This is a tight-cropped portrait of Hillary Clinton at the Benghazi hearings composed to zoom in on the psychological impact within the Benghazi hearing narrative, which was a high stakes stressful setting of political senate cross-examination by the Chairman Trey Gowdy.
The Clinton painting is an artistic translation of a “real-time” in the moment photo posted on the Internet by Getty images. Batcules uses colour, contrast, grid composition and brush stroke to further set the stage of “the political matrix” to establish a feeling of the psychological political power dance and the “on the face” physiological reactions of the subject in a tight spot. A damning report authored by the Republican-led House committee probing the Benghazi terror attacks faulted the Obama administration for a range of missteps before, during and after the fatal 2012 attacks – saying top administration officials huddled to craft their public response while military assets waited hours to deploy to Libya.
The report said one anti-terrorism security team known as the FAST unit sat waiting for three hours in Rota, Spain, as Marines changed “in and out of their uniforms four times,” and even debated whether they should carry personal weapons, according to one witness. All together, the report said, “it would take nearly 18 hours” for that team to move.
The report described a web of internal debates and hold-ups, including apparent State Department guidance that “Libya must agree to any deployment,” though Panetta would later say Libya approval was not necessary. While various officials debated how to proceed, U.S. personnel were under attack at two sites in Benghazi.
In the end, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans -- foreign service officer Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty -- were killed in the attacks. The CIA did not know that unit existed. “In other words, some of the very individuals the United States had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution were the only Libyans that came to the assistance of the United States on the night of the Benghazi attacks,” the report said. The committee's work itself was fiercely contested, with Democrats accusing Republican members of trying to politically harm presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attacks. Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., asked Americans to "read this report for themselves ... and reach their own conclusions." At a press conference, Gowdy and other GOP lawmakers lamented that no forces were ordered to Benghazi. “Nothing was ever coming to Benghazi,” Gowdy said. Lawmakers contrasted the "heroism" of those on the ground with the discussions in Washington. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., described the D.C. attitude as "near fecklessness." He said, "They were more concerned about how they’re going to offend the Libyan government than how this rescue is going to take place.” The findings about the military asset response the night of the attacks contrasted with the relatively robust internal debate over the public narrative regarding the attack – namely, claims that the attacks were sparked by an anti-Islam YouTube video. Watch Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and committee member Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on Fox News' “Special Report with Bret Baier.” Source: Fox News
In May 2014, House Speaker John Boehner announced a House select committee would be formed to further investigate the attacks in light of State Department documents released on April 29, 2014, to Judicial Watch, a conservative government watchdog group.[23] These documents, including a cache of previously unreleased emails "that House panels had been unable to receive even after issuing a subpoena," were obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): one document in particular, an email written by a White House adviser, has been labeled by conservatives as a "smoking gun".[23][24][25] The House voted May 8, 2014, to establish the United States House Select Committee on Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, voting 232-186 — 225 Republicans and 7 Democrats in favor, 186 Democrats voting against.[26] The Democratic National Committee sent out a statement describing the committee as a "ploy" and "political stunt".[27] In a September 29, 2015, Fox TV interview with Sean Hannity, Kevin McCarthy, then in the running for Speaker of the House, said, "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought."[28] Many media outlets and Democratic lawmakers interpreted this comment as an admission that the investigation was a partisan political undertaking rather than a substantive inquiry.[29] McCarthy later said his comments should have been phrased more clearly and denied the investigation was overtly political. Source: Wikipedia