You
may not have heard of Raymond Maxwell, former deputy assistant
secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs. For reasons that are still
unknown, he was fired along with 3 other diplomats in the aftermath of
the Benghazi attack.
Maxwell
has never been given an explantion and says he had absolutely nothing
to do with security decisions that resulted in the death of Ambassador
Stevens. The other three department officials let go were involved in
diplomatic security.
Maxwell has broken his silence and talked to Josh Rogin:
"The
overall goal is to restore my honor," said Maxwell, who has now filed
grievances regarding his treatment with the State Department's human
resources bureau and the American Foreign Service Association, which
represents the interests of foreign-service officers. The other three
officials placed on leave were in the diplomatic security bureau,
leaving Maxwell as the only official in the bureau of Near Eastern
Affairs (NEA), which had responsibility for Libya, to lose his job.
"I
had no involvement to any degree with decisions on security and the
funding of security at our diplomatic mission in Benghazi," he said.
Soon
after being removed from his job, Maxwell was visited at his home late
one evening and directed to sign a letter acknowledging his
administrative leave and forfeiting his right to enter the State
Department. He refused to sign, responding in writing that it amounted
to an admission he had done something wrong.
"They just wanted me to go away but I wouldn't just go away," he said. "I knew Chris [Stevens]. Chris was a friend of mine."
The
decision to place Maxwell on administrative leave was made by
Clinton's chief of staff Cheryl Mills, according to three State
Department officials with direct knowledge of the events. On the day
after the unclassified version of the ARB's report was released in
December, Mills called Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near
Eastern Affairs Beth Jones and directed her to have Maxwell leave his
job immediately.
"Cheryl
Mills directed me to remove you immediately from the [deputy assistant
secretary] position," Jones told Maxwell, according to Maxwell.
The
decision to remove Maxwell and not Jones seems to conflict with the
finding of the ARB that responsibility for the security failures leading
up to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi should
fall on more senior officials.
"We
fixed [the responsibility] at the assistant secretary level, which is
in our view the appropriate place to look, where the decision-making in
fact takes place, where, if you like, the rubber hits the road," Pickering said when releasing the ARB report.
Maxwell may have revealed the reason for his leave; he was set to retire. Rather than go after someone with their career still viable, it is not unknown to fire someone who is retiring anyway.
Maxwell
doesn't have any direct knowledge of the attack and is not a
whistleblower. He is simply someone caught up in the CYA efforts of the
State Department - and the effort to salvage Hillary Clinton's political
career.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013
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