The Truth About Benghazi Is Finally Going to Be Exposed

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You remember Lamar Smith, don’t you? He’s the nutbag congressman from Texas who’s been harassing NOAA because they’ve published papers saying the climate has warmed up. Smith knows that climate change is a hoax, so he wants NOAA to turn over vast troves of email that his staff can trawl for evidence of the government’s massive conspiracy to fudge the data.

So far NOAA hasn’t cooperated, but Smith can harass them because he’s the chair of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Climate change is science,1 so that puts it squarely in his bailiwick.

But there’s more to science than climate change. You know what else is science? Cybersecurity. And do you know one of the key cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the US government? Email servers. And do you know who used private email servers a few years ago? Hillary Clinton. And do you know what she was writing emails about? Benghazi. So that means Benghazi falls under Smith’s jurisdiction:

Science Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) on Wednesday launched his own investigation of Clinton’s private email server, invoking the panel’s jurisdiction over cybersecurity issues. The new investigation will focus on the private IT companies involved in maintaining the Clinton server.

….The Smith probe, according to three letters sent to the company’s involved with the server, will focus on Colorado-based Platte River, which housed Clinton’s server after she left State; Datto, the Connecticut-based back-up company they used as a backstop; and SECNAP, a Florida company that provided cybersecurity for her server.

It’s about damn time, if you ask me. John Boehner wouldn’t allow investigations like this because he was scared it would make congressional Republicans look like idiots. That’s typical Boehner. Just another gutless Beltway sellout. But Paul Ryan is running things differently, and now Smith has been unleashed. Finally, we’ll get the truth.

And please: no whining about how this is obviously just a witch hunt designed to hurt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Oversight is one of Congress’s most solemn duties. The truth is out there, folks.

1Supposedly, anyway.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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