Did the State Department scrub information about a dramatic incident the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack in which U.S. Embassy staff 400 miles away in Tripoli evacuated their residential compound under possible terror threat?

The threat was taken so seriously that, according to a key embassy staffer, communications equipment was dismantled and hard drives were smashed with an ax.

The scene was first brought to light in congressional testimony last week by Gregory Hicks, the former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya, but it remains largely unreported by news media.

The incident also was not mentioned in the State Department probe nor was it previously reported in news accounts of the attack, which the Obama administration first claimed was a result of popular protests about an anti-Muhammad video.

In his testimony, Hicks said that about three hours after the attack began on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, the embassy staff in Tripoli noticed Twitter feeds asserting that the terror group Ansar al-Sharia was responsible. Hicks said there was also a call on the social media platform for an attack on the embassy in Tripoli.

“We had always thought that we were … under threat, that we now have to take care of ourselves, and we began planning to evacuate our facility,” he said.

“When I say our facility, I mean the State Department residential compound in Tripoli, and to consolidate all of our personnel … at the annex in Tripoli.”

Hicks said that he “immediately telephoned Washington that news afterwards and began accelerating our effort to withdraw from the Villas compound and move to the annex.”

He recalled how his team “responded with amazing discipline and courage in Tripoli in organizing withdrawal.”

Continued Hicks: “I have vivid memories of that. I think the most telling, though, was of our communications staff dismantling our communications equipment to take with us to the annex and destroying the classified communications capability.

“Our office manager, Amber Pickens, was everywhere that night just throwing herself into some task that had to be done. First she was taking a log of what we were doing,” he said.

“Then she was loading magazines, carrying ammunition to the – carrying our ammunition supply to … our vehicles, and then she was smashing hard drives with an ax.”

The vivid, nearly unprecedented scene, however, was not reported in the State Department’s description of the Tripoli embassy’s response the night of the Benghazi attack.

The section of the State Department probe titled “Embassy Tripoli Response” simply says that upon notification of the attack in Benghazi, the U.S. Embassy set up a command center and notified Washington.

A later section in the State Department probe describes how a seven-person response team from Tripoli arrived in Benghazi to lend support but could not get to the Benghazi facility due to a lack of transportation.

The section also says the Tripoli embassy worked with the Libyan government to have a Libyan Air Force C-130 take the remaining U.S. government personnel from Benghazi to Tripoli.

With additional research by Joshua Klein

There is a common threat that links the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack to both the Boston Marathon bombings and the terror assault on the In Amenas gas facility in southern Algeria in January.

The thread runs through al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, one of the most deadly members of the al-Qaida conglomerate. AQAP previously attempted several major attacks within the U.S.

The group was the first al-Qaida member to comment on the Benghazi attack, releasing a statement arguing the assaults on the U.S. mission and nearby CIA annex were revenge for the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, one of the most senior al-Qaida operatives.

AQAP did not directly claim responsibility for the Benghazi attacks.

Al-Libi, of Libyan descent, was believed to have been killed in Pakistan in June 2012.

Lost in the news media coverage about the U.S. response to the Libya attacks was that one day before the assaults, on Sept. 10, 2012, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video calling for attacks on Americans in Libya to avenge the death of al-Libi.

The 42-minute video announced the death of al-Libi. Released on a jihadi online forum less than 18 hours before the Benghazi attack, Zawahiri urged jihadists, and particularly those in Libya, to avenge the killing of al- Libi.

“His blood urges you and incites you to fight and kill the crusaders,” he said.

Last week, CNN quoted sources disclosing several Yemeni men belonging to AQAP took part in the Benghazi attacks.

One senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that “three or four members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” took part in the attack.

Another source quoted by CNN as being briefed on the Benghazi investigation said Western intelligence services “suspect the men may have been sent by the group specifically to carry out the attack.”

“But it’s not been ruled out that they were already in the city and participated as the opportunity arose,” continued the CNN report.

CNN further quoted one source revealing counter-terrorism officials learned the identity of the three men and later traced them to northern Mali, where they are believed to have connected with the jihad organization led by Moktar Belmoktar.

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is a senior leader of the Islamic Maghreb. He claimed responsibility for the Algeria gas facility attack in January in which 38 people were killed during a three-day siege.

Another intelligence source told CNN that Belmoktar had received a call in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack from someone in or close to the city.

