E-mails released on Friday showed that the State Department and the CIA engaged in a bitter feud to determine which agency would get to reveal the details of what happened in Benghazi. The e-mails revealed that in the days between the attack and the Sunday show appearance of UN Ambassador Susan E. Rice the two agencies argued over how much to reveal about the attacks that left four Americans dead.
The way that the Obama Administration handled the attack and how it was revealed to the public is under new scrutiny from conservatives as Congressional hearings about the incident began on Wednesday.
The Obama Administration has been accused of manipulating the talking points used to give information to the public regarding the attacks because of its proximity to the election. According to the Washington Post, the administration's talking points on the incident were drafted up by national security staff only; none of Obama's political staff were involved.
State Department officials were worried that the CIA talking points would paint a picture of unpreparedness in Benghazi. An unnamed U.S. official described the process of drafting the talking points to the Washington Post.
"The changes don't reflect a turf battle," the official said. "They were attempts to find the appropriate level of detail for unclassified, preliminary talking points that could be used by Congress to address a fluid situation."
Originally the talking points mentioned terrorist activities carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, a terrorist group connected to al-Qaeda, in the weeks leading up to the Benghazi attacks. By the time information was revealed to the public all mentions of Ansar al-Sharia were removed.
Mitt Romney argued that Ansar al-Sharia wasn't mentioned because Obama had claimed to weaken the terrorist group. According to the Washington Post the CIA refuted those claims by saying the reason for the omission was that the information was classified, yet the emails revealed on Friday show that the CIA originally mentioned the terrorist group in the talking points.
White House officials have previously said that the only change they made to the CIA drafted talking points was changing the name of the installation in Benghazi from "consulate" to "diplomatic post."
A December report by the Senate homeland security committee said that the decision to mention "demonstrations" and to remove references to al-Qaeda was made by the intelligence community. The report consisted of testimony from members of the FBI, CIA and state department.
"They also testified," the report said, "that no changes were made for political reasons, that there was no attempt to mislead the American people about what happened in Benghazi and that the only change made by the White House was to change a reference of 'consulate' to 'mission.'"
