discovered the relevant portion of the 60 Minutes interview, and after they kicked up some dust about it, that CBS News posted the segment, online only, the weekend before the election — far too late to matter.

Attkisson bookends her accounts of the Obama-administration scandals she covered with the story of what she describes as coordinated intrusions into her telephones and computers. She was working on the Benghazi story when a friendly source “connected to a three-letter agency” offered a surprising observation. “The administration is likely monitoring you — based on your reporting,” the source advised her. She had, in fact, been having troubles with her phones and computers, which were behaving oddly.

Three sets of experts — including experts hired by CBS — examined her computers. All reached the same conclusion: She was the victim of computer intrusion and monitoring. One expert found classified government documents secreted in her hard drive, though she had not placed them there and had nothing to do with them. She believes that they were placed there by the intruders for use against her at an appropriate time.

CBS issued this statement on the intrusions:

Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions in late 2012. . . . [F]orensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data. The party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.

The experts retained by Attkisson concluded that the intrusion into her computers was probably perpetrated by a government agency with highly sophisticated software that is proprietary to the government.

The Department of Justice has issued two statements on Attkisson’s case. In response to Attkisson’s first public mention of her experience, in the course of a radio interview, the Department of Justice said:

To our knowledge, the Justice Department has never “compromised” Ms. Attkisson’s computers, or otherwise sought any information from or concerning any telephone, computer, or other media device she may own or use.

Attkisson has called this Justice Department statement “a quasi-denial.” Who is the “we” encompassed in “our”? she asks. She continues:

The entire Justice Department? Did officials really, in the blink of an eye, conduct an investigation and question 113,543 Justice Department employees? That’s impressive! I’m still waiting for answers to Freedom of Information Act requests that I filed with them years ago, but they’re able to provide this semi-definitive statement within minutes of the question being posed.

Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn, just retired, sent Attorney General Holder a letter making broad inquiries on behalf of Attkisson. Attkisson quotes the response submitted to him by the DOJ:

Your letter asks whether the Department is responsible for incidents in 2012 in which the computer of Sharyl Attkisson, a CBS reporter, was allegedly hacked by an unauthorized party. The Department is not. It also does not appear that CBS or Ms. Attkisson followed up with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for assistance with these incidents.

Coburn’s letter to Holder had sought information regarding actions taken “[d]uring your tenure as attorney general,” not during 2012. Attkisson drily observes: “Instead of answering the questions at hand, the administration had posed an entirely different question and chosen to answer that one.”

Coburn issued a follow-up letter to the Justice Department pointing out that none of his questions from the previous July had been answered in its December response. The Justice Department has provided no further response.

Attkisson has not let the matter rest. In January, she filed an administrative claim against the government as a predicate to bringing a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act; separately, she also filed a lawsuit against the government for violation of her constitutional rights.

One does not need to be a seer to predict that the Obama administration will do its level best to ignore Attkisson and her complaints through Obama’s last day in office. Attkisson will no doubt have to await a new administration before she can obtain legal resolution, but perhaps it would not be amiss for Congress to look for answers right now.

— Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney and a contributor to the website Power Line.

Thursday, December 04, 2014

When Guns Walked: Sharyl Attkisson and John Dodson on Fast and Furious

By Elise Cooper
http://www.americanthinker.com/
December 1, 2014

In her book Stonewalled, Sharyl Attkisson reminds readers of the Fast and Furious debacle: the issue of corruption, coverups, and government misdeeds. Early in the Obama Administration, ATF officials came up with a plan to secretly enlist the help of licensed gun dealers in Arizona and encouraged them to sell firearms to suspected traffickers for the Mexican drug cartels. Part of the plan was to allow these guns to be used in crimes that would lead to the arrest of major drug cartel figures. American Thinker interviewed journalist Sharyl Attkisson and John Dodson, the Fast and Furious whistleblower who helped to make this outrageous scheme public.

