Full White House Benghazi Email Undermines GOP’s Cover-Up Claims

By Hayes Brown/Think Progress

CNN has obtained the full email from a White House official on the Benghazi talking points, which undermines claims that the administration acted deliberately to change the intelligence community’s assessment.

Much of the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya has focused on a set of unclassified talking points provided to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. Rice delivered those points five days after the attack, appearing on all five major Sunday news shows. Rice subsequently came under attack for not mentioning Al Qaeda and referencing an anti-Islamic video as the impetus for the attacks, becoming the symbol of the White House’s supposed goal of misleading the American public about what happened.

In recent days, the talking points have come back to the forefront of conservative outrage, as several outlets have released the full edits made to the document, along with the original version the CIA drafted. Alongside those edits were emails that these outlets claimed showed the White House engaging in a flurry of activity that would help President Obama gain reelection. One such email from Deputy National Security Director Ben Rhodes allegedly showed the White House insisting that State Department requests that references to terrorism and Al Qaeda be “scrubbed” from the draft be discussed more fully.

CNN’s Jake Tapper, however, obtained the full text of the email Rhodes sent to the email thread of officials across the government providing their input on the document. Viewed in full, the document shows a distinct lack of intent to maliciously change the narrative compared to paraphrased versions:

All –

Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.

There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression.

We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies.

Previously, the Weekly Standard and ABC News had reported that Rhodes intervened on behalf of the State Department, urging that the talking points be changed to scrub al-Qaeda references at Nuland’s request. The Standard paraphrased the email as Rhodes “respond[ing] to the group, explaining that [State Department spokeswoman Victoria] Nuland had raised valid concerns and advising that the issues would be resolved at a meeting of the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee the following morning.” Likewise, ABC paraphrased the email’s content as saying “[w]e 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. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

The elevation of the talking points to infamy has seemingly instead helped to undercut the Republican case that a cover-up occurred. In actuality, the only thing to be revealed during this latest round of investigation seems to be a turf war between the CIA and State Department to avoid further blame for the attack, one that played out in the editing process of the talking points. In the end, contrary to Republican claims, the intelligence community did have the last say in what went into the talking points, including that the attacks “were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo,” and immediately preceded by a demonstration.

GOP’s Big Benghazi ‘Bombshell’ Turns Out To Be Another Big Dud

by T. Steelman/Addicting Info

Tuesday began as a good day for Senator Lindsey Graham. He was excited about hearings on Benghazi, hoping that three “whistleblowers” would come up with the information he and his GOP buddies need to hang Obama out to dry make a bigger mountain out of bullshit. That morning he tweeted:

“I think the dam is about to break on #Benghazi. We’re going to find system failure before, during and after the attack.”

Yeah, how did that go for ya, Lindsey? Not so good, huh? Because there was no dam, no breaking and nothing that indicated any kind of cover-up. Nope, nothing to see here, move along. Wednesday’s hearing didn’t reveal anything that a review board and fiveprevious hearings didn’t already tell us. Mark Thompson, Greg Hicks and Eric Nordstrom produced no bombshell and no new fuel for the right-wing’s witch hunt.

Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, set the tone at the start when he accused the administration of not cooperating and saying that “our minority” has been mostly silent. Apparently this is some strange new meaning of the word, “silent” that we’ve previously been unaware of. Rep. Elijah Cummings hit right back, though:

“There is no member of Congress, be they Republican or Democrat, who fails to uphold the right of whistleblowers to come forward. I think it’s sad when that accusation is made against any member of this Congress. The fact is that our top military commanders have already testified they did everything in their power to deploy assets as soon as possible.” Cummings said that all testimony and documents so far confirm “… that they could not get there in time. I have seen nothing  to make me question the proof on this.” (source)

Not that the GOP members of the Committee didn’t give it their best. Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah was certain that the witnesses would detail how the country was misled by the Obama administration both before and after the attack on the American embassy in Libya. But in 6 hours of questions and answers, there was no such information. Now poor Jason has a sad, frowny face.

There was an effort to smear former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, by using an out-of-context quote from her testimony in January. Remember when, after being browbeaten by the partisan hacks on the Committee, she asked “What difference does it make?” going on to state that their job was to figure out what happened and to make sure it never happened again? Well, Rep. Trey Gowdy (S.C.) decided to just use that first sentence and do a bit of grandstanding. Tsk tsk, Mr. Gowdy… Hillary said in January that she accepted responsibility and would make every correction that the review board suggested. But that doesn’t fit into his emoting and pandering.

