RUSH: There is a somewhat shocking report that I came across today at a website run by Doug Ross. It’s called the Conservative Report. Doug Ross maintains here that Valerie Jarrett gave the orders to stand down in Benghazi. Valerie Jarrett, who constitutionally is not in the chain of command and cannot do that. And that’s why this, if true, is a bombshell. Valerie Jarrett nixed the raid on bin Laden three separate times, remember, and the adults had to come in and basically act on the intel that they had as to where bin Laden was. It was Valerie Jarrett who put off three separate times an attack to either capture or kill bin Laden.

It was Panetta and Hillary and some others, apparently, who just finally overruled her and started the operation. They pulled Obama off the golf course for the photo op-ed, after the event had already begun. But Doug Ross is saying here: “Confidential sources close to Conservative Report have confirmed that Valerie Jarrett was the key decision-maker for the administration, the night of the Benghazi terrorist attack on 9/11/2012. The chronology of the evening of 9/11 are as follows:

“At approximately 5 PM Washington time, reports came in through secure-channels that Special Mission Benghazi was under attack. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey summoned the President, and briefed him on the crisis, face to face.” And, remember, this is the meeting where Obama is reported to have said to both — well, actually all three, Panetta, Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Hillary. “You guys do what you have to do,” and he vanishes. This is the best intel that we’ve got. And the story for the longest time, “Where was Obama?” Because he was off the grid for the next seven hours. Nobody knew where he was. And, remember, throughout all of this, we’re all asking, “Who issued the order to stand down?” Because that can only come from the top.

I don’t know how many times that I made the statement on this program, “The secretary of defense cannot order people to stand down. The secretary of defense cannot order, on the other hand, forces from, say, Italy to enter the theater and engage. That has to come via the chain of command. That has to come from the top, and the top in this case is Obama, not an aide.” So if this is true, this really, really is a bombshell.

“At approximately 5 PM Washington time, reports came in through secure-channels that Special Mission Benghazi was under attack. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, summoned the President, and briefed him on the crisis, face to face. Subsequent to that brief meeting, President Obama proceeded to the White House to dine in his living quarters. After supper, Barack Obama had a telephone conference scheduled with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. … As that meeting drew to a close, Ms. Jarrett, who is also the Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, went from the living quarters to the White House Situation Room, where the attack in Benghazi was being monitored by Dempsey, Panetta and other top-ranking officials. Whether she was instructed by the President to go there, or if she went of her own volition…” It is only known by her and Obama if she went there on her own or if she was told to go there.

“A critical question that needed to be answered, and the sole military-order that could have launched offensive-actions, neutralizing the Ansar al Sharia terrorists attacks on the Mission and its subsequent attacks on the adjacent CIA Annex, was the issuance of ‘Cross Border Authority’, an order that can only be issued by the Commander in Chief, himself.”
And Cross Border Authority was denied.

“First, it is reported that an Army Special Forces team was present with an AC-130U Spooky (also known as a Spectre Gunship) on the tarmac at the airport in Tripoli, Libya.” It was ready to go. It was equipped with weapons that sync with laser designators, like those that Woods, Doherty, and Ubben had on that — remember, now, one of the things that always intrigue or puzzled me, these four guys — well, these three guys plus the ambassador, they were ordered to stand down and they went anyway. And I think it was Woods what was painting the enemy location with a laser, because he thought that there was aircraft in the sky that was gonna aim laser-guided bombs at the target that he was painting. That didn’t happen because there was no C-130 up there.

There was no air support. They were on their own. The order to stand down had been given. But they went anyway. It was their instinct, their sense of duty. So what Woods ended up doing was giving up his own location rather than painting an enemy location for a laser-guided bomb to come from that C-130. Now, “Had the AC-130U been on station, over the CIA Annex in Benghazi, moments before the mortar rounds were fired, instead of ‘awaiting further instructions,’ the entire outcome of the Benghazi fiasco would have been different.” But somebody gave the stand-down order, and Doug Ross’s website is claiming that Valerie Jarrett did it. And so the question that is unanswered, did Obama tell her?