Dodson joined the ATF nearly ten years ago after serving in the military and working for the sheriff’s office in Virginia. He felt, in the beginning of his career, that as an ATF agent he made a difference in people’s lives and took the oath of protection literally. Yet, all that changed after he was assigned to the Fast and Furious case. He could not believe his assignment and told American Thinker, “I asked my superiors, are you prepared to go to the funeral for a federal officer killed with one of these guns, and watch their widow hold the folded flag?”

Wanting to do the right thing, in January 2011 Dodson informed Senator Chuck Grassley’s office about the Fast and Furious operation. He then told his bosses at ATF what he said, and instead of being forthright, they drafted a letter in February denying ATF ever let guns walk, and did not sanction or knowingly allow the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers. Sharyl Attkisson, in pursuing the story, was told by an Obama Administration official, “Every other outlet is ‘reasonable’ except you. Nobody else thinks there is a story. Just you. You’re the only one. Sharyl Attkisson is right and everybody else is wrong?” She directly commented, “There was a great deal of pushback, attempts to manipulate opinion by the Obama administration. According to my sources, other reporters were trying to publish stories on Fast and Furious, but their managers or editors apparently blocked it.”

Recently, Judicial Watch was able to force the Obama Administration to release documents from their FOIA lawsuit. Among the documents was the stunning, but not surprising, targeting of Sharyl. http://www.judicialwatch.org/fast-furious-documents-released/ She noted, “"Is this how you envision your tax dollars being spent? Here it is in black and white: documents President Obama withheld under executive privilege showing his government taxpayer-paid press flacks targeting me for reporting on Fast and Furious and Obama flacks planting negative stories about their political enemies with friendly press."

In an email dated October 4, 2011, Attorney General Holder’s top press aide, Tracy Schmaler, called Attkisson “out of control.” Schmaler told White House Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz that he intended to call CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer to get the network to stop Attkisson. She told American Thinker, “’Out of control’ is a very telling phrase. It implies they think they should be able to ‘control’ the media. The outrage is: the email exchange shows they aren’t upset that Attorney General Eric Holder gave questionable testimony to Congress; they aren’t upset that their own internal documents contradict what Holder said, but they are upset at me for factually reporting it.”

In Stonewalled, Attkisson talks about

what she refers to as “controversializing,” where a propaganda campaign is launched by surrogates and sympathizers in the media to divert from the damaging facts by focusing on the personality instead of the evidence. This is no more evident than with John Dodson. He told American Thinker, “My supervisors looked for ways to fire me and try to indict me on the accusation that I released classified information. I owe thanks to Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa’s staff that kept me afloat and alive. I do mean that figuratively and literally. Just think of it, if they made me go away, the whole problem goes away. I could see their game escalating. I have been transferred, slandered, and ostracized. They had their journalist friends try to destroy my character and reputation, including leaking my internal personnel files.They tracked my vehicle, searched my computer and cell phones, and had surveillance over my family and myself. I knew about these, but what is really terrifying is what I don’t know about. I do fear that if something happened to me now there would not be an outcry.”

Because of his frustration with the coverage, Dodson wrote a book that came out a year ago entitled, The Unarmed Truth: My Fight to Blow the Whistle and Expose Fast and Furious. He was hoping to get the issue back in the public eye since there are still questions that remain. Mainly, where did this plan originate, who was ultimately responsible, and how was it allowed to progress and grow? Both he and Sharyl believe the DOJ is “stonewalling” the information requested by Congress. Specifically, that every time a gun from Fast and Furious is involved in a crime Congress is supposed to be told who used the gun, and what was the crime it was involved in. He warns, “Americans need to understand that no one knows the amount of guns sold. Fast and Furious involved only one group that came out of one field position, with 2400 guns sold. But there are other offices within Arizona and the Southwest that we do not know about that are under different case names. I think it is almost impossible to know how many people will have died from this operation since the gun recovered will only be from the latest crime. The previous crimes that the gun was associated with would never be known.”

