New bombshell documents obtained by a government watchdog group have exposed that a White House official was responsible for covering up the 2012 Benghazi attack by falsely placing the blame on Muslim protests over an online clip that was seen by many as denigrating the Prophet Muhammad. But as it turns out, the protests never happened.
The previously classified e-mails, obtained by Judicial Watch on Monday through a Freedom of Information Act request, reveal that Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes had asked then-U.N. ambassador Susan Rice to prepare an explanation for the American public on the coordinated military-style attack and protests occurring across the Middle East that week in Benghazi, Libya, Western Journalism reported. Rice, who was provided a series of hypothetical media questions and possible answers by Rhode, was scheduled to make a televised appearance on a news program two days later.
"To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy," was one of the outlined "goals" in Rhodes' email as part of the administration's communications strategy. Another was, "to reinforce the president and administration's strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges."
These new allegations show that the White House knowingly misrepresented the terrorist attack as the result of a protest and engaged in political maneuvering to safeguard President Barack Obama's re-election prospects, according to WND.
"The email from Ben Rhodes demonstrates the Obama administration from the beginning misled Congress, the media and most importantly, the American people," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R., Va.), the House majority leader.
A day after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, in which four Americans were killed, the State Department's Diplomatic Security Command Center sent a memo to the U.S. Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, that was titled "Emergency Message to U.S. Citizens: Demonstrations."
"On September 11, 2012, violent demonstrations took place at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt and at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, resulting in damage in both locations and casualties in Benghazi. Media reports indicate that demonstrations may take place at the U.S. Embassy in Tunis on Wednesday, September 12, 2012," the message read.
But the Benghazi attack, carried out by highly organized and armed Islamic militia, had reportedly been monitored by the Diplomatic Security Command Center, or DSCC, in real time via video transmissions from a drone. So when the DSCC had sent the memo to U.S. Embassy in Tunis, it was aware that a terrorist attack could take place over there and not demonstrations, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The DSCC "clearly knew in real time that a full-fledged terrorist attack was taking place on September 11 at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, and the American people deserve to be told the truth," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
"We are now into the fourth year of a massive Obama administration cover-up," he said, adding that the DSCC communiqués "may further help unravel the Obama administration's growing web of deceit."
"I've always believed that the Benghazi cover-up was about two presidential campaigns - the Obama re-election effort and Hillary Clinton's nascent presidential campaign. I have little doubt that the State Department is protecting Hillary Clinton with this latest cover-up," he asserted.
However the new controversial emails were dismissed by White House press secretary Jay Carnet in a news briefing on Wednesday, who claimed that they weren't specifically about the attack in Benghazi, but was about a series of anti-American protests which were under way around that time in a dozen Islamic countries, Slate reported.
"It was explicitly not about Benghazi," Carney said. "It was about the overall situation in the region, the Muslim world, where you saw protests outside of embassy facilities across the region, including in Cairo, San'a, Khartoum and Tunis."
Apart from the emails, the testimony of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb under oath to the House Oversight Committee on Oct. 10, 2012, not only proves that the DSCC knew the Benghazi compound was under attack from the moment it began, but also stands in direct conflict with initial false claims by the Obama administration that the attack arose from a spontaneous demonstration in response to an Internet video.
"False information and the lies put out by this office, the State Department's Diplomatic Security Command Center, that knew even as the Benghazi attack was going on that it was a terrorist attack, recklessly endangered U.S. lives by telling the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia that it was only a protest demonstration over a movie," Fitton said.
"When the State Department only warned U.S. citizens in Tunisia about demonstrations, the U. S. government was lying to them," he maintained.
"You are making people think they only needed to worry about demonstrations, when the truth was Americans in North Africa needed to know the night before Benghazi was hit by an intense terrorist attack, that came on violently, with heavily armed al-Qaida-backed militia carrying AK-47s and RPGs. 'Be Warned' should have been the message, 'There was a terrorist attack, and you should be very careful right now."
Fitton stressed that by not telling Americans in Tunisia the truth, the State Department was engaging in "reckless disregard" of their safety, according to Examiner.com.
"To the extent this information was withheld from personnel in the State Department, in Tunisia or elsewhere in the area where U.S. State Department personnel were deployed, these lies placed these people in jeopardy," Fitton said. "U.S. citizens in Tunisia should have been told honestly to be worried about and to watch out for terrorists, not demonstrators."
"The State Department Diplomatic Security Command Center knew that Benghazi was a terrorist attack that ended up killing the ambassador, and it was unconscionable for the Obama State Department to lie in the 'Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens' we now know the DSCC drafted for the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia to publish."
Meanwhile with Hillary Clinton weighing a 2016 presidential bid, the new emails could continue to resonate politically by becoming a point of debate.
"If the White House felt this talking points memo was classified, what else don't we know about Benghazi, and is all of this stonewalling just to protect Hillary?" questioned Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.
