Republicans Altered Benghazi Emails

. . . The White House released the real emails late Wednesday. Here's what we found when we compared them to the quotes that had been provided by Republicans.

One email was written by deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: "We 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."

But it turns out that in the actual email, Rhodes did not mention the State Department.

It read: "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

Republicans also provided what they said was a quote from an email written by State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland.

The Republican version quotes Nuland discussing, "The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda's presence and activities of al-Qaeda."

The actual email from Nuland says: "The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings."

The CIA agreed with the concerns raised by the State Department and revised the talking points to make them less specific than the CIA's original version, eliminating references to al Qaeda and affiliates and earlier security warnings. There is no evidence that the White House orchestrated the changes.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57584947/wh-benghazi-emails-have-different-quotes-than-earlier-reported/

Originally posted by moon1969
[quote] . . . The White House released the real emails late Wednesday. Here's what we found when we compared them to the quotes that had been provided by Republicans.

One email was written by deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: "We must make sure that the talking points ref ...[text shortened]... 1-18563_162-57584947/wh-benghazi-emails-have-different-quotes-than-earlier-reported/

If, in fact, which I doubt, the emails were altered, it doesn't make any sense. What Rhodes and Nuland actually said - if this is true - is far worse than the edited versions.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
If, in fact, which I doubt, the emails were altered, it doesn't make any sense. What Rhodes and Nuland actually said - if this is true - is far worse than the edited versions.

You are so in isolation in your strained incoherent thought.

Take as an example this email quote below altered by the Republicans who injected "State Department" into the edited quote to distort, when the actual quote was focused on preserving the investigation while acknowledging equities generally. Everyone agrees but you.

The emails support what the WH has been saying all along, and completely undercut and highlight the stupidity of the extreme partisan Republicans and Fox News.

Republican edited version: "We 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."

Real version: "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

UPDATE

So Who Lied to ABC News About the Benghazi Emails?

ABC News' Jonathan Karl's revelation of the White House's role in 12 revisions to the Benghazi talking points propelled the story, long percolating in conservative media, into a bona fide scandal. But then CNN's Jake Tapper's revelation of what the emails actually said revealed that to be a fake scandal. So who lied to Karl? While Karl's report implied that he was quoting actual emails between the State Department, the CIA, and the White House, they were actually summaries written by congressional staffers who were allowed to read and take notes on the emails earlier this year. Their notes were not transcripts. The summaries quoted deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes saying "the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department," when he actually wrote, "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

http://news.yahoo.com/lied-abc-news-benghazi-emails-190506030.html


CBS: Republicans were source of inaccurate Benghazi emails

From a logical standpoint, it was pretty obvious that Republicans were the source of the inaccurate Benghazi talking point emails reported last Friday by ABC News White House correspondent Jon Karl, but when the actual emails surfaced, Karl did not acknowledge who his sources were.

Now, thanks to Major Garrett of CBS News, we have explicit confirmation that Republicans were behind the false leaks. Garrett reports (emphasis added):

Republicans have charged that the State Department under Hillary Clinton was trying to protect itself from criticism. The White House released the real emails late Wednesday. Here's what we found when we compared them to the quotes that had been provided by Republicans.

Garrett highlights emails by White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes and State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. According to Republicans, the emails showed that the White House had executed a coverup not just of the fact that terrorists had conducted the Benghazi attack, but also that the CIA had warned the State Department that al Qaeda was planning the attack.

The reality is that even if the Republicans transcript of the emails had been accurate, it wouldn't have been a smoking gun to prove their claim that Benghazi is a bona fide scandal. Ironically, now that we know Republicans fabricated the emails, there actually is a scandal worth pursuing: the story of how Republicans dishonestly exploited a national security tragedy to score political points.

Originally posted by moon1969
UPDATE

[quote][b]So Who Lied to ABC News About the Benghazi Emails?

