Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, appeared on CNN last night. Her son was a US military veteran and he was among the four killed in the terrorist assault on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Mrs. Smith says that a month after the attack, she still has not even been told her son’s cause of death.
COOPER: So you don’t even know the cause of death?
SMITH: I don’t even know if that’s true or not. No, I don’t. I don’t know where. I look at TV and I see bloody hand prints on walls, thinking, my God, is that my son’s? I don’t know if he was shot. I don’t know — I don’t know. They haven’t told me anything. They are still studying it. And the things that they are telling me are just outright lies.
That Susan Rice, what — she talked to me personally and she said, she said, this is the way it was. It was — it was because of this film that came out.
COOPER: So she told you personally that she thought it was a result of that video of the protest?
SMITH: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact all of them did. All of them did. Leon Panetta actually took my face in his hands like this and he said, trust me. I will tell you what happened. And so far, he’s told me nothing. Nothing at all. And I want to know.
COOPER: It’s important for you to know all the details no matter how horrible.
SMITH: Yes.
COOPER: Or no matter how tough they are to hear.
SMITH: Exactly. I told him, if it’s such a secret thing, fine, take me in another room, whisper in my ear what happened so that I know, and we’ll go from there. But no. No, they — you know, they treat me like — at first I was so proud because they were treating me so nice when I went to that reception. They all came up to me and talked to me and everything. I cried on Obama’s shoulder. And he — then he’d kind of looked off into the distance.
So that was worthless to me. I want to know, for God’s sakes. Or for Allah’s sake or whoever’s sake is there.
COOPER: You deserve — you deserve answers.
SMITH: I think so. I believe I do. I believe it. It’s my son. I had him for the first — I told Obama personally, I said, look, I had him for his first 17 years and then he went into the service, then you got him. And — I won’t say it the way I said it. But I said you screwed up, you didn’t do a good job, I lost my son. And they said, we’ll get back to you. We — I promise, I promise you. I will get back to you.
COOPER: Some of the administration have said well, you know, we’re investigating, we’re still trying to find out answers. But you just want —
SMITH: They still are.
COOPER: You would still want them to contact you and at least keep you apprised of the investigation, of where things are. You would think that they would at least do that.
SMITH: That would be so nice. That would at least acknowledge that I have a right to know something, something other than, we’re checking up on it, or trust me. I like that one the best of all. Trust me. I will let you know.
Well, I don’t trust you anymore. I don’t trust you anymore. You — I’m not going to say lied to me, but you didn’t tell me and you knew.
The day after Sean Smith was killed in Benghazi — his own mother still doesn’t know how — President Obama flew off to a fundraiser in Vegas. Obama would then receive the bodies of the four slain Americans two days later. That day is most likely the day that Mrs. Smith cried on Obama’s shoulder, and had Panetta take her face in his hands and promise to tell her the truth.
Two days after that, on Sept. 16, Ambassador Susan Rice would insist five separate times, against the run of the facts and common sense, that Sean Smith and the other three Americans died because of a YouTube clip. President Obama would use his UN address to continue blaming the video.
Why?
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