Dodson was “taken back by the fact that the banner was not taken up by everybody. Those in the media dismissed it because they were told to dismiss it. It became an exercise in futility. I went to Sharyl in March 2011 because everyone seemed to circle around that February letter, which was a lie. No official ever talked to me, or people handling the case, because all they were concerned with was giving a response to Congress. I knew something had to be done and fortunately Sharyl was around. ”

Attkisson regards John Dodson as a hero and understands that the plight of the whistleblower is very difficult. “No one can guarantee what the outcome of blowing the whistle will be. Those who disparaged John never offered an apology. Higher-ups never thanked him for risking his career to expose an ill-advised program responsible for contributing to murders on both sides of the border. He only received heartache. Even after the government admitted wrongdoing, when I called ATF for comment about his book, The Unarmed Truth, they clearly still viewed him as a mortal enemy for the simple act of telling the truth.”

Dodson hopes that the whistleblower laws will change because the current ones are useless. “The government can make your life hell without ever taking any dollars out of your paycheck. The laws do not protect this. ATF poisoned the well toward me and made me toxic so that my co-workers ignored me for the fear any association with me will be detrimental to their careers. I am radioactive and my life is upside down. It seems after you give out the information you are on your own.” He has a good point since criminals who inform are put in the Witness Protection Program with a new life and financial support, while whistleblowers become forgotten and are mistreated.

He also wished

he received some support from the gun shop owners who assisted the ATF in this operation. Dodson is disappointed that not very many have spoken out publicly to substantiate what he said. Journalist Jack Cashill, the author of You Lie! -- The Evasions, Omissions, Fabrications, Frauds, and Outright Falsehoods of Barack Obama, feels that the gun storeowners “were in no position to blow the whistle on Fast and Furious or support people like John Dodson because they are dependent on the government and are so heavily regulated. The government is able to tie their hands and make their life a living hell like they did with John.”

Both Attkisson and Dodson question what happened to the good guys. Dodson wonders how the government gets away with protecting and standing by those individuals who headed up this program, essentially buying their silence, while Attkisson calls it the “Alice in Wonderland” effect. She commented, “Good is bad, bad is good. You tell the truth that is bad, but if you help in the cover-up that is rewarded. By and large very little happened to the wrongdoers, but people like John were marginalized.”

Had it not been for people like Sharyl Attkisson and John Dodson more guns might have been “walked,” with the end result of more people dying. Their books, Stonewalled and The Unarmed Truth, inform Americans about the malfeasance going on by the ATF and the DOJ regarding the illegal activities of Fast and Furious. Americans need to read these books to understand how there are still those who will step up and do the right thing regardless of the consequences.

The author writes for American Thinker. She has done book reviews, author interviews, and has written a number of national security, political, and foreign policy articles.

A Bad Night in Libya: Sharyl Attkisson on the Benghazi Cover-up

By Elise Cooper
http://www.americanthinker.com/
December 2, 2014

Stonewalled by Sharyl Attkisson is an account of an investigative reporter who wanted to follow the facts and refused to be intimidated by the Obama administration. She was one of the few mainstream journalists who tried to seek out the truth regarding what happened on that tragic day of September 11th, 2012 in Benghazi, Libya when four Americans were murdered by Islamic terrorists. American Thinker interviewed her about Benghazi.

It is stunning how this administration tried to push their narrative on reporters. In her book, Sharyl recounts how she was told that the president early on referred to the attack as terrorist-based. This quote shows that the White House viewed her as uncooperative in pushing their narrative, “I give up Sharyl…I’ll work with more reasonable folks...” Unfortunately, Candy Crowley seems to be one of those that did cooperate with the White House, considering her actions during the presidential debate. Sharyl speculates, “As I say in the book, it did make me wonder if Crowley, like me, had received an advance call from a White House official prompting her with the claim that the president had called Benghazi a terrorist attack the next day when, in fact, that was questionable.” Crowley obviously did not check the facts herself. Using the “substitution” technique Attkisson talks about in the book: would a journalist from Fox News who had jumped in defense of Romney be drummed out as a reporter?