The person on the other end of the call stated, “Mabruk, Mabruk!” meaning “congratulations” in Arabic, according to the source.

Boston bombing link

Meanwhile, AQAP has also been tied to the Boston bombing.

AQAP is behind Inspire magazine, the periodical thought to have provided bomb-building instructions for Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon terrorists.

AQAP previously attempted attacks on U.S. soil. One such attempt was the 2009 Christmas Day plot by a Nigerian recruited by the group to blow up a plane flying into Detroit. That attack failed when the suspect’s device malfunctioned.

In October 2010, AQAP reportedly attempted to blow up planes destined for the U.S. using printer bombs disguised as air cargo. The plan was thwarted after a tip from Saudi intelligence.

In April 2012 it was reported that a British informant working for Saudi counter-terrorism thwarted an AQAP plot to bomb a U.S-bound airliner.

As the House Oversight Committee hears from witnesses presenting a chronological timeline that starkly contrasts with initial statements by the Obama administration on the Benghazi attacks, it is instructive to recall how the administration spent $70,000 in taxpayer funds on an ad denouncing an anti-Muhammad film.

The ad aired on Pakistani television amid White House claims that the Benghazi attacks were caused by popular protests against an obscure Muhammad film released on YouTube.

It would later emerge that no such protests took place and that the Obama administration almost immediately had evidence the Benghazi attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The ads reportedly aired on seven Pakistani networks. They also came in response to protests in Pakistan that were reportedly a reaction to the film. However, it was the claim of popular protests in Benghazi at the time that garnered the biggest public reaction from the White House.

The Sept. 19, 2012, ads feature Obama and Clinton making statements against the film in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, which transpired one week prior.

“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation of respect, that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” Obama says in the ad, which is stamped “paid content.”

Clinton then denies any official U.S. involvement in producing the “Innocence of Muslims” video.

“We absolutely reject its contents,” she says.

The Obama administration blamed the YouTube video for what it claimed were popular protests that engulfed the Benghazi mission.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, three days before the ads were released, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White House response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, she asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”

Rice’s spot on “Face the Nation” was preceded by the new president of Libya, Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had “no doubt that this was pre-planned, predetermined.”

Still, other Obama administration officials made similar claims about the film being behind the Benghazi attacks.

Scores of news reports, video and intelligence evidence that was immediately available to the government had demonstrated there were no popular protests outside the Benghazi facility and that the attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The claims about the anti-Muhammad film being behind the Benghazi attacks are also now called into question by a top State Department official who said he knew immediately the attacks were terror strikes, not a protest turned violent, according to interview transcripts released Sunday.

“I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go,” said Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. “I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning.”

According to Hicks, “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go.”

Reacting to Rice’s television interviews blaming the anti-Muhammad film, Hicks stated, “I’ve never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day.”

In testimony yesterday, Hicks said he was “stunned,” his “jaw dropped” and he was “embarrassed” when Rice blamed the terror attack on an Internet video.

“The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya,” he stated.

With additional research by Joshua Klein.

Did former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lie under oath when she testified in the January Benghazi hearings that no one within the government ever recommended the closure of the U.S. facilities in the Libyan city?

In her Jan. 23 testimony, Clinton stated: “Well, senator, I want to make clear that no one in the State Department, the intelligence community, any other agency, ever recommended that we close Benghazi. We were clear-eyed about the threats and the dangers as they were developing in eastern Libya and in Benghazi.”

Clinton was responding to a question from Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

However, KleinOnline has found that Clinton’s testimony is contradicted by Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, who led the U.S. military’s efforts to supplement diplomatic security in Libya.

Wood testified that he personally recommended that the Benghazi mission be closed, according to a recently released 46-page House Republican report probing the Benghazi attacks.

Page six of the report cites security concerns, including over 200 attacks in Libya, 50 of which took place in Benghazi, including against the U.S. mission there. One of those attacks even was carried out by disgruntled Libyan contract guards hired by the U.S. who allegedly threw a small improvised explosive device over the perimeter wall.

States the Republican report: “These developments caused Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood, who led the U.S. military’s efforts to supplement diplomatic security in Libya, to recommend that the State Department consider pulling out of Benghazi altogether.”

Continued the report: “Lieutenant Colonel Wood explained that after the withdrawal of these other organizations, ‘it was apparent to me that we were the last [Western] flag flying in Benghazi. We were the last thing on their target list to remove from Benghazi’.”

