The CIA is intimidating employees and foreign assets who have information regarding the Benghazi embassy attack on September 11, 2012, to keep them quiet, according to a new report.
In an exclusive published by CNN, a source has revealed an “unprecedented” effort to keep anyone with information on the Benghazi embassy attack from speaking with the media or Congress.
Survivors of the attack were asked to signed non-disclosure agreements, reports Fox News.
According to the report, a nearly unheard of slew of polygraph testing has been conducted against CIA employees and on-ground assets with information regarding the attack, which resulted in the death of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Transfer of Remains Ceremony for the return of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Libyan embassy employees (Getty Images)
Typically, the agency will only conduct one test over three or four years. Right now they’re subjecting these people to the tests one or twice a month. This rate of polygraph testing is rare, to say the least.
According to Robert Baer, a CNN analyst and former CIA employee, “If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it’s called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they’re looking for something, or they’re on a fishing expedition. But it’s absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly,”
CNN’s source claims that this is a trend of intimidation that the agency is carrying out. In an exclusive communications in the CNN report, one insider writes, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.” Another says, “You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation.”
One of the many questions the government has not revealed is the number of CIA employees or assets on the ground, and the number of who are American.
A new source told CNN that there were “dozens of people working for the CIA […] on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret.”
The source said that the number of assets was 35, and as many as seven were wounded. Some of those were injured seriously. Although the source did not specify how many of them were CIA, he or she did say that 21 American were working in a building called the “annex,” which is believed to be run by the CIA.
This lack of transparency has begun to concern members of Congress. This list includes Frank Wolf, whose distract includes Langley, Virginia, which houses the CIA headquarters. He has gone as far as alleging the government is involved in a “cover-up.”
“I think it is a form of a cover-up, and I think it’s an attempt to push it under the rug, and I think the American people are feeling the same way. We should have the people who were on the scene come in, testify under oath, do it publicly, and lay it out. And there really isn’t any national security issue involved with regards to that.”
U.S Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) (Getty Images)
Wolf attempted to contact people were had close ties with people who had information about the event and wanted to talk. Then they stopped taking his calls.
“Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you’re subpoenaed, it sort of protects you, you’re forced to come before Congress. Now that’s all changed.”
Wolf has made his views vocal on the House floor, requesting a special committee, structured like the Watergate probe, to inquire into the embassy attack with several intelligence committee investigators tasked with establishing the facts that lead to the tragedy last September.
“Can you imagine the FBI going up to a door [in Benghazi], knocking and saying, we’re going to take you away? … The only way to [get answers] is to get a select committee that can subpoena [witnesses],” said Rep. Wolf.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney. (Getty Images)
Other reports of cover-ups have been emerging since the event last September. In May, Dick Cheney said that Obama is involved in a Benghazi cover-up. Also in May, Slate reported a “smoking gun” indicating a systemic administration cover-up. Some outlets have even claimed and presented evidence that Ambassador Stevens died in the attack “because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered him there,” supposedly on purpose with prior knowledge of the attack.
It seems like the public’s concern with the Benghazi embassy tragedy is only growing due to the mass secrecy that is being carried out by the government and its intelligence agency. If you’re interested in finding out more, get in touch with your local member of congress and demand he or she support an inquiry into the event.