Orlando Jihadi was Known to FBI, Kill List

West LAArrest just made in Los Angeles. Why? ****

The shooter worked for G4S, a corrupt company this site wrote about last week.

Caliphate kill list was distributed via the app called Telegram and that is an encrypted platform. More data is here.

 

The ex-wife said she met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and decided to move to Florida and marry him.

At first, the marriage was normal, she said, but then he became abusive. He has a 3 year old son.

“He was not a stable person,” said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.” More here from WaPo.

TCPalm: Mateen has multiple ties to the Treasure Coast. Here are the local connections:

  •  Mateen, born in New York, lived in an apartment complex in the 2500 block of South 19th Street in Fort Pierce. Law enforcement was at the complex Sunday.
  •  He also received mail at his parents’ home in the 900 block of Southwest Bayshore Boulevard in Port St. Lucie. Law enforcement remained at the home Sunday with his family.
  •  He received degrees in science in 2006 and 2007 from Indian River State College. However, further details about how long he attended the school were unavailable.
  • He attended his freshman year of high school at Martin County High School. It’s unclear whether he attended MCHS after that.
  •  Mateen married Sitora Yusufiy of Port St. Lucie in 2009, according to court documents. They divorced two years later in 2011, St. Lucie County court records show.
  •  Mateen has no state criminal record, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records.

Omar Mateen's freshman year high school yearbook photo at Martin County High School.

Omar Mateen’s freshman year high school yearbook photo at Martin County High School.

Omar Mateen’s father was an activist for the Taliban. Note the radio network that gave him airtime, Payem e Afghan, a radio show in California called Durand Jirga. (video link) Much more on the father being a full supporter of the Taliban here.

Omar worked security at a juvenile facility.

Islamic State (ISIS) has put out an official statement;

Pulse

Omar was investigated twice. He was a state licensed security guard and owned the weapon legally. Born in New York of Afghan parents. He was married to a woman from Uzbekistan.

Governor Scott declared a state of emergency.

Rep Schiff, top Dem on House Intel, says on CNN he was told shooter made pledge of allegiance to ISIL,cautions still early in investigation.

Omar Mateen Terrorist was 29-Year-Old Islamic Radical (PHOTO)

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The killer in the Orlando nightclub slaughter is 29-year-old Omar Mateen.  TMZ has done a records search and found he held a Florida security officer license and a state firearms license.

He’s an American citizen and he has family that are not — his parents are Afghan.  Authorities say he was a terrorist and was targeting gays.  They say in addition to terrorism this is a hate crime.

Authorities also believe he is part of the radical Islam movement, although they do not know if it was an organized attack or if he was a lone wolf.   Authorities also believe Mateen specifically targeted a gay club.

Mateen’s father told NBC News, “This has nothing to do with religion.”  He says his son became angry after seeing 2 men kissing a few months ago in Miami, and he speculates that could have triggered his decision to kill.

Law enforcement says Mateen was well prepared, with an assault weapon, a handgun and 2 suspicious devices.

The NYPD tells TMZ, Mateen has no association with the department, and that the shirts he was photographed in were unofficial garments that could be purchased at any store.

50 people were murdered and another 53 injured inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando.  It’s the biggest slaughter at the hands of a gunman in American history.

Take a look at the pic below … it’s a police helmet with a bullet hole.  The helmet saved the officer’s life, although he suffered facial injuries.

0612-orlando-shooting-officer-helmet-TWITTER-01Police descended on Mateen’s home to search shortly after the massacre. More here from TMZ

The gunman entered the crowded Pulse nightclub, a popular gay club, on Sunday night and opened fire before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said the suspect took hostages before law enforcement officials took out the shooter.

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We were warned but who heard those warnings?

ISIS ‘kill list’ targets Palm Beach, Treasure Coast residents: Ex-FBI agent

WWMT: A pro-Isis group has released a hit list with the names of more than 8,000 peoplemostly Americans.

More than 600-people live in Florida, and one security expert believes that many of those targeted live in Palm Beach County and on the Treasure Coast.