On top of the lack of bombshells at the hearing, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs, Elizabeth King, sent a letter to Congressman Elijah Cummings yesterday. In it, she explained why the Commander In-Extremis Force couldn’t have reached Benghazi in time to prevent a second attack:

“… because exact conditions on the ground in Benghazi were unknown……the CIF began to fulfill its tasking by pre-positioning at an intermediate staging location, Naval Air Station Sigonella (in Sicily, Italy). From the moment the CIF was ordered to move, it did not stand down until after all personnel (including the fallen) had been evacuated from Benghazi in a little over 12 hours after the initiation of the attack… the time needed from alerting the CIF to landing at the Benghazi airport is greater than the approximately 7.5 hours between the initiation of the first attack and the second one. As such, the time requirements for notification, load and transit alone prevented the CIF from being at the annex in enough time to change events.”

So much for that criticism. Fox News has a copy of the letter but somehow I doubt if they will be saying much about it since it doesn’t help their make-believe narrative.

There are a few things that really have me both angry and annoyed with this whole Benghazi bullshit: 1) where is the outrage at the House Republicans who voted to CUT security for the embassy? They cut $300 million from the U.S. embassy security budgetjust before the attack. Why aren’t they being raked over the coals for that? 2) Where was the right-wing when, under G.W. Bush, seven embassies were attacked and many more than 4 people were killed? How come they never shrieked about that? 3) What about Reagan? Three embassy attacks, including Beirut where 17 Americans were killed. No? That was okay?

This Benghazi thing is making the right insane. Literally. You know the saying about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? That’s where the GOP is right now. They are so invested in this fantasy that they have lost any ability to see reality. And Fox News feeds the fire, complaining that no other news outlets are covering this. Could it be because it’s utter and complete bullshit? Of course not, not to these modern-day inquisitors. They hate our president that much. It’s sickening.

Eight Reasons Why Marco Rubio Is Not ‘The Republican Savior’

By Igor Volsky/Think Progress

Since Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) abandoned his opposition to providing undocumented immigrants with a pathway to citizenship and embraced a bipartisan framework for comprehensive immigration, political pundits and Republican leaders have anointed the Florida Congressman the future of the GOP.

Consequently, the likely 2016 presidential candidate has become a media darling, appearing on conservative talk shows and mainstream outlets to tout his reform principles and convince skeptics of the wisdom of reforming the nation’s broken immigration system. The media idolization reached its zenith on the cover of this week’s issue of TIME magazine. The publication prominently features a picture of a defiant Rubio under the headline, “The Republican Savior: How Marco Rubio became the new voice of the GOP.”

But dig beyond Rubio’s newfound embrace of immigration reform, and you’ll find that the GOP’s future appears stuck in the past, as the great hope of the party still espouses many of the extreme policies voters rejected in November:

1. Refused to raise the debt ceiling. Rubio voted against the GOP’s compromise measure to temporarily suspend the debt limit through May 19 in order avoid defaulting on the national debt. In a statement posted on his website, Rubio insisted that he would hold the debt ceiling increase hostage “unless it is tied with measures to actually solve our debt problem through spending reforms.”

2. Co-sponsored and voted for a Balanced Budget Amendment. “Now more than ever, we need a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Rubio proclaimed in 2011. A Balanced Budget Amendment would force the government to slash spending during an economic downturn, driving up unemployment and making the downturn worse, in a vicious cycle. If the amendment were in place during the last financial crisis, unemployment would have doubled.

3. Signed the Norquist pledge. Rubio pledged to never raise taxes under any circumstances and even voted against the last-minute deal to avert the fiscal cliff, since the deal included $600 billion in revenue. “Thousands of small businesses, not just the wealthy, will now be forced to decide how they’ll pay this new tax,” Rubio noted in a statement.

4. Backed Florida’s voter purge. Rubio defended Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) attempted purge Democratic voters from the rolls, brushing off its disproportionate targeting of Latino voters. He also defended Florida’s decision to shorten its early voting period from two weeks to eight days by pointing to “the cost-benefit analysis.” After Election Day, several prominent Florida Republicans admitted that the election law changes were geared toward suppressing minority and Democratic votes and researchers found that long voting lines drove away at least 201,000 Florida voters.

5. Doesn’t believe in climate change. During a recent BuzzFeed interview, Rubio claimed has “seen reasonable debate” over whether humans are causing climate change. Scientists have long agreed that the debate is now over.

6. Opposed federal action to help prevent violence against women. Rubio voted against the motion to proceed to debate the Violence Against Women Act, noting that he disagrees with portions of the bill. Rubio claims he supports a scaled-back version of the legislation.

7. Believes employers should be able to deny birth control to their employees.Rubio co-sponsored a bill — along with Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) — that sought to nullify Obamacare’s requirement that employers provide contraception to their employees without additional co-pays by permitting businesses tovoluntarily opt out of offering birth control.

8. Recorded robo calls for anti-gay hate group. Rubio has previously boasted the endorsement of anti-gay hate groups like the Family Research Council and during the election recorded robocalls for the National Organization of Marriage urging Americans to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians. He recently wouldn’t take a position on legislation that would prohibit employers from firing employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identify andwouldn’t say “whether same-sex couples should receive protections under immigration law.”