New World Next Week with James Evan Pilato - Interview 575

Corbett Report

Leaked Audio: Fox News Offers to Run Petraeus for President

PRWEb
Mari Bottari

Kathleen T. McFarlandThe Washington Post's Bob Woodward obtained an audio recording of a conversation between David Petraeus, the general turned CIA Director who recently resigned in the midst of a sex scandal, and Fox News contributor Kathleen T. McFarland. The conversation took place in spring 2011 in Kabul, during the time that Petraeus was the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. McFarland is a national security analyst for Fox News and has a long resume working for GOP administrations going back to Reagan.

McFarland stresses that she had spoken "directly" to the Fox News chairman. "First of all, is there anything Fox is doing right or wrong that you want to tell us to do differently?" she asks, a remarkable request from a reporter to a sitting general in command of U.S. troops. When the general says Fox can be against Obama, but should not be against "Obama's war," McFarland says "the headlines are easy to fix. The lady who does that sits next to me." Generals editing headlines about the war they are running, what could go wrong?

Secondly, McFarland states that the "advice to you from Roger Ailes is. ... He says that if you're offered [JCS] chairman, take it. If you're offered anything else, don't take it; resign in six months and run for president."

Petraeus makes it clear that he is not interested in running for president, but he is apparently impressed both with Ailes who he describes as "brilliant" and with his offer to "quit his job" and "bankroll the campaign."

McFarland: ... is that next time you go to New York you're going to stop by and see him?

Petraeus: I'd be happy. I would love to see him. I haven't seen him in a while, so ...

McFarland: I think he would very much appreciate the conversation.

Petraeus: I would love to see. ... Yeah. He's a brilliant guy.

McFarland: He is simply brilliant. I don't know if you've ever ...

Petraeus: He is. Tell him if I ever ran [laughs] but I won't ...

McFarland: Okay, I know. I know.

Petraeus: But if I ever ran, I'd take him up on his offer.

McFarland: Okay. All right.

Petraeus: He said he would quit Fox.

McFarland: I know. Look, he's not the only one.

Petraeus: And bankroll it.

McFarland: Bankroll it? [Laughs]

Petraeus: Or maybe I'm confusing that with Rupert. No. [Laughter]

McFarland: I know Roger, he's done okay, but ... no, I think the one who's bankrolling it is the big boss.

Petraeus: That might be it.

McFarland: Okay. The big boss is bankrolling it. Roger's going to run it. And the rest of us are going to be your in-house.

Roger AilesPetraeus: Yeah, right. Okay.

McFarland: We're all set. ...

As for the Fox News chairman, Ailes says McFarland is a contributor, not staff, and that the whole thing was a joke.
Why are we not laughing?

The audio of this remarkable interview is here and the transcript is here.

Both Benghazi And The Petraeus Scandal Suggest US Media Is Way Too Cozy With The State

Business Insider
Geoffrey Ingersoll

If there is just one lesson to take away from the Benghazi and Petraeus affairs it's that the American media is way too cozy with heads of state.

Immediately following the Benghazi crisis, U.S. gersollmedia did its due diligence and flexed its sources, anonymous and otherwise, to uncover the truth about the attack — but then they purposely failed to report the details because of requests from the CIA and the Obama administration.

Michael Calderon of The Huffington Post reports that the AP, The New York Times and The Washington Post all withheld information at the behest of the CIA. Calderon also details how other news outlets failed to mention the true ties of CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

From his report:

ABC News, for example, reported that Doherty had been working to "round up dangerous weapons" in the country. One national security reporter told The Huffington Post that it was an "open secret" in national security circles that the former SEALs were working for the CIA.

The AP even went so far as to edit a Sept. 21 story it wrote, which revealed the employment status of Woods and Doherty; ensuring the edited version made no mention of Woods and Doherty's employment the CIA.

A statement written to HuffPo from AP spokesman Paul Colford:

"We omitted mention of the two former SEALs' CIA connection in subsequent versions of the story after CIA officials insisted that other lives would be endangered."

