Hillary Clinton Would Have Been Happy To See Raymond Davis Facing Execution In Pakistan
The CIA has been accused of political bias by trying to stall publication of an explosive memoir which could damage Hillary Clinton's chances of reaching the White House.
The book tells the story of CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who was imprisoned in Pakistan in 2011 after shooting two men in self defense before being released in a controversial blood-money deal.
According to the authors, the CIA held the book manuscript for several months before demanding a swathe of redactions - even on information that is publicly available - pushing the publication of the book from September 2016 to March 2017.
Davis and his co-author Storms Reback believe the book - entitled The Contractor - could be seen as another 'Benghazi situation' for presidential candidate Clinton - which may explain the agency's attempts to delay publication until after the November 2016 election.
They also accuse the State Department - under Clinton's rule - of withholding two key interviews carried out for the book, which almost prevented the memoir from being written at all.
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, the book's co-author Storms Reback revealed how Army veteran Davis has 'zero trust' in Clinton as a potential president and believes she would have abandoned him in a Pakistani prison, facing possible execution.
He thinks that had it not been for the U.S. military's plans to kill Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil, Davis would still be languishing in prison - or worse still, dead.
Author Reback, 46, said: 'Both Ray and I believe the CIA are acting politically by delaying publication - they held on to the book for six months and slowed the whole thing down.
'It definitely seems like there is something funny going on behind the scenes - the book was supposed to come out the third week of September 2016 and the CIA went out of its way to delay the whole process.
Download free pdf book "The Contractor" by Raymond Davis from here:
'We turned the manuscript in months ago, then they redacted it, we responded and then they weren't happy with the changes. It kept getting delayed until the point where we had to push publication to March 2017.
'Ray does think that maybe the CIA, even though he is loyal to them, didn't want it to be published right before the election because it could have an influence on it.
'Although this incident isn't exactly the same, it could be seen as a mini-Benghazi for Hillary Clinton.
'At the time she was Secretary of State so all these important decisions overseas went through her - so how she handled the matter was going to be put under a microscope.
'Ray thinks that the book wouldn't put her in the best light.'
Davis, a former U.S. soldier, was employed as a security contractor for the CIA in Lahore, Pakistan, providing protection for CIA operatives and political figures. He was ambushed by two men - believed to be street robbers - as he was stuck in traffic in January 2011.
After one of the men pointed a gun at him, Davis says he opened fire in self defense, killing both of them.
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| Davis's actions sparked an anti-American outcry across Pakistan with many calling for him to be hanged. Protesters are seen shouting slogans beside a burning effigy of Davis. The CIA is accused of delaying the book's publication in order not to damage Clinton's election chances |
He was subsequently imprisoned in Pakistan as a diplomatic furor exploded around him - with the U.S. demanding Davis should receive immunity as a consulate employee and Pakistan insisting he face prosecution.
Anti-American sentiments were inflamed in the country and people took to the streets calling for Davis to be hanged - with many Pakistanis believing he was a spy.
The book details how Davis was held in the notorious Kot Lakhpat prison, fearing for his life.
'They cleared a wing of the prison for Ray so he was all alone.' Reback explained. 'The prison warden told him they were doing it for his protection but Ray wonders if they were preventing the U.S. from coming in and scooping him up somehow.
'Even though he was told he was protected, he still felt very vulnerable at times - and there were several occasions he felt his life was in danger.
'For example one night there were three security guards in the cell with him when two left. The one who stayed behind then pulled out his gun and Ray realized this this guy could shoot him but at that moment the other two returned and the guard put his gun away.
'He often felt he might get left in the prison, that was his big frustration. He was a security contractor and that was a big grey area.
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| Davis's actions sparked an anti-American outcry across Pakistan with many calling for him to be hanged. Protesters are seen shouting slogans beside a burning effigy of Davis. Now the CIA is accused of trying to delay the book's publication in order not to damage Clinton's election chances |
'Occasionally the U.S. government has claimed security contractors as part of the military umbrella and taken responsibility for them and other times they've turned their back on them and said, "They're private - they're not part of our organization" so Ray didn't know which way the government was going to fall.
'As time went on he felt he could spend years in that cell. He was in captivity 49 days - in the prison for 35 days.
'He wasn't beaten and Ray says if you ask him if he was tortured he would say no but by the legal definition of torture then he definitely was.
'There were lots of little things done to him that were a form of psychological torture - for example the lights in his cell were on most of the time, there'd be music blaring outside his cell so he couldn't sleep, the guards would take away his possessions even if they had been approved - lots of mind games.'
Almost two months later, Davis was eventually released in dramatic court room scenes after the families of the two dead men were paid $2.4 million in diyya - a form of compensation or blood money payment recognized under Sharia law.
