Obama's whistleblower problem

Or this from the NY Post:

The US diplomat who was second in command in Libya during the fatal attack on the Benghazi consulate fought back tears yesterday when he told lawmakers about his colleagues’ final moments — and said he was “stunned” by administration claims it was sparked by a spontaneous protest. 

Gregory Hicks, the first person to testify to Congress who was on the ground in Libya during the fateful night of the Sept. 11, 2012 siege, told a House committee that he was incredulous just five days later when UN Ambassador Susan Rice said on Sunday talk shows that the assault was not a terrorist attack. 

“My jaw dropped,” Hicks said. “I was embarrassed.” . . .

After listening to the testimony above or reading reports such as in the New York Post, please tell me how that is consistent with this administration claim.  From an earlier report on ABC News:

On Tuesday, both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry addressed claims being made by House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committee leaders that the administration is impeding the Congressional testimony of State Department and CIA employees who survived the attack. 

“I’m not familiar with this notion that anybody’s been blocked from testifying,” said the president. “What I’ve been very clear about from the start is that our job with respect to Benghazi has been to find out exactly what happened, to make sure that U.S. embassies, not just in the Middle East but around the world, are safe and secure and to bring those who carried it out to justice.” . . .

Instead it looks like Chaffetz was the one who was correct regarding the Benghazi whistleblowers.

“Absolutely, and more than one,” Chaffetz said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked if the Obama administration had blocked potential witnesses. “There are people who want to testify that have been suppressed. …They’re scared to death of what the State Department is doing with them.” . . .

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank had this summary:

Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Libya the night Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, was to be the star witness for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the man leading the probe of the Obama administration’s handling of the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.  But despite Issa’s incautious promise that the hearing’s revelations would be “damaging” to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Hicks didn’t lay a glove on the former secretary of state Wednesday. . . . 

Suppose that we take everything that Milbank says about the facts are correct, that no direct evidence implicated Clinton.  You still have the problem that Clinton's number 2 person was direct implicated.  If this was a Republican administration, would Milbank not be asking for further investigation to see how high things actually run?

But the problem goes beyond Benghazi.  See for example this article on Politico:

The watchdog who tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to rebuild Afghanistan says government officials have tried to silence him because they think he's embarrassing the White House and Afghan President Hamid Karzai by pointing out the waste and fraud. 

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, used a speech at the New America Foundation on Wednesday to blast government “bureaucrats”' who have told him to stop publicizing damning audits that detail case after case of waste, corruption and mismanagement of rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan. Some government officials have even complained that they aren't allowed to pre-screen or edit his reports, he said.  

“Since my appointment by the president last summer, I have been surprised to learn how many people both in and out of the government do not understand the role of an independent inspector general,” Sopko said. . . .

UPDATE: As David Limbaugh correctly notes, another example is Gerald Walpin (see here).

Judge Andrew Napolitano: "Lying to Congress carries the same criminal liability and the same punishment as lying under oath to Congress. I'm not suggesting that Mrs. Clinton lied, but I'm saying that a case could be made out, either legally in a courtroom if a prosecutor wanted to, and certainly politically in a public sphere should she decide to seek higher office."