Dear President Trump:
I am writing to you to request you take action. I am writing to you to ask that you do the right thing. I am writing to you in the hope that you will make good on your promises to "drain the swamp," and to fight back against a government that no longer represents its people and no longer feels that it is accountable to them.
In 2012 terrorist attacks on our consulate and a CIA facility in Benghazi, Libya resulted in the deaths of four brave Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens. None of these deaths were unavoidable. They were all the result of incompetence and considered indifference to obvious and well-documented threats on the ground in Libya.
Recent disclosures from contractors hired by the State Department have highlighted once again what has been obvious for some time. The Department of State knew of the threats facing American personnel in Libya and waited far too long to do anything significant to address them.
Just 12 days prior to the attacks, in fact, the Department decided to fire the contractor providing security to the consulate and to bring in another company to take over the task of protecting American personnel in country. It was far too little, far too late.
In the immediate aftermath, as has been established previously, the focus of American officials in Washington, D.C., from the White House on down, was not on determining how this disaster had happened or assessing blame. It was on political spin and covering up the incompetence that cost good men their lives.
Lies were told. Fictions were created, and, we know now, the contractors who had been brought in at the eleventh hour to take over security were pressured to keep their mouths shut, get on the same sheet of music and help sell the lies that were spun.
Brave men were dead. The ashes at what remained of our consulate were hardly cold. In Washington the focus was on politics, dodging responsibility, and salvaging careers.
I spent 20 years in the Central Intelligence Agency, most of that time in the field. I have been face to face with the enemy, and I have had the privilege of leading courageous men and women in innumerable dangerous and unpredictable situations.
I know well that the most awesome responsibility you assume in such circumstances is for the lives of the people under your command. It is your solemn duty to ensure that if humanly possible they all come home alive, and that, in the event some do not, that you can look yourself in the mirror and say that you did all you could to prevent their deaths.
Barack Obama is no longer president. Hillary Clinton is no longer secretary of state. There remain individuals in the Department of State who were responsible for this disaster, who worked to cover it up, suffering no consequences for their misdeeds.
They go to work everyday, draw their salaries and climb their career ladders, while the families of the heroes we lost in Benghazi spend their lives in mourning.
Identify the State Department employees responsible for Benghazi. Fire them now. It will not bring back the dead. It will not undo the harm done.
It will nonetheless be a welcome and long overdue signal. The term public servant means something. We will not tolerate any longer a class of bureaucrats who think themselves above the law and accountable to no one. This is a republic. Power is derived from the people, and we are going to exercise that power.
Sam Faddis.
Charles "Sam" Faddis is a Veteran, retired CIA operations officer, Assistant Attorney general (Wash.) and published author. With degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland Law School, he is a Senior Contributing Editor for Homeland Security Today, contributor to sofrep.com, Newsmax, and The Hill among others. He regularly appears on many networks as a national security and counter-terrorism expert. Sam is the author of "Beyond Repair: The Decline And Fall Of The CIA" and "Willful Neglect: The Dangerous Illusion Of Homeland Security. "To read more of his reports, Click Here Now.
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