ABC News' Jonathan Karl's revelation of the White House's role in 12 revisions to the Benghazi talking points propelled the story, long percolating in conservative media, into a bona fide scandal. But then CNN's Jake Tapper's revelation of what the emails actually said revealed th ...[text shortened]... ans dishonestly exploited a national security tragedy to score political points.[/b][/b]

So you're telling me that the four lives lost, the calls for additional security willfully ignored for months, the failure to act over a period of months when the threat level had increased to existential and grave, and then the lying by the Administration in the weeks leading up to an election - none of this matters. Really?

I have the same disregard for the continuation of your life as you have for the lives of those four men.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
So you're telling me that the four lives lost, the calls for additional security willfully ignored for months, the failure to act over a period of months when the threat level had increased to existential and grave, and then the lying by the Administration in the weeks leading up to an election - none of this matters. Really?

I have the same disregard for the continuation of your life as you have for the lives of those four men.

You have no regard for those four dead American heroes. Instead, you defecate on them and dishonor their families in being brainwashed by right-wing hacks and Fox News in lying and distorting and using their deaths for sheer political gain.

Originally posted by moon1969
You have no regard for those four dead American heroes. Instead, you defecate on them and dishonor their families in being brainwashed by right-wing hacks and Fox News in lying and distorting and using their deaths for sheer political gain.

Looks like you and your continued incoherent, hysterical, effeminate claims of wrongdoing by Republicans got slammed to the deck once again. Three Pinocchios from the Washington Post on "Republicans Doctored Emails"...and bitch please. If I were one of the ones killed over there I would sure as hell hope that someone back here would be stomping the guts out of the responsible parties.


The White House claim of ‘doctored e-mails... to smear the president’

Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:00 AM ET, 05/21/2013

(CHRIS USHER/AP) “That’s a very serious offense that happened where Republicans on the Hill, we voluntarily provided these e-mails to, took one of them, doctored it and gave it to ABC News in an attempt to smear the president.”

— White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” May 19, 2013

“I think one of the problems that there’s so much controversy here is because one of the e-mails was doctored by a Republican source and given to the media to falsely smear the president.”

— Pfeiffer, on Fox News Sunday, May 19

“They received these e-mails months ago, didn’t say a word about it, didn’t complain ... And then last week a Republican source provided to Jon Karl of ABC News a doctored version of a White House e-mail that started this entire fear. After 25,000 pieces of paper are provided to Congress they have to doctor e-mail to make political hay, you know they’re getting desperate here.”

— Pfeiffer, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” May 19

When a White House aide uses the same word — “doctored” — on three television shows, you know it is a carefully crafted talking point. On top of that, he says that this was done to “smear the president.”

These are strong words concerning the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. But is this a case of the White House communications chief taking liberties with the facts?





The Facts


Under pressure, the White House in March provided the e-mails to Capitol Hill Republicans surrounding the development of its talking points on the Benghazi attack when John Brennan was nominated to be CIA director. The talking points became an issue because they were used by U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice on the Sunday public affairs shows the week after the attack. Republicans, however, were not permitted to have copies of e-mails, but could only take notes on them.

The broad outlines of the mail exchanges were first disclosed in an April 23 report by House Republicans. The report quoted from and summarized various e-mails, but without the names of the senders attached. Far from Pfeiffer’s claim that Republicans “didn’t complain,” the report was highly critical.

“The Administration’s talking points were developed in an interagency process that focused more on protecting the reputation and credibility of the State Department than on explaining to the American people the facts surrounding the fatal attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities and personnel in Libya,” the report asserted.

In early May, Stephen Hayes of The Weekly Standard reported more details on the e-mails, in some cases explaining which officials were involved. But a central focus of his article was on the different versions of the talking points that emerged from the interagency process. Hayes, in most cases, summarized the e-mails unless quotes were in the House report.

Then, on May 10, ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported that there were 12 versions of talking points, under the headline: “Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference.” That was the key focus of the online article, as well as Karl’s appearances on the broadcast network that day. Karl, in fact, got all 12 versions of the talking points correct.

Karl started the article by citing “White House e-mails reviewed by ABC News.”

