Issa: Classified State Department Email Shows Obama Administration In Benghazi Damage Control Mode Before Attack Was Even Finished
On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) revealed the existence of a classified State Department email that creates fresh questions about the Obama Administration’s handling of the Benghazi, Libyia terror attack, even as it was taking place.
Without revealing the full contents of the document, Issa said that a State Department email under the subject line “Update on response actions – Libya” was transmitted at 9:11 p.m. ET on Sept. 11, 2012 (3:11 Libya time) to the Diplomatic Security Command Center. That places its timing well within the timeline of the unfolding terror attack in progress.
Issa said the email goes over a number of issues put forth during a video teleconference “attended by Senior Administration officials.” One of those issues demonstrates the Obama Administration was already turning its attention toward YouTube – the host site for the now-infamous “Innocence of Muslims” satirical video that the Administration immediately blamed for the attack (or “protest,” as White House talking points memos called it.)
From Issa’s floor speech in the Congressional Record:
Among the items noted in this e-mail, one states: ‘‘White House is reaching out to U-Tube [sic]to advise ramifications of the posting of the Pastor Jon Video.’’ Among descriptions of actions from different agencies, the e-mail says nothing else about what the White House was doing that night.
If the White House was reaching out to YouTube while the attack was taking place, there are two competing interpretations for what it means – neither of them good. Either the State Department and the Obama Administration truly believed that a video on YouTube precipitated the attack, or they knew that the video had nothing to do with it and started their damage control even as the attack was still unfolding.
Issa believes the truth can be found in the latter of those two interpretations.
“This information is troubling for two reasons,” he said:
First, it contradicts White Press Secretary Jay Carney’s claim this month that White House assertions about an Internet video were ‘‘drawn directly from talking points produced by the intelligence community.’’ The intelligence community talking points that were used, in part, to brief Ambassador [Susan] Rice were not even requested until September 14—three days after the attack and the White House’s decision to embrace its storyline.Second, former Libya Deputy of Chief of Mission Gregory Hicks—who spoke to Ambassador Christopher Stevens on the phone during the attack—indicated that it was immediately clear to him that the assault on the Benghazi diplomatic compound was a terrorist attack and not a protest of a YouTube video gone awry. Retired Brigadier General Robert Lovell, who had served as Deputy Director for Intelligence and Knowledge Development at U.S. Africa Command the night of the attack also testified that the assault on the Benghazi compound was clearly identifiable as a terrorist attack and not a protest gone awry.…“Third and finally, the e-mail shows the White House had hurried to settle on a false narrative — one at odds with the conclusions reached by those on the ground — before Americans were even out of harm’s way or the intelligence community had made an impartial examination of available evidence. According to the e-mail, the White House—at 3:11 am Libya time—had resolved to call YouTube owner Google about an Internet video being responsible for violence more than two hours before Americans Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed by militants at 5:15 am.
What Issa is saying, then, is that the Administration was dedicating its time and manpower to damage control even as people on the ground were dying.
