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Hillary Clinton's Shameful Intimidation Of Gregory Hicks

Scandal In Libya: The secretary of state in the most transparent administration in history has her chief of staff warn a Benghazi whistle-blower to not spill the beans on Benghazi to a U.S. congressman.


In the course of the career of Hillary Clinton's husband, William Jefferson Clinton, there were handlers delegated to deal with what were famously called "bimbo eruptions," past dalliances that might impede his political career.


Now on her own politically, Mrs. Clinton apparently has her own handlers, paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, to deal with what we'll call "Benghazi eruptions." Those who know the truth and are willing to speak it must be dealt with by intimidation.


One of the things we learned during Wednesday's hearings from Greg Hicks, the deputy chief of mission in Libya and a career foreign service officer for 22 years, is that after he talked to investigators about Benghazi, he received a searing phone reprimand from a very angry Cheryl Mills, who happened to be the chief of staff to his boss, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.


In the State Department, when Cheryl Mills calls, you pick up the phone. She's been one of the Clintons' right-hand men, so to speak, for decades. She worked in Bill's White House legal office, then as counsel to Hillary's presidential campaign, and then became chief of staff at State when Hillary was appointed secretary. She knows how to help handle "eruptions, " bimbo or otherwise.


When Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, visited Libya after the attack, Hicks said his bosses told him not to talk to the congressman. When he did anyway, and a State Department lawyer was excluded from one meeting because he lacked the necessary security clearance, Hicks said he received the angry phone call from Mills.


Hicks, who is no member of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that Hillary imagined hounded her husband, soon learned the hard way what happens when you tell the truth and a Clinton is involved. The once-deputy chief of mission in Libya found himself demoted to desk officer. A long string of glowing performance reviews morphed into criticisms of his management style and leadership.


Hicks also said that Beth Jones, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, dressed him down shortly after he criticized the lie-agreed-upon narrative repeated by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on five Sunday talk shows that the attack stemmed from a spontaneous demonstration prompted by a YouTube video.


"Jones counseled me on my management style, she said staff was upset," Hicks said. "(She) delivered a very blistering critique of my management style and said, 'I don't know why (Libya charge d'affaires) Larry Pope would want you back.'


"I asked her why the ambassador said there was a demonstration when the embassy reported there was an attack," Hicks said. "The sense I got is that I needed to stop my line of questioning." When Hicks was asked whether he'd ever been told before not to meet with a congressional delegation: "Never."


Far from wanting to find out what happened, Hillary Clinton and the State Department she ran sought to suppress the truth and punish those, like Hicks, who would speak the truth. She would even stand in front of the coffins returning from Benghazi and lie to the parents of the dead.


Charles Woods, whose son Tyrone died in the attacks, told Fox News' Sean Hannity Wednesday night: "When I was approached by Hillary Clinton at the coming-home ceremony of the bodies at Andrews Air Force Base, and she said, 'We're going to go out, and we're going to prosecute that person that made the video,' I knew that she wasn't telling the truth, and I think the whole world knows that now."


Thanks in large part to Gregory Hicks, the man she tried to shut up, we also know that now.