Here’s what’s amazing about this. Leon Panetta is no slouch, folks. Leon Panetta knows the Washington game. He knows the Constitution. He’s a liberal Democrat. He was chief of staff for Clinton. To survive the Clintons, you have to be a number of things. You have to be an excellent suck-up, but you also have to be a force of your own to stand up to it. And he did. He’s no slouch, is the point. In the normal, everyday flow of events, the secretary of defense is not gonna accept an order from a domestic adviser to the president. That’s not how things happen, and it’s not the chain of command, particularly in a circumstance like this where the necessary order to be given could only come from the commander-in-chief.

So we don’t know. This website’s asserting that Valerie Jarrett gave the order and that Panetta and everybody abided by it. “Stand down!” They stood down. They didn’t do anything. So the question is one of two things: “Did they simply think that Valerie Jarrett was speaking for Obama,” remember, he’s off the grid by now, “or was she on her own exercising her own authority?”

Remember all the stories that we’ve had about the number of really powerful women in the Obama inner circle that have a lot of autonomy and do call a lot of shots. Valerie Jarrett is one such person in this administration, eminently trusted by Obama. She is a genuine Alinskyite, a roll-up-the-sleeves community organizer acolyte. I mean, she is Obama. She’s one of these people that would not have to be given an order by Obama to know what he wanted.

In fact, it may be that Valerie Jarrett often tells Obama what it is he wants. No, no. That may sound funny, and I’m not even going into feminist, male-female. I’m just telling you: The structure of this place and the value that Obama has placed on Valerie Jarrett and the power that she has. It was Valerie Jarrett (again, it pretty much has been documented) who three times prevented the Bin Laden operation. She’s extremely powerful. Panetta would know this.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs would know this. “Add to that, a team of Green Berets on the ground to secure and/or evacuate the Annex, and the outcome would have been two SEALS still alive, and a mess of dead terrorists” if they had been given the order to engage. But they weren’t. They were all told to stand down. Now, Doug Ross writes, “The second, and most troubling aspect of the refusal to issue Cross Border Authority is who issued the refusal.

“Rather than the president, the commander in chief, making critical decisions, granting or denying the authority to initiate offensive-actions in support of our valiant fighting men, the decision not to take action was made by a person, to whom the people did not elect, nor did the Congress have confirmation power over. The military-order, not to initiate action, saving our men in Benghazi, was issued by the PresidentÂ’s Advisor, Valerie Jarrett. And this is a ‘phony’ scandal?”

Now, if this is true, it would certainly explain, ladies and gentlemen, all of the serial lies and the cover-ups and the obfuscation and all of the efforts that were made to distract people’s attention from this. Somebody had to give the order, and Obama was off the grid. That has always, to me, been one of the most interesting aspects of Benghazi. Five o’clock he tells Panetta and whoever else — we were originally told that Hillary, secretary of state, was there, too.

“You guys handle it. I’m off,” and there’s been a bunch of speculation. “Maybe he was playing basketball, shooting hoops, who knows? Was he on the putting green?” But people were trying to find out where he was. He’s off the grid for five to seven hours, and yet somebody issued the order to stand down. As I say, Doug Ross here is making the case that it was Valerie Jarrett. Now, this is by no means mainstream news yet, folks.

I mean, the number of people who know about Alex Rodriguez compared to this is like a factor of a thousand to one, maybe 10,000.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, you don’t just… A White House adviser who’s not elected, not in the chain of command, is not gonna go to Leon Panetta and be listened to. It just not. Panetta’s not a pushover, no matter what what anybody says. There’s something really fishy about this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ll get back to this Benghazi thing in due course. I’m struck by this revelation that Valerie Jarrett, one of the hen hawks in the regime, has this kind of power. No. Well, yeah. I guess it is what it is. But this is a serious thing, the order to stand down. Four Americans died because of that order to stand down. American troops were told not to respond. Valerie Jarrett, and Obama’s off the grid, and Panetta listened to it? Panetta abided by it?