The “United Cyber Caliphate” that hacked U.S. Central Command, 54,000 Twitter accounts and threatened President Barack Obama is the same pro-Isis group that’s reportedly created a “kill list” with the names, addresses and emails of thousands of civilian Americans.

Reports of the list came to light online when Vocativ reported the list was shared via the encrypted app, Telegram, and called on supporters to kill.

Former FBI agent-turned lawyer Stuart Kaplan says the threat is especially alarming, because the people on this list are civilians who don’t have the security necessary to protect themselves.

“It’s going to create some hysteria,” he said.

Kaplan believes civilians from our community are on the list.

“I would suspect a head of a hospital or, perhaps, a local community leader. Those are the individuals that may appear on the list–or just a local banker or local school teacher–someone who, for some reason, was in the public eye.”

Kaplan is concerned the list will inspire “lone wolf” style attacks.

“If in fact a sympathizer gets ahold of this list and is readily able to identify you as being his neighbor and, then, decides (because they’re a sympathizer) to go out and do something horrific to you, there is no way to calculate the potential or to prevent that.”

The list has not yet been made public.

We reached out to the FBI, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and Martin County Sheriff’s Office to see how credible they view the threat and what action they might be taking.

We are awaiting their response.

According to the Martin County Sheriffs office,the FBI is aware of this and the agency will work closely with the Joint-Terrorism Task Force to keep citizens safe.

Pulse1

Latin America, Hezbollah Moving Cocaine, Funding Terror

Hezbollah moving ‘tons of cocaine’ in Latin America, Europe to finance terror operations

 

Taylor/Dinan/WashingtonTimes: Hezbollah’s terrorism finance operations are thriving across Latin America months after the Drug Enforcement Administration linked the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group to drug cartels in the region, U.S. lawmakers were told this week.

Former DEA operations chief Michael Braun said Hezbollah is “moving [multiple] tons of cocaine” from South America to Europe and has developed “the most sophisticated money laundering scheme or schemes that we have ever witnessed.”

The agency announced in February that it had arrested several Hezbollah operatives accused of working with a major Colombian drug cartel to traffic drugs to Europe and launder money through Lebanon. Those arrests come against a backdrop of rising fears in Washington about smuggling connections between Middle East terrorist groups and the Western Hemisphere.

Hezbollah has “metastasized into a hydra with international connections that the likes of [the Islamic State] and groups like al Qaeda could only hope to have,” Mr. Braun told the House Financial Services Committee.

Adding to concerns about security threats from Central and South America, intelligence reports have also tracked how smugglers managed to sneak illegal immigrants from the Middle Eastern and South Asia straight to the doorstep of the U.S. — including helping one Afghan who U.S. authorities say was part of an attack plot in North America.

Immigration officials identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed this month by The Washington Times.

 

Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban and was “involved in a plot to conduct an attack in the U.S. and/or Canada.”

Concerns about Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America have surged the DEA’s announcement in February that top operatives from the group’s so-called Business Affairs Component, or BAC, “have established business relationships” with South American drug cartels such as the Colombia-based Oficina de Envigado, a crime syndicate “responsible for supplying large quantities of cocaine to the European and United States drug markets.”

The DEA said several of the BAC’s Europe-based operatives had been arrested on charges of trafficking drugs and laundering money from South America to purchase weapons and finance the group’s military activities in Syria. The agency described an intricate network of money couriers who collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East.

 

“The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers,” it said, adding that “a large portion of the drug proceeds was found to transit through Lebanon, and a significant percentage of these proceeds are benefiting terrorist organizations, namely Hezbollah.”

The DEA said seven countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, were involved in an ongoing investigation. But few details were provided about how many suspects had been apprehended or where they are being held.

Officials said the most significant arrest was of Mohamad Noureddine, whom the DEA accused of being a Lebanese money launderer for Hezbollah. A week prior to the announcement, the Treasury Department had imposed sanctions freezing any U.S. accounts tied to Mr. Noureddine as well as to Hamdi Zaher El Dine, another suspected money launderer.

Decades of activity

U.S. officials have long been wary of Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamic group.

