Hillary Repeatedly Claimed YouTube Video Caused Benghazi Attack, Not Widespread Protests In Middle East
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, March 10, 2015. Clinton conceded that she should have used a government email to conduct business as secretary of state, saying her decision was simply a matter of “convenience.” (Photo: AP/Seth Wenig)
Democrats have long-sought to obfuscate Hillary Clinton’s statements claiming the YouTube video caused the Benghazi attack, with the unrelated Middle East protests. But, according to emails released by the State Department Wednesday, as well as previously obtained documents published by PPD, the fact is that Mrs. Clinton was never “making a general reference to widepread protests across the Middle East” when blaming what the Pentagon called “a non-issue” YouTube video.
This patently false argument reflects a narrative Clinton’s aides and other top administration officials quickly moved to put in place when it became clear that then-CIA head and former General David Petraeus wasn’t going to play ball on the Benghazi talking points.
“You never said spontaneous or characterized the motives, in fact you were careful in your first statement to say we were assessing motive and method,” Jake Sullivan, a top Clinton aide wrote to Hillary on Sept. 24, 2012. “The way you treated the video in the Libya context was to say that some sought to *justify* the attack on that basis.”
While that may be Grade A Washington spin worthy only of a Clinton or trusted Clinton confident, it’s flat-out bogus. Secretary Clinton, herself, repeatedly misled the American people by blaming the specific terror attack in Benghazi on the Internet video. Worse still, in the 300 pages of emails released today by the State Department, she perpetuated this lie at a transfer of the bodies ceremony in front of the victims’ grieving families.
“This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country,” Clinton said at Andrews Air Force Base on Sept. 14, 2012. “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. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because. it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.”
Clinton and the entire Obama administration told the victims’ families before she made those remarks that they would “get the man who made the inflammatory video.” However, emails prove Sullivan and Cheryl Mills, two of Clintons closest aides, knew full-well that the terror attack had absolutely nothing to do with the video.
Yet, when asked in May 2013 if President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Susan Rice specifically told her the video was to blame for the attack that led to her son’s death, Sean Smith’s mother gave a crystal clear account of the statements made by these specific members of the Obama administration.
“Oh yes, they all told me about the reason that this happened was the video,” said Pat Smith. “Every one of them told me that. Yes, they actually did, and Susan Rice also. Nose to nose. I was with – they were hugging me!”
Both Cheryl Mills and Jacob Sullivan are on the partial list of notable witnesses to be questioned by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C, released in February. This latest round of emails will give the committee plenty of new information that had been previously unavailable to them.
Following her opening remarks at a post-meeting press conference with Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations Patricia Espinosa on Sept. 18, 2012, State Department lackey Victoria Nuland allowed a question from Margaret Brennan of CBS News. It was as follow:
Madam Secretary, thanks for your time. Are you any closer to finding who killed Ambassador Chris Stevens? Libya’s President says this attack was planned for months. Are you confident he’s wrong and that security measures were appropriate? And will you leave justice to the Libyans?
Finally, after five paragraphs worth of a filibuster-like answer that failed to respond to a single aspect of Brennan’s question, Hillary Clinton tried to get around her previous lie by telling yet another lie.
“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has said we had no actionable intelligence that an attack on our post in Benghazi was planned or imminent,” Clinton said.
Again, that is patently false, and she knew it when she said it at the time.
Judicial Watch recently obtained more than 100 pages of previously classified “Secret” documents from the Defense Department and State Department that revealed they knew immediately that the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was committed by the al Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood-linked “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman” (BCOAR). Further, they knew the attack had been planned at least 10 days in advance.
“The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012,” a document dated the day of the attack read “The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.”
Rahman is known as the Blind Sheikh, the radical cleric currently serving life in prison for his involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist acts. The documents also revealed for the first time administration official were aware of arms shipments from Benghazi to Syria. Further, documents also reference an August 2012 analysis warning of the rise of ISIS and the predicted failure of the Obama policy of regime change in Syria.
“These documents are jaw-dropping. No wonder we had to file more FOIA lawsuits and wait over two years for them,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “If the American people had known the truth – that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go – and yet lied and covered this fact up – Mitt Romney might very well be president.”
Indeed, on September 14, the very same day Hillary gave her lies-filled speech in front of the victims’ families, Mitt Romney was leading Obama by 7 points in Gallup tracking. And it was just under two months before the hotly contested president election.
That’s what this story was all about, plain and simple. Ensuring the reelection of the president and protecting the political capital of the woman who has wanted to be president for nearly two decades, took precedent over the truth and honoring dead Americans by telling the truth.
“These documents show that the Benghazi cover-up has continued for years and is only unraveling through our independent lawsuits,” Fitton added. “The Benghazi scandal just got a whole lot worse for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”