haryl lays out the facts surrounding Hillary Clinton’s involvement in pushing the false narrative and the many differing statements. “Hillary Clinton appears to want to revise the facts on Benghazi in her book. Clinton begins her Benghazi discussion acknowledging ‘Americans were killed in a terrorist attack,’ the very thing that the administration had worked so hard not to say initially. Her contradictions in the book include discussions explaining why no rescue mission was launched and the supposed surprise nature of the attack, while at the same time she argues the U.S. was on alert and well prepared because of the anniversary of 9/11. She also claimed the Foreign Emergency Support Team was not deployed because the attack wouldn’t last long enough for them to arrive to help; yet, she also said she believed there would be more attacks in the region as there had been in Egypt. In the days after September 11, she didn’t attribute the attacks to terrorism but mistakenly blamed a YouTube video, and later said that was due to the confusion caused by the ‘fog of war.’ Yet documents we now have show officials concluded from the start that the terrorists were at fault and even told the Libyans that right away. Mrs. Clinton eventually testified before Congress asking, ‘what difference does it make?’ as to who was behind the attacks. My response: if it doesn’t make a difference, why did the administration work so hard to steer the public in the direction of the video rather than the truth?”

Jonathan Gruber’s quote, “the stupidity of American voters” comes to mind. Kenneth R. Timmerman, the author of Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi goes a step further than Sharyl, arguing, “Hillary Clinton represents the arrogance of the left that believes they know better than individuals regarding what information they should have. Their intent is to sweep the facts under the rug, hoping Americans are not paying attention. They are being aided and abetted by the complicit media that has failed to do its job.”

What is still puzzling is that there was never much outcry regarding the killings even though an ambassador was murdered. Sharyl told American Thinker, “The release of information and facts happened slowly, like a drip/drip. The administration stretches out the release of damaging material so that by the time we get it, there is never that giant impact or ability to compare all of the contradictions at once.” Jack Cashill, author of You Lie! The Evasions, Omissions, Fabrications, Frauds, and Outright Falsehoods of Barack Obama, agrees, but goes on to assert: “Except for readers on websites like American Thinker, the voters are more ignorant today than ever before because it is much easier to avoid the news. When I was growing up there were only three stations so we were basically forced to watch.”

Sharyl feels that there are many questions, which still need to get answered: “What was the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, doing during the attack? What decisions did he make while Americans were under attack on foreign soil? Why is the White House withholding photos taken at the White House that night and surveillance videos taken in Benghazi that were once promised for release?”

Former CIA Director, Michael Hayden, agrees that this administration has not been forthcoming and there are questions that still need to be answered. He noted to American Thinker, “Why did they stay way too long with the talking point, ‘this was caused by a video’ when there was mounting evidence that this was not a good explanation consistent with the facts. Also, why did this administration put our ambassador in harm’s way? He should never have been sent there given the intelligence on how dangerous it was without any adequate plans for safety. The blame goes pretty far around.”

Sharyl also points to her September article for the Daily Signal, where she wrote about a State Department official, Raymond Maxwell, accusing certain Hillary Clinton confidants about participating in an operation to withhold damaging documents instead of turning them over to the Accountability Review Board. This occurred after hours, on a weekend, in the State Department basement. If true, this incident is proof that Clinton gave misinformation, speculation, and flat-out deceived the American people.

Sharyl Attkisson, Jack Cashill, and Ken Timmerman show in their books how the president, and others in his administration, notably Hillary Clinton, conceived of a cover-up to support their false narrative that Al Qaeda was on the run and terrorism was no longer a major issue, even though the terrorists had other ideas -- as evidenced by the Benghazi murders. As Attkisson wrote in her book, “If one compares the Obama administration’s first accounts of the Benghazi fiasco, the pages from a novel, if you will, to the facts that have trickled out since, the contrasts are stark.”

The author writes for American Thinker. She has done book reviews, author interviews, and has written a number of national security, political, and foreign policy articles.