Video and still images provided to WND by Libyan expatriates of a weapon and ammunition cache seized by Moammar Gadhafi's regime from Qatar presents "definitive, visual proof" that Hillary Clinton's State Department secretly provided arms to jihadists, contrary to her congressional testimony, contends former judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News legal analyst and a syndicated columnist.
In a column last week published by WND, Napolitano laid out evidence that Clinton participated in the illegal transfer of the weapons to groups on the U.S. terror list then lied when asked by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., at a Senate committee hearing whether she knew of any U.S. role in shipping arms through Benghazi.
"The video WND has obtained showing the weapons delivered to Libya via Qatar in 2011 provides definitive, visual proof, backed up by a televised statement from the Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, that validates what I wrote last week," Napolitano told WND on Wednesday.
"I stand by what I wrote," he said. "How much longer can Hillary Clinton hide the truth?" he asked. "How much longer can her lawlessness go unchallenged? Does she really think the American voters will overlook her criminal behavior and put her in the White House?"
Find out what really happened, in Aaron Klein's "The REAL Benghazi Story."
Paul himself, in a Fox News interview Wednesday morning, said there's a "very good chance" Clinton lied to him during the hearing two years ago on the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack, which took the life of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The senator was asked about a new report that the U.S. government knew about arms being sent to Libyan groups that included affiliates of al-Qaida and other jihadist organizations.
"I find it hard to believe Hillary Clinton didn’t know," Paul told Fox News. "In fact, she was the biggest cheerleader for redistributing these arms to Syrian rebels."
Paul said the "reason this is an important issue is many of these people who received the arms are not friends of America."
"Many of them are linked to al-Qaida and al-Nusra, and some of these weapons may well have ended up in the hands of people who became ISIS," he said Wednesday morning. "So this is no small fact.
"Whether or not she told the truth is a big deal. And some of the emails coming out about Benghazi indicate that maybe she did know a lot more about this arms trade than she let on.," said the Kentucky senator.
Paul told Fox News he doesn't think "public officials should be allowed to come before congressional committees and lie."
"But it’s also concerning because the big problem we face with ISIS," he said. "Did it have anything to do with Hillary Clinton arming people who became ISIS or were friends or allies of ISIS?"
When asked if he "stands behind the lie word," Paul replied: "I think there is a very good chance, because I think there is no way that Hillary Clinton did not know about this. Her private emails show that she was the one supporting arming these people."
At a public hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Jan. 23, 2013, Paul asked Clinton if the U.S. annex in Benghazi had any role in "procuring, buying, selling, obtaining weapons."
Clinton advised the senator to pose the question to "the agency that ran the annex," meaning the CIA.
Paul then interjected: "Are you saying you don't know?"
Clinton replied: "I do not know. I don't have any information on that."
See Paul's Fox News interview:
Licensed American dealer
One video provided to WND shows Moussa Ibrahim, Gadhafi's information minister and official spokesman, displaying to reporters in 2011 a cache of weapons and ammunition seized from a ship from Qatar intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard off Libya's coast.
The video matches a report of Qatari military equipment seized in mid-April 2011. Anthony Bell and David Witter of the Institute for the Study of War, in their October 2011 publication "The Libyan Revolution: Stalemate & Siege, Part 3," said the shipments "consisting of bulletproof vests, helmets, and ammunition were bound for the rebels besieged in Misrata."
In his column, Napolitano explained that Mark Turi, a licensed American arms dealer, sold hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. arms to the government of Qatar, which then – at the request of the American government – was sold, bartered or given to rebel groups in Libya and Syria, including to groups that were on the U.S. terror list at the time.
The images provided to WND support the conclusion reached by the Citizen's Commission on Benghazi that the Obama White House and the State Department under the management of Hillary Clinton "changed sides in the War on Terror" in 2011 by implementing a policy of facilitating the delivery of weapons to the al Qaida-dominated rebel militias attempting to overthrow Gadhafi.
In addition, FoxNews.com reported in May that emails released by the State Department show Hillary Clinton's interest in arming Libyan opposition groups before the fall of Gadhafi in 2011, even though the United States and United Nations prohibited arming without following strict guidelines and oversight.
Also, the New York Times reported March 25, 2013, American intelligence officers helped Arab governments "shop for weapons" for Syrian rebels and vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons. In March 2011, Reuters reported Obama had signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for the rebel forces in Libya seeking to oust Gaddafi, quoting U.S. government officials. Also that month, the London Independent reported the U.S. asked Saudi Arabia if it could supply weapons to the rebels in Benghazi.