With Election Day trial looming, feds drop charges against U.S. arms dealer who threatened to reveal Clinton info
An American arms dealer who threatened to disclose information about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s alleged role in arming Islamic militants — until the U.S. government dropped its case against him — told Fox News that the ordeal has been “horrific” and has cost him his savings and business.
Marc Turi had been charged with selling weapons to Libyan rebels, and federal prosecutors had to turn over discovery documents to his the legal team by Wednesday for the case that was set to start Nov. 8 — Election Day, Fox News said. But the feds dropped the case late Tuesday, and Fox News added that the move may prevent the release of “potentially explosive documents.”
“I am glad this horrific five-year ordeal is over, and I am pleased to be able to move on with my life,” Turi told the cable network in a statement. “The American public has the right to know that an injustice was committed against an innocent American.”
Marc Turi (Image source: Fox News)
Although his case won’t go to trial, Turi told Fox News that defending himself to this point has been life-altering.
“The government took away my life, my savings, and my company that I worked so hard to build to serve our nation, and for what?” he told the network. “I still don’t really know who the unjust actors were who launched this attack against me from the shadows. I just hope that someday there will be someone that will be held accountable.”
During an interview last year, Turi provided Fox News with documents and email exchanges he had with high-level members of Congress — as well as military and State Department employees — to bolster his assertion that the Obama administration OK’d a covert weapons program during 2011′s Arab Spring.
“That’s where I came up with this ‘zero footprint’ Arab supply chain whereby our foreign ally supplies another Arab country,” Turi told Fox News, which added that the ally in this case was Qatar, which then supplied Libya.
“If you want to limit the exposure to the U.S. government, what you simply do is outsource it to your allies,” Turi told Fox News. “The partners — the Qataris and the Emiratis — did exactly what they were contracted to do.”
Turi told Fox News that he never gave weapons to Qatar; rather things were run by the U.S. government and the State Department’s Bureau of Political and Military Affairs. That agency was headed by Clinton aide Andrew Shapiro, who was tasked with overseeing the export control process at the State Department, Fox News added.
“They don’t want this stuff to come out because it will look really bad for Obama and Clinton just before the election,” a Turi associate told Politico, adding that information his legal team was after would show Clinton’s role in arming Libyan rebels while she ran the State Department.
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Fox News, citing federal records, reported last year that documents showed U.S. officials supported Turi’s effort to channel weapons to Libyan rebels while Clinton was secretary of state.
Many of the arms destined for Libyan rebels ultimately fell into the hands of Islamist militants, reportedly including those in Syria.
“When this equipment landed in Libya, half went one way, and the half went the other way,” Turi previously told Fox News, emphasizing that poor oversight, allowed individuals hostile to the United States to get arms. “The half that went the other way is the half that ended up in Syria.”
In their motion for dismissal, federal prosecutors acknowledged that discovery rulings from U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona Judge David Campbell factored into the decision. The motion includes a request that Campbell accept a confidential agreement to settle the case civilly, further fueling claims the deal was struck to keep potentially damaging disclosures under wraps.
Turi adviser Robert Stryk accused prosecutors of bringing the case against Turi in order to cover up Clinton’s mishandling of Libya. Clinton was secretary of state on Sept. 11, 2012, when jihadists mounted an attack on two American facilities in Benghazi, killing four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
Neither the Justice Department nor the White House responded to requests for comment, Fox News reported.
Read the entire Fox News story here.