While it has a mainstream political arm in Lebanon, officials have linked the group to terrorist attacks in various corners of the world over the past 25 years — the vast majority targeting Israel. The State Department listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in the late 1990s and has characterized Iran as a leading state sponsor of terrorism largely on grounds that it supplies the group with weapons.

But the full scope of Hezbollah’s operations has long been a subject of debate in Washington. The DEA’s recent claims followed years of speculation about Iranian activities in Latin America.

Responding to pressure from Republican lawmakers, the State Department conducted a formal probe into the matter in 2013 and issued a report claiming that Iran was not supporting any active terrorist cells in the region.

While the report said the number of Iranian officials operating in Latin America had increased, the report concluded Tehran had far less influence in Latin America than critics claimed.

But former officials like Mr. Braun, who retired as DEA chief of operations in 2008, say Hezbollah is extremely active in the region.

President Obama signed the “Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act” last year, authorizing a range of actions, including sanctions, to block Hezbollah’s ability to fund itself.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow on Iran and illicit finance with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing that Congress and the administration should use the law to “aggressively focus” on Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America.

Brazilian connection

Mr. Ottolenghi pointed to the group’s “vast network of support,” particularly in Brazil, which is home to some 7 million people of Lebanese descent, including an estimated 1 million Shiite Muslims.

Hezbollah generates loyalty among the local Shia communities by managing their religious and educational structures,” Mr. Ottolenghi told the hearing. “It then leverages loyalty to solicit funds and use business connections to its own advantage, including, critically, to facilitate its interactions with organized crime.”

He cited a 2014 report by the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that outlined a connection between Hezbollah and the Primeiro Comando da Capital, a Sao Paulo-based prison gang, which is widely regarded to be among the country’s biggest exporters of cocaine.

“Drug cartels need middlemen, as well as commodity and service providers, for the supply line and delivery to cartels in Colombia, Venezuela and Central America,” Mr. Ottolenghi said. “They need assistance facilitating transit to West Africa before drugs cross the Sahara on their way to Western Europe and enabling the producers, refiners and cartels to launder their revenues and acquire the accessories for the trade in the process.”

 

Google Runs Full Bore to Protect Hillary on the ‘net’

Earlier this week, this site posted about the limitless help Hillary Clinton is receiving from Google to catapult her into the White House. There is no dollar value that can be applied to this but it should be in fact be considered a campaign donation. Blaming the media is one thing, now we have to go wider to the tech companies….

And so it has already begun….Google is transforming facts and filtering posts on all media. By the way, Google did the same thing for Barack Obama’s election processes. The Clinton crime syndicate creeps through all venues with wild abandon….

Shame on Google….but here goes:

Here Are 10 More Examples of Google Search Results Favorable to Hillary

Tech giant accused of whitewashing autocomplete results

FreeBeacon: “Crime” and “indictment” are not the only terms Google is keeping hidden from searches of Hillary Clinton, a Washington Free Beacon analysis finds.

Common search terms associated with Clinton appear to have been scrubbed from Google as the tech giant has been accused of manipulating its autocomplete results to favor the Democratic presidential candidate.

Matt Lieberman of SourceFed released a video showing examples of Google skewing its autocomplete results for Clinton, while other search engines simply display the most searched terms.

“While researching for a wrap-up on the June 7 Presidential Primaries, we discovered evidence that Google may be manipulating autocomplete recommendations in favor of Hillary Clinton,” SourceFed wrote. “If true, this would mean that Google Searches aren’t objectively reflecting what the majority of Internet searches are actually looking for, possibly violating Google’s algorithm.”

For example, when searching Hillary Clinton “cri,” Google finishes the phrase as “crime reform.” On Yahoo, the result is “criminal charges.” On Google’s own trend website, there were not enough searches for Hillary Clinton and “crime reform” to build a graph of the results.

Typing Hillary Clinton and “ind” gives Google users results on Hillary Clinton and Indiana. On Microsoft’s Bing search engine, a user gets Hillary Clinton and “indictment,” yielding results for the FBI investigation into Clinton’s private email server.

