Today's Washington Times reports that Libya's CIA station chief told his superiors that there were no pre-attack "protests" in Benghazi -- before Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton and the president insisted that the attack had resulted from spontaneous demonstrations.
Later, of course, Hillary Clinton insisted that she hadn't known that the administration talking points were false:
So did the CIA official who obtained this information from Libya's CIA station chief ever share it with The White House or the State Department? If so, when?
Was it before this -- when Hillary denounced the violence resulting from an "awful internet video" (at 16:33)?
Note how carefully Secretary Clinton's relevant words are scripted:
We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with.
Could the fact that she tried to avoid using "Benghazi" and "internet video" in the same sentence show an effort to mislead, but with some faint deniability?
And was the Obama administration aware of the true state of affairs before this?
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We are likely to find out tomorrow when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence hears from Michael Morrell, formerly deputy director (and for a time, acting director) of the CIA, the person to whom the Libya station chief spoke.
Note, however, that another former intelligence official has told Guy Taylor of the Washington Times that Morrell did tell the White House and State Department, but that the station chief's assessment was ignored.
It will be interesting to see what Mr. Morrell has to say, as he has been credibly accused of offering misleading testimony himself on the Benghazi scandal and his role in rewriting the White House's post-attack talking points.
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