Paging the lapdog media: Whistle-blowers reveal Facebook threats, bombings before Benghazi attack; Update: Darrell Issa releases letter to Clinton

What did the Obama and his administration know about threats to the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and when did they know it?

The House Oversight Committee is all over this one.

http://t.co/Ilb5rNDe More on our Libya investigation. #Libya @thedailybeast #UTPOL

— Jason Chaffetz (@jasoninthehouse) October 2, 2012

@EliLake rpting whistle-blowers are talking to the Hill, strengthening any future call for a commission http://t.co/7G0eZeyY #benghazi

— Robert Caruso (@robertcaruso) October 2, 2012

Committee chair Darrell Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz are revealing new details today in a letter to Hillary Clinton, thanks to government employees blowing the whistle on incidents and threats in the weeks prior to the attack that killed four Americans.

The State Department apparently knew the Benghazi consulate was in danger before the Stevens attack. http://t.co/CFidczSQ

— Matt Pearce ? (@mattdpearce) October 2, 2012

THANK YOU, WHISTLEBLOWERS. U.S. Consulate in Benghazi Bombed Twice in Run-Up to 9/11 Anniversary http://t.co/HKSVhiOQ via @thedailybeast

— Little Wren (@crookedwren) October 2, 2012

Eli Lake continues his indispensable reporting today at The Daily Beast:

The new information disclosed in the letter obtained by The Daily Beast strongly suggests the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the late Ambassador Chris Stevens were known by U.S. security personnel to be targets for terrorists. Indeed, the terrorists made their threats openly on Facebook.

…

The letter also discloses for the first time a bombing at the U.S. consulate that occurred on April 6, 2012. It says that on that day two former security guards for the consulate in Benghazi threw home-made improvised explosives over the consulate fence. That incident resulted in no casualties. The Wall Street Journal first reported last month that on June 6 militants detonated an explosive at the perimeter gate of the consulate, blowing a hole through the barrier. The letter to Clinton quotes one source who described the crater as “big enough for forty men to go through.”

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaders today sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking why requests for more protection were denied to the U.S. mission in Libya by Washington officials prior to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The denials came after repeated attacks and security threats to U.S. personnel.

“Based on information provided to the Committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012. It was clearly never, as Administration officials once insisted, the result of a popular protest,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and subcommittee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, write. “In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.”

The letter outlines 13 security threats over the six months prior to the attack.

“Put together, these events indicated a clear pattern of security threats that could only be reasonably interpreted to justify increased security for U.S. personnel and facilities in Benghazi,” the chairmen write.

The Committee indicated it intends to convene a hearing in Washington on Wednesday October 10, 2012, on the security failures that preceded the attack.

Read the letter from Issa and Chaffetz here (PDF).