Just putting the name “Hillary Clinton” into Google, you are directed towards searches for her “twitter,” “email,” “age,” and “speech.”

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Notably missing is the second top result on Bing, which is of her potential “indictment.”

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Here are 10 more examples of questionable Google autocompletes for Clinton:

1. “Hillary Clinton anti…”

Bing gets you antichrist, antisemitic, and anti gay marriage.

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Google gets you “anti obama ad.”

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2. “Hillary Clinton vin…”

Bing gets you vindictive and a variety of searches focusing on the death of Vince Foster.

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Google recommends a search for a compilation of Vines.

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3. “Hillary Clinton ga…”

Bing thinks the user is looking for her gaffes or maybe her shaky view on gay marriage.

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Google thinks the user is researching her Gameboy?

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4. “Hillary Clinton hum…”

Bing directs you to Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin and whether she is Clinton’s lover.

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Google directs you towards a look at Clinton’s humor and her status as a humanitarian.

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5. “Hillary Clinton cro…”

Bing sends you over to crook or crooked.

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Google sends you to cross-stitch, a common embroidery method.

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6. “Hillary Clinton un…”

On Bing, unlikable, untrustworthy, and under investigation top the list.

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On Google, universal health care jumps to the top of the list.

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7. “Hillary Clinton aff…”

Bing’s top suggestion is a look into Clinton affairs.

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That suggestion is absent from Google.

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8. “Hillary Clinton whi…”

Top result on Bing is the Whitewater scandal.

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This is also absent from Google, leaving just searches for Clinton doing the whip and nae nae, which are dance moves for young people.

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9. “Hillary Clinton mon…”

Bing guesses that its user is looking into either Monsanto or Monica Lewinsky.

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No way a Google user could be looking into Monica Lewinsky.

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10. “Hillary Clinton li…”

Bing goes for lies, Libya, and liar.

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Google goes for LinkedIn and lipstick.

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Hillary Puts Donor on Intelligence Board

Click here to read in high quality the associated emails.

White House perhaps slipped up, but did say the Hillary investigation was a criminal case the same day that Barack Obama endorsed her.

How Clinton Donor Got on Sensitive Intelligence Board

ABCNews: Newly released State Department emails help reveal how a major Clinton Foundation donor was placed on a sensitive government intelligence advisory board even though he had no obvious experience in the field, a decision that appeared to baffle the department’s professional staff.

The emails further reveal how, after inquiries from ABC News, the Clinton staff sought to “protect the name” of the Secretary, “stall” the ABC News reporter and ultimately accept the resignation of the donor just two days later.

Copies of dozens of internal emails were provided to ABC News by the conservative political group Citizens United, which obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act after more the two years of litigation with the government.

A prolific fundraiser for Democratic candidates and contributor to the Clinton Foundation, who later traveled with Bill Clinton on a trip to Africa, Rajiv K. Fernando’s only known qualification for a seat on the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) was his technological know-how. The Chicago securities trader, who specialized in electronic investing, sat alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Hillary Clinton on the use of tactical nuclear weapons and on other crucial arms control issues.

“We had no idea who he was,” one board member told ABC News.

PHOTO: A State Department photograph shows the 2011 International Security Advisory Board. Rajiv Fernando is seated on the far left of the image.
State Department A State Department photograph shows the 2011 International Security Advisory Board. Rajiv Fernando is seated on the far left of the image.

Fernando’s lack of any known background in nuclear security caught the attention of several board members, and when ABC News first contacted the State Department in August 2011 seeking a copy of his resume, the emails show that confusion ensued among the career government officials who work with the advisory panel.

“I have spoken to [State Department official and ISAB Executive Director Richard Hartman] privately, and it appears there is much more to this story that we’re unaware of,” wrote Jamie Mannina, the press aide who fielded the ABC News request. “We must protect the Secretary’s and Under Secretary’s name, as well as the integrity of the Board. I think it’s important to get down to the bottom of this before there’s any response.

