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Poor Issa gets called out, yet again, for false statement.[ My comment]
Issa?s absurd claim that Clinton?s ?signature? means she personally approved it - The Washington Post
“The secretary of state was just wrong. She said she did not participate in this, and yet only a few months before the attack, she outright denied security in her signature in a cable, April 2012.”
— Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on “Fox and Friends,” April 24, 2013
House Republicans issued a scathing report this week on the Obama administration’s handling of the terror attack last year on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed. The report — endorsed by five committee chairmen — has some interesting information in it, particularly in raising questions about how the infamous talking points on the incident were crafted.
One of the headline items in the report was the claim that an April 19, 2012, State Department cable acknowledged a request from the embassy in Libya for additional security assets but ordered that a planned drawdown would proceed as scheduled. “The cable response to Tripoli bears Secretary Clinton’s signature,” the report said, referring to the message as “the April cable from Clinton.”
Clinton told Congress that the security issues in Libya “did not come to my attention or above the assistant secretary level.” The State Department’s Accountability Review Board report on the incident backs her up, saying that failure to provide proper security was the result of decisions made at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department.
But Fox host Brian Kilmeade all but accused Clinton of perjury when he interviewed Issa, saying the report “sharply contradicts her sworn testimony.… [It] is in direct contradiction of what she told everybody, told the country.”
In response, Issa asserted that “she outright denied security in her signature in a cable.”
The Fact Checker spent nine years covering the State Department, and so these claims about a “signature” seemed rather odd. Let’s explore what this really means.
The Facts
Cable is a bit of an old-fashioned word, but then the State Department — the nation’s first Cabinet department — is a tradition-bound organization. These days, State Department cables in effect are group e-mails, which are stored in a database and made available to people with the proper security clearances.
As part of that tradition, every cable from an embassy bears the “signature” of the ambassador — and every cable from Washington bears the “signature” of the secretary of state. The protocol is explained in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual:
Signature
a. The Communications Center (IRM/OPS/MSO/MSMC) will place the name of the Secretary on all telegrams to posts.
b. Domestic telegrams originated within the Washington metropolitan area and transmitted through the 5th Floor Communications Center will bear the signature name of the Secretary at the end of the telegram. If a "signed by" line is used, it must appear as part of the text before the "End of Message" symbol.
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Issa?s absurd claim that Clinton?s ?signature? means she personally approved it - The Washington Post
“The secretary of state was just wrong. She said she did not participate in this, and yet only a few months before the attack, she outright denied security in her signature in a cable, April 2012.”
— Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, on “Fox and Friends,” April 24, 2013
House Republicans issued a scathing report this week on the Obama administration’s handling of the terror attack last year on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed. The report — endorsed by five committee chairmen — has some interesting information in it, particularly in raising questions about how the infamous talking points on the incident were crafted.
One of the headline items in the report was the claim that an April 19, 2012, State Department cable acknowledged a request from the embassy in Libya for additional security assets but ordered that a planned drawdown would proceed as scheduled. “The cable response to Tripoli bears Secretary Clinton’s signature,” the report said, referring to the message as “the April cable from Clinton.”
Clinton told Congress that the security issues in Libya “did not come to my attention or above the assistant secretary level.” The State Department’s Accountability Review Board report on the incident backs her up, saying that failure to provide proper security was the result of decisions made at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department.
But Fox host Brian Kilmeade all but accused Clinton of perjury when he interviewed Issa, saying the report “sharply contradicts her sworn testimony.… [It] is in direct contradiction of what she told everybody, told the country.”
In response, Issa asserted that “she outright denied security in her signature in a cable.”
The Fact Checker spent nine years covering the State Department, and so these claims about a “signature” seemed rather odd. Let’s explore what this really means.
The Facts
Cable is a bit of an old-fashioned word, but then the State Department — the nation’s first Cabinet department — is a tradition-bound organization. These days, State Department cables in effect are group e-mails, which are stored in a database and made available to people with the proper security clearances.
As part of that tradition, every cable from an embassy bears the “signature” of the ambassador — and every cable from Washington bears the “signature” of the secretary of state. The protocol is explained in the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Manual:
Signature
a. The Communications Center (IRM/OPS/MSO/MSMC) will place the name of the Secretary on all telegrams to posts.
b. Domestic telegrams originated within the Washington metropolitan area and transmitted through the 5th Floor Communications Center will bear the signature name of the Secretary at the end of the telegram. If a "signed by" line is used, it must appear as part of the text before the "End of Message" symbol.
<more>