Another statement, from the New York Times, echoed this sentiment: "[We] agreed to withhold locations and details of these operations at the request of Obama administration officials, who said that disclosing such information could jeopardize future sensitive government activities and put at risk American personnel working in dangerous settings."

Petraeus Switches Up His Story on the Benghazi Attacks

Wired
Spencer Ackerman

Former Gen. David Petraeus at a Fourth of July ceremony in Kabul, 2010

Former CIA Director David Petraeus knew all along that the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked by al-Qaida-aligned terrorists this past September. Only he wasn’t so certain when he first briefed Congress on the Libyan disaster, just days after it occurred. And even the most Petraeus-friendly legislators find it odd that the former CIA director is retroactively editing his testimony.

Petraeus emerged from his compounding week-long fall from grace to testify behind closed doors to the House and Senate intelligence committees about what the CIA knew about the hours-long assault as it unfolded. The overarching and highly politicized question hanging over Benghazi is whether the Obama administration misrepresented the disaster by initially pointing to an anti-Islam video as the catalyst, rather than the complex terrorist attack that actually occurred. What’s begun to leak out of the Petraeus hearings is this: the former four-star general and spymaster was convinced from jump that this was the work of terrorists.

In his Friday testimony. Petraeus claimed “he thought all along that he made it clear there was terrorist involvement,” according to Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). But, King said, “That was not my recollection” of Petraeus’ testimony.

Nor is it what Petraeus’ old boss was saying at the time. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, publicly explained on Sept. 28 that contemporaneous — and ultimately incorrect — intelligence reporting “led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo,” and “we provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress.”


Confusing matters further, Petraeus indicated to lawmakers that the “talking points” the CIA initially gave to the Obama administration and members of Congress omitted early references to terrorism. Those talking points, published on Thursday by CBS, say that the attack on the consulate was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault.” They hold open the possibility that the intelligence picture will change — as, indeed, it did, significantly. Those talking points do not indicate the certainty that Petraeus now says he possessed to attribute the attack to Libyan militant group Ansar al-Sharia.

According to King, Petraeus couldn’t explain the discrepancy. King said the talking points went through an “interagency” review, but the CIA ultimately “said, ‘Okay for it to go.’”
The Obama administration’s explanation of the assault on Benghazi evolved from emphasizing an ultimately incorrect connection to the anti-Islam video to blaming Benghazi on a terrorist assault. Its defense is that the intelligence shifted; critics believe that Obama was covering up a terrorist attack to ensure his reelection. There are numerous unanswered questions about what happened in Benghazi: for instance, why security at the consulate was so light despite numerous precursor attacks that summer.

Petraeus, finally out the door of the administration and under investigation by his own former agency, just added a few more, rather than clearing up the existing ones.
We’ll update this post as more information from Petraeus’ testimony leaks out.

Update, 4:52 p.m.: According to the Associated Press, the CIA excised mentions of terrorist groups from the talking points “so as not to alert them that U.S. intelligence was on their trail.” Pentagon spokesman George Little had said the day following the attack that the U.S. would retaliate, but did not give any specifics as to who was responsible.

Petraeus may be called in U.S. inquiry on Benghazi: Feinstein

Reuters
Deborah Zabarenko

(Reuters) - Despite an adultery scandal that ended David Petraeus' tenure as CIA chief, the general may be called to testify in a Senate inquiry into the killing of four Americans at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Senator Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.

Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on the "Fox News Sunday" program that Petraeus' resignation on Friday "was like a lightning bolt."

She said there will be an investigation into why the FBI failed to inform her and others on the intelligence committee before Friday about the extramarital affair between Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, when the FBI probe had been proceeding for weeks.

The California Democrat said there was no connection between Petraeus' resignation and the September 11, 2012, killings in Benghazi. Petraeus had been scheduled to testify about the Benghazi case on Thursday in a closed session of the committee; Mike Morrell, the acting CIA director, is now expected to do so.

She said the committee may decide to call Petraeus in a future meeting of the intelligence panel on the Benghazi killings. Four U.S. citizens were killed, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

"My biggest concern is, there are literally hundreds of threat warnings in the material that has been accumulated," Feinstein said. "There were five attacks during the year, one prior attack on the consulate itself. The question I have is ... why wasn't something done about it?"