Related reading: Clinton BlackBerry photo led to State official’s query about email account

“As you can see from the attached, it’s natural to ask how he got onto the board when compared to the rest of the esteemed list of members,” Mannina wrote, referring to an attachment that was not included in the recent document release.

Fernando himself would not answer questions from ABC News in 2011 about what qualified him for a seat on the board or led to his appointment. When ABC News finally caught up with Fernando at the 2012 Democratic convention, he became upset and said he was “not at liberty” to speak about it. Security threatened to have the ABC News reporter arrested.

PHOTO: At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, ABC News Brian Ross asks Rajiv Fernando about his 2011 appointment to the State Departments International Security Advisory Board.ABC News
At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, ABC News’ Brian Ross asks Rajiv Fernando about his 2011 appointment to the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board.more +

Fernando’s expertise appeared to be in the arena of high-frequency trading — a form of computer-generated stock trading. At the time of his appointment, he headed a firm, Chopper Trading, that was a leader in that field.

Fernando’s history of campaign giving dated back at least to 2003 and was prolific — and almost exclusively to Democrats. He was an early supporter of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 bid for president, giving maximum contributions to her campaign, and to HillPAC, in 2007 and 2008. He also served as a fundraising bundler for Clinton, gathering more than $100,000 from others for her White House bid. After Barack Obama bested Clinton for the 2008 nomination, Fernando became a major fundraiser for the Obama campaign. Prior to his State Department appointment, Fernando had given between $100,000 and $250,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation, and another $30,000 to a political advocacy group, WomenCount, that indirectly helped Hillary Clinton retire her lingering 2008 campaign debts by renting her campaign email list.

The appointment qualified Fernando for one of the highest levels of top secret access, the emails show. Among those with whom Fernando served on the International Security Advisory Board was David A. Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group and United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector; Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a former National Security Advisor to two presidents; two former congressmen; and former Sen. Chuck Robb. William Perry, the former Secretary of Defense, chaired the panel.

“It is certainly a serious, knowledgeable and experienced group of experts,” said Bruce Blair, a Princeton professor whose principal research covers the technical and policy steps on the path toward the verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons. “Much of the focus has been on questions of nuclear stability and the risks of nuclear weapons use by Russia and Pakistan.”

The newly released emails reveal that after ABC News started asking questions in August 2011, a State Department official who worked with the advisory board couldn’t immediately come up with a justification for Fernando serving on the panel. His and other emails make repeated references to “S”; ABC News has been told this is a common way to refer to the Secretary of State.

“The true answer is simply that S staff (Cheryl Mills) added him,” wrote Wade Boese, who was Chief of Staff for the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, in an email to Mannina, the press aide. “Raj was not on the list sent to S; he was added at their insistence.”

Mills, a former deputy White House counsel, was serving as Clinton’s chief of staff at the time, and has been a longtime legal and political advisor.

Four minutes later, Boese wrote to his boss, Richard Hartman, to alert him that Ellen Tauscher, who was then the Undersecretary for State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, would be meeting with Mills to devise a response to the ABC News request.

“Sorry this has become a headache,” he wrote.

Hartman wrote the next morning to say he would “come up and brief you… about where Raj Fernando stands and the ABC News investigative journalist inquiries. You do need to hear about it.” Separately, in an email to another official, Hartman noted that it was “Cheryl Mills, who added Mr. Fernando’s name to the list of ISAB nominees.”

When ABC News sent a follow-up inquiry about the qualifications of another board appointee, Massachusetts state Rep. Harold P. Naughton, Jr., Boese wrote to Hartman to say the department would have a far easier time explaining Naughton’s credentials. “The case for Rep. Naughton is an easy one. We are on solid ground,” he said.

By this point, Fernando himself had been looped into the discussion. He and Hartman exchanged emails, but the entire text of Fernando’s letter was redacted by the State Department prior to its release.

Twice, Mannina was instructed to stall with ABC News, before Mills sent a public statement. It announced Fernando’s abrupt decision to step down.

“Mr. Fernando chose to resign from the Board earlier this month citing additional time needed to devote to his business,” it reads, noting that membership on the board was required to be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed by the advisory committee.”

“As President and CEO of Chopper Trading, Mr. Fernando brought a unique perspective to ISAB. He has years of experience in the private sector in implementing sophisticated risk management tools, information technology and international finance,” the statement says.

The statement was emailed to ABC News two days after Fernando’s resignation and four days after the initial ABC News inquiry.

Fernando’s letter of resignation to Clinton says he “intended to devote a substantial amount of time to the work of ISAB in furtherance of its objectives. However, the unique, unexpected, and excessive volatility in the international markets these last few weeks and months require[d him] to focus [his] energy on the operations of [his] company.”

Additional emails collected from Hillary Clinton’s personal server only hint at her possible involvement in Fernando’s selection to the board. The records request for documents about Fernando’s appointment produced a chain of correspondence from 2010 with the subject line “ISAB” — or International Security Advisory Board. In those, Mills writes, “The secretary had two other names she wanted looked at.” The names are redacted. Mills then forwarded the response to “H,” which is the designation for Clinton’s personal account. Three minutes later Clinton forwards the email chain to another State official and says simply, “Pls print.”

The Clinton campaign declined requests from ABC News to make Mills available for an interview. Campaign spokesman Nick Merrill deferred to the U.S. State Department, which issued a statement saying the board’s charter specifically calls for a membership that reflects “a balance of backgrounds and points of view. Furthermore, it is not unusual for the State Department Chief of Staff to be involved in personnel matters.”

PHOTO: Cheryl Mills, former State Department chief of staff under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, attends a House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing in Washington, Oct. 22, 2015. Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Cheryl Mills, former State Department chief of staff under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, attends a House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing in Washington, Oct. 22, 2015. more +

Fernando did not respond to messages left by ABC News at home and mobile numbers listed for Fernando, nor to a letter left at the office of his current business.

As is customary with a new administration, the make-up of the board changed substantially when Clinton took over the State Department, according to Amb. James Woolsey, who served on the panel from 2006 to 2009. But the seriousness of its mission remained the same.

He said the board’s primary purpose was to gather an array of experts on nuclear weapons and arms control to constantly assess and update the nation’s nuclear strategy.

“Most things that involve nuclear weapons and nuclear strategy are dealt with at a pretty sensitive basis — top secret,” he said, noting that participants meet in a secure facility and are restricted in what materials they can discuss.

That is not typically the realm of political donors, Woolsey said. Though, he added, it would not be impossible for someone lacking a security background to make a contribution to the panel. “It would depend on how smart and dedicated this person was… I would think you would have to devote some real time to getting up to speed,” he said.

Fernando is now a board member of a private group called the American Security Project, which describes itself as “a nonpartisan organization created to educate the American public and the world about the changing nature of national security in the 21st Century.” He also identifies himself online as a member of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and says he’s involved with a Washington think tank.

And he continued to donate to Democrats, and to Clinton. He emerged as one of the first “bundlers” to raise money for Clinton’s 2016 bid. And in July 2015, he hosted a fundraiser for Clinton at his Chicago home. Fernando has also continued to donate to the Clinton Foundation. He now is listed on the charity’s website as having given between $1 million and $5 million.

About six months after Fernando resigned from the State Department advisory board, he was invited to attend a White House State Dinner, honoring the British Prime Minister. And this summer Fernando will serve as a super delegate at the Democratic National Convention. According to Chicago media reports, he has committed to supporting Clinton.

ABC News’ Andrea GonzalesPaul contributed to this report.

 

 

Defense Dept Refused Cooperation on Benghazi Witness?

Related reading: The witness was located and interviewed

Rep. Westmoreland: No Democrat Members Attended Yesterday’s Witness Interviews

June 10, 2016
Press Release

Washington, D.C. — Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (GA-03), a member of the Select Committee on Benghazi and Chairman of the Subcommittee of the NSA and Cybersecurity on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, released the following statement after none of the five Benghazi Committee Democrats showed up for either of yesterday’s interviews with drone sensor operators from the time of the attacks, including “John from Iowa”:

“It’s a shame none of the Democrat members of the Benghazi Committee showed up to hear what these two service members had to say about their service to our country on the night of the Benghazi attacks.”

After the Select Committee on Benghazi subpoenaed Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen Hedger to testify under oath next week, Communications Director Jamal Ware issued the following statement in response to Democrats’ mischaracterizations of the drone sensor operators’ testimonies:

“Democrats belie their own political motivation and lack of interest in conducting a serious investigation when they would rather accept briefings provided by the Pentagon than talk to the actual Air Force operators who were conducting missions over Benghazi that night. Since not a single Democrat member could be bothered to show up to hear what the sensor operators had to say, I find it surprising their spokesman is so willing to mischaracterize the witnesses’ testimony. In fact, the operators were able to tell the committee what they were directed to look for, what information they were focused on gathering, what information was relayed up the chain of command and what capabilities the drones possessed. Video footage the administration refuses to let the American people see and briefers instructed what to say cannot do that.

“Chairman Gowdy wants answers under oath and he wants them quickly—a subpoena accomplishes both. The Democrats and administration incessantly whine about the committee’s length, so they shouldn’t be surprised when the committee cuts to the chase.”

The dishonest Democrats are falsely claiming the Benghazi Committee “waited … 659 days” to specifically request the Department of Defense (DOD) find “John from Iowa.” But the truth – as made clear by the timeline of events the committee released yesterday – is that DOD was unable to comply with the committee’s February 26 request for relevant drone personnel. So on March 24, the committee sent DOD a list of outstanding requests and noted an investigator trying to gather any publicly available information about relevant drone personnel came across a news report about “John from Iowa,” an individual who called into a talk radio show in May 2013 and claimed to be a drone sensor operator on the night of the attacks.

In other words, the committee requested “John from Iowa” as soon as it became aware of him.

The February 26 and March 24 dates are confirmed by an email from DOD staff to the committee acknowledging the timing of the committee’s requests.

 

Select Committee Subpoenas Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen Hedger

June 10, 2016
Press Release

Washington, D.C. — Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (SC-04) released the following statement after the committee subpoenaed Assistant Secretary of Defense Stephen Hedger, a Pentagon political appointee, to testify in private, under oath on Wednesday, June 15:

“This Pentagon political appointee claimed in an official letter to the committee the Department of Defense could not find a requested witness, despite expending ‘significant resources’ searching for him. This witness is still on active duty and confirmed Thursday the Air Force knew exactly who he was – a drone sensor operator who was operating over Benghazi on the night of the attacks. Mr. Hedger will now have the opportunity to detail exactly what ‘resources’ he ‘expended’ and how. I look forward to him explaining the serious questions that have arisen with respect to this matter, including whether they are related to incompetence or deliberate concealment of the witness from a congressional inquiry.”

In his April 28 letter to Chairman Gowdy that was leaked to the press, Hedger stated he “would appreciate a meeting with you at your nearest convenience to discuss these issues[.]”

In response, Gowdy wrote that the “overtly partisan” letter “intentionally mischaracterizes both the nature of the Committee’s investigation and its interaction with the Department of Defense. It is also riddled with factual inaccuracies, which not only does a disservice to the public but also does a disservice to the women and men who work for the Department of Defense.” He stated that Pentagon political staffers are “welcome to waste taxpayer dollars writing partisan, factually deficient letters to our committee, coordinate the language with House Democrats, and then leak it to the media,” but that “will not prevent this committee from interviewing all witnesses who can help us write the final, definitive accounting of what happened before, during, and after the attacks that killed four Americans in Benghazi[.]”

On May 20, three months after the committee’s request, the Department of Defense provided a complete list of names of drone personnel from the time of the attacks. While it is unclear if the Department knew at the time it had finally provided the name of “John from Iowa,” the committee did. Based on this drone sensor operator’s testimony to the committee Thursday, it now appears the Department had knowledge well in advance of who and where John was. In fact, the Department had been in contact with him regarding his public statements prior to the committee’s request. The committee intends to question Hedger about this discrepancy and other matters.

View the timeline of events regarding “John from Iowa.”