Although the U.S. government has never officially admitted making the payment, it is widely believed that Pakistan stumped up the money - and was later reimbursed by America.
'When Ray went into court he thought he was being tried for murder - he thought all efforts at diplomacy had failed and he was pretty sure that after the court date he would be hanged or kept in jail for the rest of his life,' Reback said.
'Then all of a sudden he gets out, the court system changed from regular court to Sharia law court and he was freed.
'It's pretty dramatic that one minute he thought he was a dead man and the next he was free.
'Ray had no idea that was going to happen but also lawyers and people from the consulate who were working with Ray - they had no idea this was going to happen either - this came from high up in the chain of command and no one knew what was happening.
'When Ray was told about the deal he didn't want to do it. He said, "I've done nothing wrong we shouldn't have to pay any money" - he was completely opposed to it. But he now sees that was the only way he would get out.'
The book describes how at the time, Davis received a pleasant phone call from Clinton congratulating him on his release.
It wasn't until earlier this year when Davis spoke to former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, he realized that Clinton may not have as supportive of his release as she made out.
Panetta, who was head of the CIA at the time of the incident, told Davis that Clinton and the State Department were considering disavowing the contractor - removing its support and essentially abandoning him to the Pakistani legal system.
However, the U.S. had spent months planning a raid on bin Laden's Pakistani hideout - and had Davis still been in prison it was likely he would be executed in retaliation for a raid carried out without Pakistan's permission.
According to Reback, Davis's imprisonment added a 'complicating factor' to the plans and 'getting him out became a priority.'
'Ray has had at least one or two conversations with Leon Panetta,' he added. 'Now he is working in the private sector Mr Panetta is free to have those conversations.
'After this one particular conversation earlier this year, Ray completely changed his viewpoint on the incident as it shined a light on what was going on behind the scenes and it wasn't as pretty of a picture as he had once imagined.
'He discovered that there was talk that the State Department was seriously considering disavowing him, turning its back on him and letting him stay there.
'In the book, Ray talks to Hillary on the phone after his release, and he's very respectful. He felt good, he had just got out and the whole conversation seems very rosy.
'But then after he had the conversation with Leon Panetta he suddenly started thinking about how she handled the situation and realized that if there weren't these other mitigating circumstances - like the bin Laden affair - he believes she would have just left him there.
'He believes that she would be happy to disavow him.
'From the conversations he's had with Panetta he feels she was forced into making the call to save him.'
Davis believes Clinton's track record means she can not be trusted to run the country - and in particularly the military.
'Ray is not a big fan of Hillary,' Reback said. 'His viewpoint is the same as many military people which is that in the military you have to trust those you work with and those above you and from his point of view he doesn't trust Hillary Clinton.
'And that's from how she handled his case and in general - her wider body of work. He would not trust her to run the country - particular the role of commander in chief.
'Ray would not give you some elaborate viewpoint on domestic affairs but when it comes to being the person in charge of the military and at the very top - that's where he has the most problems with her.'
Reback and Davis also believe that Clinton is behind the State Department's refusal to approve two key interviews of consular employees who were involved in the case - US Consul General Carmela Conroy and Dr Dale Rush, who also worked for the consulate in Lahore at the time.
Reback said: 'Ninety percent of the story is Ray's story from his perspective and it's an exciting story but there's a lot of murkiness about what was going on behind the scenes.
'We did our best to try and figure that out but we were blocked every time we got somewhere.
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| Disaster: Davis compares his plight to the attack the following year on the US diplomatic post in Benghazi. It has dogged Hillary Clinton's electoral campaign and led to the discovery of her secret email server |
'I interviewed Carmela Conroy and she basically was the most important interview for the book but the questions and answers had to go through the State Department and even after nagging them 10 times they never released the answers to the questions - they still have them.
His viewpoint is the same as many military people which is that in the military you have to trust those you work with and those above you and from his point of view he doesn't trust Hillary Clinton.
'When that happened I honestly thought the book would never get written.
'The fact that the State Department has never released the two interviews seems pretty crazy to me and the person in charge of the State Department at the time was Hillary Clinton - so I do wonder if that isn't part of it.'
Reback, has been frustrated by the setbacks - particularly the CIA's redaction demands - which he describes as 'painful'.
He said many of the things that the agency are adamant about removing - are available in other books and news articles.
The author cannot reveal exactly what the CIA want removed from the book, but he says it is clear the agency wants to 'pretend' that tensions between the two countries did not exist.
And although the book has now become something of a political hot potato, Reback claims that was never the plan.
This post was originally published on October 2016 in Daily Mail prior to US Presidential elections.
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