Republicans Lied About Contents of Benghazi Emails

This is what the media should do to political figures that feed bogus information for political purposes. I wished CBS News went a step further and publicly outed the congressional Republicans that were feeding was quote from the Benghazi emails.

Republicans told CBS News that deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes wrote this in an email. Republicans alleged that Rhodes was trying to protect the State Department and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. This is the bogus quote congressional Republicans fed to CBS News.

"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."

CBS News reports that Rhodes doesn't mention Clinton or the State Department in the actual email.

"We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

Republicans lied about the contents about an email by State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland. The CIA had asked the State Department to not reveal their role at the Benghazi consulate. The CIA was running operations out of the consulate. This is the actual Nuland email.

"The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings."

At the request of the CIA, Nuland cut out mention of the CIA. Republicans made up a fake quote that gave the impression that the State Department was ignoring terrorist threat warnings from the CIA.

"The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda."

This is an utter smear campaign by Republicans.

BACKGROUND: the CIA was running several different operations in Benghazi. David Petraeus' mistress, Paula Broadwell, was being briefed by the CIA. Broadwell even had classified CIA materials. After the affair became public, Broadwell's house was searched by the FBI. What was more disturbing is Broadwell publicly talking about the Benghazi annex.

"Now I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually -- had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that's still being vetted," she said.

David Brooks has an excellent op-ed defending his friend Nuland. Brooks also points out that Benghazi was mainly a CIA operation.

Remember, this was at a moment when the State Department was taking heat for what was mostly a C.I.A. operation, while doing verbal gymnastics to hide the C.I.A.’s role. Intentionally or not, the C.I.A. seemed to be repaying the favor by trying to shift blame to the State Department for ignoring intelligence.

Brooks goes on to point out the under-reported fact that Petraeus gave Congressional lawmakers the anti-Muslim video talking points. The question should also be why is a CIA director for a Democratic administration giving Republican lawmakers talking points. Brooks reports that Nuland was asking the same question.

On Friday evening of Sept. 14, the updated talking points were e-mailed to the relevant officials in various departments, including Nuland. She wondered why the C.I.A. was giving members of Congress talking points that were far more assertive than anything she could say or defend herself. She also noted that the talking points left the impression that the C.I.A. had issued all sorts of warnings before the attack.

Remember, this was at a moment when the State Department was taking heat for what was mostly a C.I.A. operation, while doing verbal gymnastics to hide the C.I.A.’s role. Intentionally or not, the C.I.A. seemed to be repaying the favor by trying to shift blame to the State Department for ignoring intelligence.

The whole scandal started by Republicans attacking the false administration reports that Ambassador Chris Stevens death was related to protests over an anti-Muslim video. David Petraeus gave his mistress classified intelligence and Congress horrible talking points. Obama's biggest fault in the Benghazi saga is appointing someone as incompetent as Petraeus.