In working through some of the 7,000 Hillary Clinton emails released by the State Department yesterday, I came across one curious one sent from aide Huma Abedin to the then-Secretary of State regarding a Koran-burning in the U.S.

Here is another intriguing email:

It is noteworthy that this message on a sensitive subject — presumably about a meeting between then-Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and Sec. of State Clinton on weapons collections in Libya — would be left unredacted, while many other emails in the Clinton trove are redacted in toto.

This may be because news reports around the September 10, 2011 email date indicate that Rep. Rogers, former Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was concerned that weapons including anti-aircraft missiles could get into the “hands of bad actors” in the wake of the fall of former Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi.

Subsequently, it became clear that Rep. Rogers’ fears were merited.

In an October 2011 article, The Washington Post noted:

Thousands of the missiles were destroyed in NATO bomb attacks on arms depots during the war and hundreds have been recovered by the new government. But an unknown number were carted off by Libyan rebel groups and civilians who swarmed into unguarded storage areas after Gaddafi’s forces were defeated.

Already, several missiles have been intercepted on the desert road from Libya to Egypt, according to Egyptian officials. Tunisia’s prime minister, Beji Caid Essebsi, said in a recent interview he was so worried about smuggled Libyan weapons that he planned to ask Washington to provide helicopters for border surveillance.

Gunrunners would end up smuggling large quantities of weapons from Libya to Syria.

Though the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Final Benghazi Report released in late 2014 seeks to dispel the notion that American activities at Benghazi centered on collecting and shipping such arms to Syria, this portion of the Committee’s finding was not nearly airtight.

What the former Secretary of State and former congressman discussed about Libya and weapons unfortunately we will likely never know.

 

Featured Image Source: Associated Press.