The report was quoting from Wood’s testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Oct. 10, 2012.

Clinton may be in further hot water due to her repeated insistence in her Benghazi testimony that the Obama administration did not conclude finally until days after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks that there were no popular protests outside the U.S. mission.

Clinton’s claims may be called into question by a top State Department official scheduled to give congressional testimony this week who says he knew immediately the attacks were terror strikes, not a protest turned violent, according to interview transcripts released Sunday.

“I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get go,” said Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.

“I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning,” Hicks said.

Further, according to scores of news media reports, video and intelligence evidence that was immediately available to the government had demonstrated there were no popular protests outside the Benghazi facility and that the attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The Obama administration blamed a YouTube video for sparking what it claimed were popular protests that engulfed the Benghazi mission.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White House response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, she asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”

Other Obama administration officials made similar claims.

Hillary snagged in Benghazi cover-up

As media reports present evidence the U.S. has played a central role in arming Syrian rebels, new questions have emerged about Clinton’s involvement in the controversial scheme.

The questions prompt a second look at the perplexing security decisions made by Clinton and other top Obama administration officials the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.

One of the key decisions reportedly delayed an investigative FBI team from arriving at the Benghazi site for 24 days. The site was widely reported to have contained classified documents.

KleinOnline previously raised the question of whether Clinton was telling the truth when she told the Senate panel she had no information about whether the U.S. mission in Libya was procuring or transferring weapons to Turkey and other Arab countries.

Her claim appears to contradict a New York Times report that the CIA has been aiding Arab governments and Turkey in obtaining and shipping weapons to the Syrian rebels.

The goal of the alleged weapons shipments was to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Any training or arming of the Syrian rebels would be considered highly controversial. A major issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida members, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian opposition groups

Now a closer reading of two separate reports from the New York Times paints a picture of Clinton as the leader of the plan to arm Syrian rebels.

Confirming KleinOnline’s exclusive reporting for over a year, the New York Times in March reported that since early 2012, the CIA has been aiding the Arab governments and Turkey in shopping for and transporting weapons to the Syrian rebels.

The reported plan to arm the rebels mirrors a plan that, according to the New York Times, was concocted by Clinton herself.

In February, the New York Times described Clinton as one of the driving forces advocating a plan to arm the Syrian rebels. At the time, the newspaper quoted White House officials stating they rejected the plan, which was also proposed by then-CIA Director David Petraeus.

A comparison of the Clinton plan to arms the rebels, as first reported by the Times, and the new Times report of American-aided shipments to the rebels since last year makes clear the Clinton plan was apparently put into action.

In February, the Times reported that the idea of the Clinton plan was to “vet the rebel groups and train fighters, who would be supplied with weapons.”

In March, the Times reported that since at least November 2012, the U.S. has been helping “the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.”

The earlier Times article described Clinton as having instincts that were “often more activist than those of a White House that has kept a tight grip on foreign policy.”

In an administration often faulted for its timidity abroad, “Clinton wanted to lead from the front, not from behind,” Vali R. Nasr, a former State Department adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the Times.

Benghazi cover up?

Middle Eastern security officials speaking to KleinOnline have said U.S.-aided weapons shipments go back more than a year, escalating before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi.

In fact, the Middle Eastern security officials speaking to KleinOnline since last year describe the U.S. mission in Benghazi and nearby CIA annex attacked last September as an intelligence and planning center for U.S. aid to the rebels in the Middle East, particularly those fighting Assad’s regime.

The aid, the sources stated, included weapons shipments and was being coordinated with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Last month, KleinOnline reported Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. stated in interview with Fox News that murdered U.S Ambassador Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi to keep weapons caches from falling into the hands of terrorists. Until that point, no official explanation for Stevens’ deployment to Libya has acknowledged any such activity.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reporting on how the plan for arming the rebels was put into action has prompted major questions about the role Clinton played in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks, assaults against the very facilities where the arms-to-rebels scheme was allegedly being coordinated.

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed to Fox News in November that Clinton herself worked on the immediate U.S. response to Benghazi.

“The most senior people in government worked on this issue from the minute it happened,” he said.

“That includes the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, secretary of state, national security adviser, et cetera. Additionally, the Deputies Committee – the second in command at the relevant national security agencies – met at least once and more often twice a day to manage the issue.”

One of the key decisions by Clinton’s State Department that has perplexed many security experts was the determination not to deploy an interagency rapid response unit designed to respond to terrorist attacks known as a Foreign Emergency Support Team, or FEST.

FEST teams previously deployed immediately after al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000. But they were not used for Benghazi, confounding insiders speaking to news media

Counter-terrorism officials told Fox News in November that the FEST teams could have helped the FBI gain access to the site in Benghazi faster. It ultimately took the FBI 24 days.

The site reportedly contained a large volume of classified documents related to the activities of the Benghazi facilities.

Further, during the night of the attack, top counter terror officials felt out of the loop, according to emails shared with both Fox News and CBS News in November.

Counter-terrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News expressed frustration that key responders were ready to deploy but were not called upon to help in the attack.

Besides strangely not deploying FEST, the Counterterrorism Security Group, or CSG, was never asked to meet the night of the attack or in subsequent days, according to two separate counterterrorism officials, as first reported by CBS News.

The CSG is composed of experts on terrorism from across government agencies and makes recommendations to the deputies who assist the president’s Cabinet in formulating a response to crises involving terrorism.

It is likely that the CSG task force, if contacted, would have recommended FEST aid, according to CBS.

CBS reported the lack of coordination with the Counterterrorism Security Group made the response to the Benghazi crisis still more confused.

One official told CBS News the FBI received a call during the attack representing Clinton and requesting agents be deployed. But he and his colleagues explained the call was just a gesture and could not be implemented.

He said his colleagues at the FBI agreed the agents “would not make any difference without security and other enablers to get them in the country and synch their efforts with military and diplomatic efforts to maximize their success.”

Recruiting jihadists

Days after the Benghazi attack, KleinOnline broke the story that Ambassador Stevens himself played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Assad’s regime in Syria, according to Egyptian and other Middle Eastern security officials.

Stevens served as a key contact with the Saudis to coordinate the recruitment by Saudi Arabia of Islamic fighters from North Africa and Libya. The jihadists were sent to Syria via Turkey to attack Assad’s forces, said the security officials.

The officials said Stevens also worked with the Saudis to send names of potential jihadi recruits to U.S. security organizations for review. Names found to be directly involved in previous attacks against the U.S., including in Iraq and Afghanistan, were ultimately not recruited by the Saudis to fight in Syria, said the officials.

The latest New York Times report has bolstered KleinOnline’s reporting, citing air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders describing how the CIA has been working with Arab governments and Turkey to sharply increase arms shipments to Syrian rebels in recent months.

The Times reported that the weapons airlifts began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanding into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows.

The Times further revealed that from offices at “secret locations,” American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia. They have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.

The CIA declined to comment to the Times on the shipments or its role in them.

The Times quoted a former American official as saying that David H. Petraeus, the CIA director until November, had been instrumental in helping set up an aviation network to fly in the weapons. The paper said Petraeus had prodded various countries to work together on the plan.

Petraeus did not return multiple emails from the Times asking for comment.

Both KleinOnline’s reporting, which first revealed the U.S.-coordinated arms shipments, and the Times reporting starkly contrast with statements from top U.S. officials who have denied aiding the supply of weapons to the rebels.

Additional research by Joshua Klein

A charity run by Penny Pritzker, President Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, donated to an academic institution associated with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Pritzker’s family has further donated more than $1.5 million to the Chicago school, the Erikson Institute, which focuses on training people who work in early childhood development.

The institute was previously run by the mother of top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett. In 2009, it was awarded just shy of $5 million from Obama’s so-called stimulus legislation.

From 1993 to 2002, Pritzker served as director of the Pritzker Cousins Foundation, which split into various family charities in 2002. In 2000, the foundation awarded $50,000 to the Erickson Institute.

The institute has also received major financial support from the Pritzker Family Foundation, run by Penny Pritzker’s brother, J.B. Pritzker. Documentation obtained by KleinOnline shows more than $1.5 million awarded to Erickson since 2008.

One of the three faculty founders is Barbara Taylor Bowman, the institute’s Irving B. Harris professor of child development. Bowman, who was president of the institute from 1994 to 2001, is the mother of Valerie Jarrett.

One of the Erikson Institute’s former trustees and members of the executive committee is the late Thomas Ayers, father of Bill Ayers.

