Blog Posts by Jake Tapper

  • Rejected Request of Security Team in Libya

    By Jake Tapper | ABC News Blogs – Fri, Oct 5, 2012

    ABC News has obtained an internal State Department email from May 3, 2012, indicating that the State Department denied a request from the security team at the Embassy of Libya to retain a DC-3 airplane in the country to better conduct their duties.

    Copied on the email was U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in a terrorist attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, Sept. 11, 2012, along with three other Americans. That attack has prompted questions about whether the diplomatic personnel in that country were provided with adequate security support.

    No one has yet to argue that the DC-3 would have definitively made a difference for the four Americans killed that night. The security team in question, after all, left Libya in August.

    But the question - both for the State Department, which is conducting an internal investigation, and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is holding hearings next week - is whether officials in Washington,

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  • The Obama campaign is opening a new front in its war against GOP rival Mitt Romney, ABC News has learned, with planned attacks to begin this week on Romney's record as governor of Massachusetts and the campaign promises Democrats say he left unfulfilled.

    Team Obama will point to Romney's rhetoric on job creation, size of government, education, deficits and taxes during the 2002 gubernatorial campaign and draw parallels with his presidential stump speeches of 2012. The goal is to illustrate that Romney has made the same promises before with unimpressive results, officials say.

    The approach is a part of an effort to keep the focus off of President Obama, who has an underwater approval rating and has struggled to bring down unemployment - currently above 8 percent nationally. He and his campaign are aggressively trying to make Romney an unacceptable alternative on the November ballot.

    Obama campaign officials say the latest line of attack will be a major focus from

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  • Former President Bill Clinton said the "tragedy" of the killing of Trayvon Martin should cause a re-thinking of the "Stand Your Ground" law.

    "There are different stories being told," the former president said, "so the first thing I have to say is that it's important to find out the facts."

    Clinton continued "but to me, beyond the incredible personal tragedy- this young man was not armed, he clearly presented no threat to anybody's life - is, the most important thing I've read was from the former police chief in Florida in the community, he was one of many law enforcement officers testifying against that Stand Your Ground law. And he said, you know this is going to create all kinds of problems. And it's going to be almost impossible to prove what was in someone's mind when a certain thing happened."

    Clinton said "people have always had a right to have a handgun in their home- to protect their homes- then we've seen this breathtaking expansion of the concealed weapons laws in

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  • Over the weekend in Hawaii, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was posing for photographs with Hong Kong’s Chief Executive, Donald Tsang, when a near-naked man ran into the frame.

    Clinton laughed and told the assembled photographers, “That was great! I hope you all captured that!”

    Asked what was going through her head, Clinton erupted in laughter.

    “I thought it was hilarious!” she said. “I mean, it, it happened so quickly and when I turned my head I just saw this, you know, very, you know, big man with a, holding a torch with a blue loin cloth running by. I think he was late for his role at the luau. I think that’s what it was. But it was a moment of levity in a very serious set of moments.”

    TAPPER: Lastly, on a lighter note. If you’ll permit me. What was going through your head the other day when that gentleman

    CLINTON:  — (Laughter)—

    TAPPER: — Without any clothes showed up in that photograph?

    CLINTON: (Laughter) I thought it was hilarious! I mean, it, it happened so

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