On April 23, 2013, five House committees – Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Judiciary, and Oversight & Government Reform – released their interim investigative report on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans. The interim report found, among other things, that: After the attack in Benghazi, the Administration willfully perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration caused by a YouTube video. Senior State Department officials requested that talking points drafted by the Intelligence Community be scrubbed to exclude references to al Qaeda and terrorism to avoid criticism for ignoring the threat environment in Benghazi, and that those changes were ultimately made. The Administration deflected responsibility by blaming the Intelligence Community for the information it communicated to the public in both the talking points and the subsequent narrative it perpetuated. Under pressure from Republicans, this week the White House released a series of emails about the Benghazi talking points that confirm the interim report’s finding and contradict the White House’s long-standing claims that it and the State Department only changed one word in the talking points. Amazingly, the White House continues to maintain the changes to the talking points were [...]
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