Dohrn, Bill Ayers’ wife, also served on the Erikson board.

In his 1998 book, “A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court,” Bill Ayers calls Bowman a “neighbor and a friend.”

Obama and Bill Ayers once funded Erikson. The Erikson Institute was among the first 35 school partnerships awarded funds in December 1995 by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Ayers was a founder of the Annenberg Challenge; Obama was hired in 1995 as the group’s first chairman.

Obama and Ayers worked on education together beginning in 1988 or earlier. That year, in response to a Chicago summit that documented the poor quality of education in the city, Chicago United, a group founded by Ayers’ father, formed a community advocacy coalition called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. Thomas Ayers was the chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison.

When he created his ABCs Coalition in June 1988, Thomas Ayers included Obama in the coalition. Obama at the time was director and lead organizer of the Developing Communities Project, or DCP, an institutionally based community organization on Chicago’s Far South Side. Obama’s first job in Chicago was his DCP position.

The contact for the ABCs Coalition, for which Obama served, was Bill Ayers himself, who at the time was at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is a staunch defender of convicted cop killer and domestic terrorist Joanne Chesimard, who just became the first woman ever to be placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Chesimard, living under asylum in Cuba, also goes by her Black Panther name of Assata Shakur. She was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted by a jury of the 1979 murder of a New Jersey state trooper. Less than two years later, Chesimard escaped from prison and lived underground before surfacing in Cuba in 1984.

On Sept. 14, 1998, the House of Representatives, of which Waters was a member, passed a unanimous resolution requesting Fidel Castro extradite Chesimard to the United States. The name on the resolution, affirmed by Waters, was Joanne Chesimard and not Assata Shakur.

Waters said she only realized Chesimard’s identity after the vote and wrote a letter to Fidel Castro explaining that she, as chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and other CBC members had “mistakenly voted” in favor of the resolution.

Waters claimed the Republicans had “slipped” the bill into an accelerated calendar in order to look “tough on Cuba” for the November elections. Waters claimed the Republicans had deliberately used Chesimard’s given name to deceive. Had she known Chesimard’s identity, she wrote, she would have voted otherwise.

On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and a pair of accomplices were stopped by two troopers for a motor vehicle violation on the New Jersey Turnpike. At the time, Chesimard – a member of the violent revolutionary activist organization known as the Black Liberation Army – was wanted for her involvement in several felonies, including bank robbery.

According to the FBI, Chesimard and her accomplices opened fire on the troopers. One officer was wounded, and his partner – Trooper Werner Foerster – was shot and killed at point-blank range. One of Chesimard’s accomplices was killed in the shootout, and the other was arrested and remains in jail.

“Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution-style,” said Aaron Ford, special agent in charge of the Newark Division. “Today, on the anniversary of Trooper Werner Foerster’s death, we want the public to know that we will not rest until this fugitive is brought to justice.”

Mike Rinaldi, a lieutenant in the New Jersey State Police and member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Newark, said the case “is just as important today as it was when it happened 40 years ago.”

“Bringing Joanne Chesimard back here to face justice is still a top priority,” he said.

Waters defends terrorist as victim

In 1998, Waters released a statement defending Castro’s right to grant asylum to Chesimard despite her conviction for murder in the U.S.

Stated Waters: “I support the right of all nations to grant political asylum to individuals fleeing political persecution. The United States grants political asylum to individuals from all over the world who successfully prove they are fleeing political persecution. Other sovereign nations have the same right, including the sovereign nation of Cuba.”

In her statement, Waters further defended Chesimard, claiming the convicted domestic terrorist was a victim of political persecution.

“The second reason I oppose this measure,” stated Waters, “is because I respect the right of Assata Shakur to seek political asylum. Assata Shakur has maintained that she was persecuted as a result of her political beliefs and political affiliations. As a result, she left the United States and sought political asylum in Cuba, where she still resides.

“In a sad and shameful chapter of our history, during the 1960s and 1970s, many civil rights, Black Power and other politically active groups were secretly targeted by the FBI for prosecution based on their political beliefs.”

Notably, domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn named one of their children after Zayd Shakur, Chesimard’s associate who was killed in the gun battle with the police. Ayers’ and Dohrn’s son, a playwright, now goes by the name Zayd Dohrn.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., says he believes open purchase orders from the Department of Homeland Security to buy over 1 billion rounds of ammunition are part of an “intentional” effort by the Obama administration to “dry up the market” for gun-owning citizens.

“We have in this country the Second Amendment that preserves the right to keep and bear arms,” Inhofe told radio host Aaron Klein, “and the president doesn’t believe in that.”

Inhofe was a guest on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York City’s WABC station, talking about his Ammunition Management for More Obtainability – or AMMO – bill, which is designed to limit non-defense, armed federal agencies to pre-Obama levels of ammunition. The bill, S.843, has been referred to Senate committee, while a similar bill sponsored by Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has been referred to House committee.

“President Obama has been doing everything he could to stop the private ownership of guns in America,” Inhofe asserted. “Yet he’s been voted down in a big way by a large majority, and so my feeling is that he’s doing this to buy up [ammunition] so honest, law-abiding citizens here in the United States, like my son, can’t even buy ammunition because government is purchasing so much.”

The DHS has claimed it’s simply creating bulk purchase orders to save money and that 80 percent of the ammunition is used for training purposes, but Inhofe isn’t buying the explanation.

“We had someone testify the other day the DHS has the ‘right’ – this is a bureaucrat who said this – they have the ‘right’ to buy as much as they want, and they’re planning to buy 750 million rounds,” Inhofe said. “That is more than three times the amount our soldiers are using for training to defend our nation.”

“I believe it’s intentional,” Inhofe said of the ammunition shortages many private and local law enforcement purchasers are experiencing. “It’s just another effort to restrict gun activity and ownership.”

He added later, “This has never happened in this country before. We’ve never had government trying to take that much control at the expense of law-abiding citizens. And we’re not going to let it happen.”

To that end, Inhofe has proposed his AMMO bill, still without co-sponsors, in the U.S. Senate.

“It’s designed to have the Government Accounting Office inventory not the Defense Department but all other departments that use weaponry,” Inhofe said, “as to what they’re doing in terms of the amount of ammunition they have bought to dry up the market for honest, law-abiding citizens.”

The full interview with Inhofe, including some comments on immigration reform, can be heard here:

President Obama has officially named Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, the finance chairman of his 2008 presidential campaign, as his next commerce secretary.

The announcement of the choice Thursday ends months of speculation about Pritzker’s likely nomination.

KleinOnline was first to report that Pritzker is a primary funder of the radical Media Matters for America activist group.

Other questions may be raised about Pritzker’s financial history, primarily her family’s ownership of a bank that was seized and shut down by the federal government in 2001 after it was accused of unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices.

Pritzker herself served as chairman of the failed bank, Superior Bank, from 1991-1994.

Last year, Media Matters found itself in hot water after the Daily Caller exposed the group’s purported illicit tactics, including compiling a de facto enemies list; announcing an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel; and seeking to investigate the personal lives of reporters and news personalities.

The information came amid reports White House staffers held regular meetings and even a weekly conference call with Media Matters

At the time, KleinOnline reported the Media Matters donor list included the Pritzker Family Foundation, which donated a total of $400,000 to the progressive attack group in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The family foundation is directed by Penny Pritzker.

The Pritzker family is best known for owning the Hyatt hotel chain and is considered to be one of America’s wealthiest families.

Pritzker is currently a member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

She served on the Obama administration’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which formulates and evaluates economic policy for the Obama administration.

In 1989, Pritzker’s family purchased a 50-percent stake in Illinois-based Superior Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which had taken over the bank when it failed.

In 1993, with Pritzker as the chairman, the bank became a top lender in the subprime home mortgage market. In 1994, Pitzker moved to the board of Superior’s holding company, stepping down as chairman.

In 2001, with her family still in charge, the FDIC seized the bank with the Pritzker family reaching an agreement with regulators to pay $460 million. In 1994, Pitzker moved to the board of Superior’s holding company

On Sept. 11, 2001, Ellen Seidman, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, told the Senate Banking Committee that Superior became critically undercapitalized largely due to incorrect accounting treatment and aggressive assumptions for valuing complicated financial instruments known as residuals.

The Pritzkers were roundly criticized for their role in Superior’s collapse.

The Wall Street Journal reported government investigators and consumer advocates contended that Superior engaged in “unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices.”

Besides serving as finance chairman for Obama, Pritzker was also listed among Obama’s super bundlers, having raised more than $200,000 for his 2008 campaign.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott