Department of Justice lawyers are dropping charges against an American arms dealer who said he intended to expose Hillary Clinton’s involvement in weapons shipments to Libya when she served as Secretary of State.
An associate of arms dealer Marc Turi said the Obama administration dropped the case because further proceedings threatened to ensconce President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in scandal by showing how the administration’s apparent weapons shipments ended up in the hands of Islamic radicals fighting Gadhafi, then-head of Libya, Politico reports.
“They don’t want this stuff to come out because it will look really bad for Obama and Clinton just before the election,” the associate told Politico.
The reason the DOJ dropped the case when it did is because Wednesday is the deadline to deliver key documents to Turi’s defense team and prosecutors themselves hinted that the “discovery proceedings” were part of the impetus behind dropping the case. These documents would have likely brought extra attention to Central Intelligence Agency involvement in moving weapons to Libyan rebels and would have again prompted people to look into Clinton’s private emails.
In 2011, Turi applied for a State Department license to export arms to Libya, looking to seize upon the opportunity that arose from the brewing civil war. That application was rejected. He applied again and switched the destination country to Qatar. That application was approved. According to The New York Times, the Obama administration assented to Qatar shipping weapons to rebels in Libya.
Turi was originally charged, among other things, with lying to the State Department about the destination of weapons shipments. He apparently said they were headed for Qatar, but in reality, they were on their way to Libya, which Turi’s lawyers said was part of a government-authorized effort to aid Islamic extremists.
The new deal involves a confidential agreement and civil settlement between Turi and the State Department. Turi admitted no guilt as part of the deal, but he is banned from any arms dealing that occurs under U.S. regulations for a period of four years and will only escape a $200,000 penalty if he complies.
But not everyone is happy with this outcome. Robert Stryk, an adviser to Turi from the government relations firm SPG, said the government has turned Turi into a scapegoat to distract from Clinton’s misdeeds in Libya.
“The U.S. government spent millions of dollars, went all over the world to bankrupt him, and destroyed his life — all to protect Hillary Clinton’s crimes.”
It’s unknown whether any of Turi’s weapons arrived in Libya.
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