U.S. Representative Peter King, the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, raised questions about why it took FBI investigators so long to inform President Barack Obama and others in his administration that Petraeus was involved.

FBI TIMELINE QUESTIONED

"The timeline has to be looked at and analyzed," the New York congressman said on CNN's "State of the Union. "Because obviously this was a matter involving a potential compromise of security and the president should have been told about it at the earliest stage."

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he was ready to turn the page on the scandal that prompted Petraeus to resign, but said the former general must testify before Congress about what he called a "national security failure" at Benghazi.

Graham, of South Carolina, called for a Watergate-style joint select committee of members of the House and Senate to investigate the matter.

Speaking on "Face the Nation" on CBS, Graham said the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence community have much to explain in this case, but singled out Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, for her role.

"I don't, quite frankly, trust her rendition of Benghazi," Graham said. Rice initially described the attack as a spontaneous outburst rather than a planned attack. Her handling of the matter provided fodder to Republican opponents in the final months of Obama's re-election campaign.

Rice has been mentioned as a possible choice by Obama to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but Graham said Rice's nomination to this post "would have incredibly difficult time getting through the Senate."

"I would not vote for her unless there's a tremendous opening up of information explaining herself in a way she has not yet done," Graham said of Rice.

Libya mission was secret CIA operation: report

The International News

WASHINGTON: The US mission in Benghazi that came under attack by militants on September 11 was mainly a secret CIA operation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, shedding new light on the deadly assault.

President Barack Obama's administration has faced a storm of pre-election questions about why there was not more security at the US consulate where four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed on September 11.

The Wall Street Journal said the mission was mainly a CIA operation, adding that of the 30 American officials evacuated from Benghazi following the assault, just seven worked for the State Department.

It also identified the two security contractors killed in the attack - former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty - as working for the Central Intelligence Agency and not the State Department.

In a break from tradition, it said CIA Director David Petraeus did not attend the ceremony when the coffins arrived back on American soil in order to conceal the CIA operation in eastern Libya.

It said the nearly two dozen CIA operatives secretly worked out of a separate building known as the “annex,” where officials at the consulate had retreated following the initial attack before coming under fire again.

The operation, which hit the ground shortly after the start of the February 2011 revolt that overthrew Libyan dictator Moamer Qadhafi - was aimed at counterterrorism and securing heavy weapons held by the embattled regime.

The Journal suggested that the security lapse may have been due to miscommunication between the CIA and the State Department, with the latter assuming the annex security team was a sufficient backup for its own guards. “They were the cavalry,” it quoted a senior US official as saying.

Petraeus' Resignation Will Stop Him From Testifying About Benghazi

Business Insider
Joshua Beringer

Getty

Former CIA Director David Petraeus' resignation today, following his confession of an extramarital affair, seemed to come out of nowhere, and has raised a plethora of questions that will need to be answered in the coming days.

It's worth asking: was this in any way connected to the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi?

Ben Shapiro at Breitbart seems to think so, calling the scandal the "latest in a string of groundshaking events demonstrating that the Obama administration hid information vital to the American people." And Rupert Murdoch seems to agree:

Rupert Murdoch

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@rupertmurdoch

Petraeus resignation. Timing, everything suspicious. There has to be more to this story.

9 Nov 12

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Petraeus was scheduled to testify before the House and Senate Intelligence committees on Thursday regarding the events surrounding September 11, as Congress gears up for a week of hearings related to the attack. Mark Knoller at CBS News tweets that he will no longer be testifying in light of his resignation, but acting CIA director Mike Morell will testify in his place, according to Politico. Morell was quickly named Petraeus' temporary replacement by the Obama administration.

However, many reject the theory that Petraeus' actions are connected to Benghazi. “This had nothing to do with Benghazi or relationship with the White House — which by the way was excellent — or anything else for that matter,” an anonymous aide told Wired magazine. “Just his flawed behavior." 

It's also important to note that an extramarital affair could very well have cost Petraeus his security clearance, as Business Insider reported earlier today.