A suspect in the 2012 Benghazi attack is now on American soil, facing murder, arson, and terrorism charges — and the prosecutor who met his plane at 3:00 a.m. says he's just the beginning.
The Department of Justice announced that Zubayar al-Bakoush had been extradited to the United States to face an eight-count indictment tied to the attack that killed Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty. U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro appeared on FNC's "Hannity" to lay out the charges and deliver a message that ought to rattle anyone still breathing free after that night in Benghazi.
Pirro said:
"We are not done yet, Sean. There are more of those people, those peaceful protesters. That was nonsense."
The indictment — filed roughly two months ago and unsealed the day of Pirro's appearance — charges Bakoush with supporting terrorism, providing material support to terrorism resulting in the murder of several people, including Smith and Ambassador Stevens, the attempted murder of Scott Wickland, and arson.
Pirro didn't delegate this one. She was standing on the tarmac when Bakoush's jet landed in the early hours of Friday morning — and she made no effort to hide her contempt for the man stepping off it.
"I wanted to see that dirtbag Bakoush get off that jet and make sure that he got into the hands of American law enforcement. My office indicted him two months ago. The indictment was unsealed today."
She described the brutality in plain terms. When attackers could not breach Villa C, where Ambassador Stevens sheltered with Sean Smith, they retrieved gas cans and set the building on fire. The goal was to make sure those Americans died.
"These people when they couldn't breach villa C where Ambassador Stevens was with Sean Smith, they went out and got gas cans. I'm talking about Bakoush, and they set fire to make sure that those Americans died."
Pirro credited Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Marco Rubio with helping secure the extradition. The machinery of accountability, dormant for over a decade, was finally put into motion.
Before going on air, Pirro had already spoken to the families of all four Americans killed in Benghazi. Their reaction tells you everything about how long this justice was delayed.
"They were thrilled. They didn't expect this."
That line deserves a moment. The families of Americans murdered in a terrorist attack on sovereign U.S. facilities — people who watched Washington spend years deflecting, minimizing, and moving on — did not expect anyone would still be pursuing their case. That is the indictment of the previous response that no courtroom filing could match.
Patricia Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, texted Pirro on the day the indictment was unsealed. Through Pirro, she shared the words her son had spoken to her before he was killed:
"Mom, I'm going to die. They're not going to send help."
Family members, relayed through Pirro, asked her to pass along a message to President Trump:
"Please tell President Trump how grateful we are. We knew that he stood for us. We knew he would never forget."
Pirro drove straight at the official narrative that the Obama administration constructed in the aftermath of Benghazi — the story about a "peaceful protest that went awry," the assurances of a few "troublemakers," the careful stage management on Sunday morning talk shows.
"We knew that we were being lied to. We knew that when they said it was a peaceful protest that went awry, or there were just a few troublemakers or that when President Obama said, quote, 'We did everything we could.'"
They didn't do everything they could. That has been obvious for thirteen years. But what made Benghazi burn in the national memory wasn't just the failure — it was the institutional shrug that followed. The "What difference does it make?" posture. The Sunday show's talking points treated the truth like a messaging problem to be managed rather than a massacre to be answered.
Pirro drew the contrast herself, and it's a sharp one. In 2012, the cavalry never came. Now the cavalry brought a defendant back in handcuffs.
"This was for most Americans, Sean, and for me in particular, the first time in my life that I realized that the American cavalry wasn't coming for you. And right now, we know the difference between the presidents because it is President Trump who has made the decision to bring the American cavalry in to protect Americans."
Bakoush is not the first Benghazi defendant prosecuted by Pirro's office. She referenced two prior defendants who went through the same jurisdiction. He won't be the last. Pirro's language was deliberate and forward-looking — "future Benghazi defendants" — a phrase designed to land in Benghazi and wherever the remaining attackers are hiding.
This case languished. Pirro said it herself. The question now is whether the pace holds — whether the apparatus that pulled Bakoush out of wherever he'd been sitting for over a decade can find the rest of them. The indictment is eight counts. The promise is open-ended.
For thirteen years, the families of the Benghazi dead carried their grief through a political environment that treated their loss as an inconvenient talking point — something to be debunked, fact-checked, or memory-holed whenever it became uncomfortable for the people who let it happen. Patricia Smith's son told her he was going to die because help wasn't coming. Now someone is answering for it.
Not all of them. Not yet. But Jeanine Pirro was on that tarmac at 3:00 a.m. for a reason.
