Did The One commit an impeachable offense?....
Did, as senior officials testified last week, the president give instructions at 5 PM at the start of the Benghazi siege, then leave, never checking back? Or did the president lie when he said he issued three directives at the start of the siege? How about his now-doumented lying to the nation about the cause of the attack, by calling it the product of an anti-Islam video when everyone knew right away it was a terrorist attack? Sen. Lindsey Graham has put a "hold" on the Hagel (SecDef) & Brennan (CIA) nominations, pending full disclosure of WH actions re Benghazi.
Did the president authorize top-secret intel leaks, as was recently raised by Marc Thiessen in the Washington Post?
The FBI is investigating inner-circle White House officials as to who in May 2012 leaked the US-Israeli role in creating the Stuxnet cyberstrike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
MT summarizes the possibilities:
The leaks clearly came from someone in the president’s inner circle. As The Post explains, “Knowledge of the virus was likely to have been highly compartmentalized and limited to a small set of Americans and Israelis.” Moreover, whoever leaked the information was present when the president discussed this covert action program in the Situation Room. There is a tiny universe of individuals who could have shared the details of President Obama’s personal deliberations on the covert program with the press.
This means there are essentially two possibilities for how the information got out.
Possibility No. 1: A senior administration or White House official disclosed the information to the press without the president’s personal approval....
Possibility No. 2: The president personally authorized a senior official to disclose classified and sensitive national security information regarding ongoing intelligence or counterterrorism operations.
MT notes: If the leaker was a presidential subordinate acting on his (her) own initiative, the leak is a crime that likely will be prosecuted. If the leaker was the president or a subordinate acting with presidential approval, the president committed an impeachable offense.
To which I would add: A GOP House could theoretically impeach the president over his dereliction of duty re Benghazi or over the leaks. But a Democratic Senate will NOT convict him, no matter what. It would make the Clinton case tame by comparison. Mr. Bill was impeached for perjury; The One would be charged with trashing American security to further his re-election. Clinton was merely a popular president; Obama--however odd it seems to conservatives--is an iconic chief executive to many voters. And the taint of race would surely be raised.
If it turns out that Obama leaked information damaging to American security, in pursuit of political gain, he would not be the first chief executive to do this. In 1980 the Carter administration leaked the development of a Stealth bomber (the F-117), to bolster his defense credentials; nothing was done by a Democratic Congress. Voters administered the only punishment, electing Ronald Reagan shortly thereafter.
Bottom Line. The most one can hope for in this mess is that the truth will come out. The truth would not set us free from "O"; but it may enable discerning voters to ascertain national security responsibility and thus judge accordingly in future elections.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, National Security, Foreign Policy, WMD, Nuclear Proliferation, Homeland Security, Conservative Politics
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