Josh Rogin

Victim of Rapist Hillary Defended: She 'Took Me Through Hell'; Will Broadcast Nets Report?
By Ken Shepherd | June 20, 2014 | 5:35 PM EDT

Josh Rogin of The Daily Beast has an arresting exclusive today: an interview with the woman whose rapist Hillary Clinton successfully defended as a criminal defense attorney in the mid 1970s. "In a long, emotional interview with The Daily Beast, she accused Clinton of intentionally lying about her in court documents, going to extraordinary lengths to discredit evidence of the rape, and later callously acknowledging and laughing about her attackers' guilt on the recordings," Rogin noted. "Hillary Clinton took me through Hell," the woman, who was 12 years old when she was sexually assaulted, told the Daily Beast. To read the full story, click here.

As we have noted, the liberal media thus far have largely ignored recent reporting by the Washington Free Beacon's Alana Goodman, who unearthed the audiotapes in question and which have resulted in a University of Arkansas official -- who is, by the way, a Clinton donor -- banning Free Beacon employees from accessing more materials at the library's Clinton archives.

Daily Beast: Syria Likely Used Chemical Weapons in January; Obama 'Stiffs' Survivors of Attacks
By Ken Shepherd | February 20, 2014 | 3:16 PM EST

Kudos to the Daily Beast for reporting this story. Don't hold your breath for the network news outlets to pick up on it and doggedly pursue it.

In an exclusive published at the website today, Josh Rogin and Noah Shachtman explain how there's credible evidence that regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad may have used chemical weapons in January 2014, something that U.S. intelligence officials are denying but which eyewitnesses on the ground insist occurred (excerpt follows; emphasis mine):

Daily Beast: Obama Administration Refused to Send Gas Masks to Syrian Opposition, Despite Abundant Supply
By Ken Shepherd | August 29, 2013 | 7:05 PM EDT

"The Obama administration has refused to send gas masks and other chemical-weapons protection gear to Syrian opposition groups, despite numerous requests dating back more than a year and until the reported chemical-weapons attack that struck the Damascus suburbs August 21," Josh Rogin of The Daily Beast reported earlier today. What's more, it wasn't for lack of supply, as there are numerous gas masks lying about in the region in storage, surplus from the late Iraq War, Rogin reported.

It's completely understandable and arguably advisable to not ship weapons to Syrian opposition groups for fear of weapons falling into the wrong hands, but refusing life-saving gas masks when the Syrian government is known to have chemical weapons caches is quite another. It remains to be seen how much the Big Three networks and newspaper outlets pick up on this thread, but we'll be watching. Below is a critical excerpt from his post (emphasis mine):

Foreign Officials Bewildered That Many U.S. States Don't Check for ID at the Polls; Where's the Media?
By Ryan Robertson | November 9, 2012 | 4:03 PM EST

As part of a program run by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, representatives of over 60 emerging democracies from around the world were sent to the observe and report on how the election works in this country.

What they saw left them concerned at worst and puzzled at best at the way American elections are run, leaving gaping-wide holes through which voter fraud can be committed. The Foreign Policy Cable's Josh Rogin conducted interviews with some of them for his report.

Three Days After Denouncing Child Soldier 'Slavery', Obama Waived Sanctions on Countries That Use Them; When Will Media Report?
By Ken Shepherd | October 3, 2012 | 10:59 AM EDT

"When a little boy is kidnapped" and forced to become a child soldier, "that's slavery," President Obama noted in a September 25 speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. Yet a mere three days later, the president waived-- for the third year in a row, no less -- U.S. sanctions on countries that use child soldiers, including Libya, where, as you may have noticed, we've had some nasty diplomatic security issues of late.

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reported the development in an October 1 The Cable blog post entitled "Obama waives sanctions on countries that use child soldiers" (h/t Human Events | emphasis mine; video update added below):

More Obama Reelect-Presumptive Coverage at the Politico: 'America's Next Top Diplomat' As Susan Rice or Kerry
By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2012 | 8:55 AM EDT

Does anyone remember anybody in the establishment press speculating over who might hold Cabinet positions during a second Bush 43 term in the fall of 2004 without qualifying it with "if Bush is reelected"? Neither do I.

But at the Politico on Thursday, the closest Josh Ragin got in an item found at the web site's "The Cable" section speculating on whether John Kerry or Susan Rice is better positioned to be Obama's nominee to be "America's next top diplomat" (i.e., Secretary of State) was quoting a Republican Senate aide who merely referred to the possible fireworks "if it's the beginning of a second Obama term." That doesn't even qualify as a qualifier either, because a victorious Obama might attempt to confirm a new nominee to replace Hillary Clinton during a lame-duck session. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine):