Quote:

---

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:


“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”

The paragraph was entirely deleted.

Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA’s first drafts said the attack appeared to have been “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” but the CIA version went on to say, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.” The draft went on to specifically name the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.

Related: ABC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl Answers Your Questions About Benghazi

Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”

In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, “The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions.”

After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland’s concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough.

“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” Nuland wrote.

In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

Related: Diplomat Says Requests For Benghazi Rescue Were Rejected

After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said none of this contradicts what he said about the talking points because ultimately all versions were actually written and signed-off by the CIA.

“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”

UPDATE: A source familiar with the White House emails on the Benghazi talking point revisions say that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was raising two concerns about the CIA’s first version of talking points, which were going to be sent to Congress: 1) The talking points went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her state department briefings; and, 2) she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department’s expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.

In one email, Nuland asked, why are we suggest Congress “start making assertions to the media [about the al Qaeda connection] that we ourselves are not making because we don’t want to prejudice the investigation?”

One other point: The significant edits – deleting references to al Qaeda and the CIA’s warnings – came after a White House meeting on the Saturday before Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday shows. Nuland, a 30-year foreign service veteran who has served under Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State, was not at that meeting and played no direct role in preparing Rice for her interviews.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Bush's reaction to 9/11 was to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,and track down the leaders behind the attacks.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
Yeah, and then let them walk away at Tora Bora...

OH, yeah, I left out the part about starting a war with Iraq, who wasn't involved...

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Bush's reaction to 9/11 was to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,and track down the leaders behind the attacks.

---

Yeah, and then let them walk away at Tora Bora...

OH, yeah, I left out the part about starting a war with Iraq, who wasn't involved...

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Does anyone evevn KNOW/CARE who was responsible for Benghazi?

---

Quote:

---

ABC News published on Friday what it promoted as an “exclusive” report purportedly uncovering new and seemingly damning evidence implicating the Obama administration in its handling of talking points it generated in the aftermath of the terror attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya last September.
The report boiled down to two main points: that State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland — a former Dick Cheney aide — objected to including information in the talking points noting that the CIA had issued previous warnings that there was a threat to U.S. assets in Benghazi from al-Qaeda-linked groups because, Nuland said in an email, it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?”
The second point was that Nuland objected to naming the terror groups the U.S. believed were involved in the attack because, she said, “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”
And with that, the ABC report suggests the State Department “scrubbed” the talking points of terror references as some sort of nefarious cover-up of what really happened in Benghazi for political reasons. This, of course, playing into the GOP’s conspiracy theory that President Obama was trying to preserve his campaign theme that his policies had significantly crippled the terror network.
The story soon set reporters and Twitter alight. “Scrubbing the truth from Benghazi,” a National Journal headline read. Even the BBC speculated that “heads will roll.”
But absent in ABC’s report is the key point that Obama and various members of his administration referred to the Benghazi assault as a terror attack on numerous occasions shortly after the incident (thereby negating the need to “scrub” any references in the talking points) and that then-CIA Director David Petraeus said the terrorist references were taken out to, as the New York Times reported, “avoid tipping off the groups” that may have been involved.
Moreover, an update to the ABC report undermines the notion that Nuland’s motives were campaign related or political:
A source familiar with the White House emails on the Benghazi talking point revisions say that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was raising two concerns about the CIA’s first version of talking points, which were going to be sent to Congress: 1) The talking points went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her state department briefings; and, 2) she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department’s expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.
In other words, ABC’s “exclusive” reveals a turf battle, not some cover-up. As it turns out, the story is more about how talking points are generated in the interagency process, a point the Hill newspaper took notice of in its headline reporting on ABC’s story:

Indeed, as Media Matters’ Jeremy Holden noted, “ABC is left with a major exclusive dissecting the distinction between input and editing.”

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
You reallY REALLY want this to go away, huh ?

---

Quote:

---

Republicans were never able to defeat President Obama at the ballot box, so they are trying to drum up a scandal to justify impeaching him. If this all sounds familiar, it should. A House of Representatives led by radical Republicans tried to elevate the Lewinsky affair to an impeachable offense against Bill Clinton. It backfired, and made Clinton more popular with the American people.

Benghazi isn’t a search for truth. It is a desperate political Hail Mary. Republicans seeing the looming possibility of 16 years of Democratic White House control. Benghazi is their desperate attempt to remove Barack Obama, and stop Hillary Clinton from being elected president in 2016.

Back in 2009, Republicans thought they could use Obamacare to win the election in 2012. They couldn’t. Inhofe’s comments made it clear that they are going to try to keep Benghazi alive until 2016, but this too will fail. Instead of worrying about jobs or the economy, Republicans are wasting our tax dollars trumping up a scandal.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Bush's reaction to 9/11 was to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,and track down the leaders behind the attacks.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Congratulations.

---

Quote:

---

Bush's reaction to 9/11 was to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,and track down the leaders behind the attacks.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by GEEZER:
Let the excuse-fest begin.

---

Quote:

---

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what may be the most serious allegation ever made against the former Secretary of State, Fox News Channel reported today that Hillary Clinton was involved in the conspiracy to murder President Abraham Lincoln.

The latest charge against Mrs. Clinton was reported by Fox host Sean Hannity, who said that the evidence of her role in the Lincoln assassination came mainly in the form of e-mails.

According to Mr. Hannity, “If it’s true that Hillary Clinton killed Lincoln, this could have a major impact on her chances in 2016.”

The accusation against Mrs. Clinton drew a strong response from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.—S. Carolina): “There’s been a concerted effort by Hillary Clinton to cover up her role in President Lincoln’s murder. She has said nothing about it. This is bigger than Watergate, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Second World War put together.”

Responding to the allegation, Mrs. Clinton issued a terse statement indicating that she could not have participated in Lincoln’s assassination because she was born in 1947.

“That’s what she wants us to believe,” Sen. Graham said.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by reaverfan:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Bush's reaction to 9/11 was to go after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,and track down the leaders behind the attacks.

---

So,what was Iraq all about? Spreading freedom?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by GEEZER:



Let the excuse-fest begin.

And it does.

...


An editorial cited as fact.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Does anyone evevn KNOW/CARE who was responsible for Benghazi?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Does anyone evevn KNOW/CARE who was responsible for Benghazi?

---

It's cute when teabillies get on their soap boxes and monologue about that which they ADMIT they have no clue of in the first place.

---

Quote:

---

And then Rappy tries to explain the U.S. invasion of Iraq by bringing up the UK's justification for invading Iraq.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Holy crap! This is so fullbloodedly retarded. You're talking about a press release!

A PRESS RELEASE.

---

Quote:

---

That's basically White House ad copy. There is no legal nor criminal significance to what the fucking Press Secretary refrains from saying. They can revise their talking points a hundred and fifty thousand times and it's all totally legit. A press release does not set policy, it neither saves nor endangers lives. It's gorram AD COPY. What's wrong with you?

HKCavalier

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

...what difference does it make ?

---

Quote:

---

I'll let this speak for me:

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Niki2:

(Rap, little man, I didn't let Dick Durban speak for me, that's hysterical; I put up a quote from him, period.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Holy crap! This is so fullbloodedly retarded. You're talking about a press release!

A PRESS RELEASE.

---

No, it's much more than a 'press release'. It spurred on the talking points for UN Sec Rice, to go on 5 Sunday morning shows, and repeat the same lie, 5 different times.

---

Quote:

---

Was ABC News used by someone with an ax to grind against the State Department? It looks possible. A key email in its “scoop” that the administration’s “talking points” on Benghazi had been changed a dozen times came from White House national security communications adviser Ben Rhodes. It seemed to confirm that the White House wanted the talking points changed to protect all agencies’ interests, “including those of the State Department,” in the words of the email allegedly sent by Rhodes.

But CNN’s Jake Tapper reveals that Rhodes’ email didn’t mention the State Department, and doesn’t even seem to implicitly reference it. The email as published by Karl differs significantly from the original obtained by Tapper.

According to ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Rhodes weighed in after State Department’s Victoria Nuland, who expressed concerns about the way the talking points might hurt “my building’s leadership.” ABC quotes Rhodes saying:

We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.

The email obtained by Tapper is very different.

Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.

There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.

We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies.

You can read the original here.

Significantly, the Rhodes email doesn’t even mention the controversial Benghazi talking points. Reporting by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard paraphrased Rhodes’ email the same way – to depict him jumping in behind Nuland and protecting the interests of the State Department. Some on the right have suggested Karl and Tapper might be talking about two different emails, but in the ABC and CNN stories, the emails are dated identically, 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. Tapper provides the original; Karl did not.

Presumably, someone changed Rhodes’ email before leaking it to Karl, but ABC News hasn’t replied to the scoop by Tapper (who used to work there). ABC’s story added fuel to the Benghazi fire; we’ll see if CNN’s helps put it out.

---

Quote:

---

A survey released by Public Policy Polling on Monday found that 41 percent of Republicans believed that the alleged Benghazi cover up was the biggest scandal in American history. The poll also found that 39 percent of those people did not know that Benghazi was located in Libya.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:
And it turns out that the "e-mail" that ABC supposedly has looks to be a scam - a doctored e-mail talking about things that the original never mentioned.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Geezer:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:
And it turns out that the "e-mail" that ABC supposedly has looks to be a scam - a doctored e-mail talking about things that the original never mentioned.

---

So it's good news to you that there's so much in-fighting and finger pointing within the Administration that someone would fake an e-mail to put blame on the State Department?

---