Later, he referred to “summaries of White House and State Department e-mails” and then lower in the article quoted from those e-mail summaries directly. As worded, the article gave the impression that these were actual quotes from e-mails.

In particular, Karl quotes Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes as writing late on the evening of Sept. 14:

“We 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.”

On May 13, CNN obtained the actual e-mail written by Rhodes, which said:

“We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation….We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies.”

Note the correct version is missing a direct reference to the State Department. CNN, which had only obtained the single e-mail, used strong words in its report about its competitor, ABC: “Whoever provided those accounts seemingly invented the notion that Rhodes wanted the concerns of the State Department specifically addressed.”

When the White House last week released all of its e-mails, it became clear that Rhodes was responding at the tail end of a series of e-mail exchanges that largely discussed the State Department concerns.

In other words, the summary would have been fairly close if the commas had been removed and replaced with brackets: “We 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.”

So is this more a case of some sloppy note-taking and reportorial imprecision? (There were also some discrepancies concerning an e-mail from State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.) Hayes, on May 14, noted: “Neither of my pieces quoted the Rhodes e-mail. This was no accident. Near-verbatim is not verbatim.”

Karl over the weekend tweeted, “I sincerely regret the error I made describing an email from Ben Rhodes. I should have stated, as I did elsewhere, the reporting was based on a summary provided by a source. I apologize for my mistake.” He declined to comment further.

“I didn’t speak to anyone who represented the email summaries as direct quotes,” Hayes said in an e-mail Monday. “I called around on Capitol Hill and elsewhere to follow up on what I thought were interesting footnotes in the House GOP report on Benghazi. Those notes referred to specific emails (and included exact times) and I thought there might be more to learn.”

Moreover, the full disclosure of e-mails makes it clear that White House officials were concerned about the State Department’s objections.

Referring to then deputy national security adviser (and now White House chief of staff), White House press officer Tommy Vietor wrote at 6:21 p.m.: “Denis [McDonough] would also like to make sure the highlighted portions are fully coordinated with the State Department in the event they get inquiries.” (He’s referring to sections in the draft that mention Ansar al-Sharia and to prior terror warnings in Benghazi — both of which were removed in the final draft.)

There is also the comment at 9:14 p.m. by a CIA official: “The State Department had major reservations with much or most of the document. We revised the document with those concerns in mind.”

White House officials argue that these e-mails show that the White House was coordinating the development of the talking points, favoring no side. Indeed, for all the accusations that the White House deliberately changed the talking points, this e-mail comment from a CIA official would greatly undercut that claim: “The White House cleared quickly, but State has major concerns.”

White House officials said that Pfeiffer’s claim of “doctored” e-mails is supported by a report on May 16 by CBS’s Major Garrett: “On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: ‘We 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.’ But it turns out that in the actual e-mail, Rhodes did not mention the State Department. It read: ‘We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.’”

News anchor Scott Pelley, in introducing Garrett’s report, announced that “it turns out some of the quotes in those e-mails were wrong.”

Garrett referred a call to Sonya McNair, CBS spokeswoman, who said “Major’s report speaks for itself.”

Garrett’s report appears to quoting Karl’s version of the Rhodes e-mail. But oddly it also seems to be rebuke of reporting by his CBS colleague, Sharyl Attkisson, who published a story on May 10 that initially purported to quote from the e-mails. Yet her Rhodes quote is slightly different: “We don’t want to undermine the investigation...we want to address every department’s equities including the State Department, so we’ll deal with this at the Deputies meeting.” Garrett’s report, however, corrected her version of the Nuland e-mail, not Karl’s.

A columnist for Mediaite reported that Attkisson, when she filed her story, warned these e-mails were paraphrased. After Garrett’s report aired, Attkisson reiterated that point in an e-mail to reporters and editors: “The talking point draft emails read to CBS News last Friday were from handwritten notes, and the attorney source explained why they were not direct quotes and could not be represented as such, as I noted at the top of my reporting for important context.”

Attkisson did not respond to a request for comment. But since then, CBS has updated her original May 10 story with similar language, noting that this paragraph was “included in the original story submission but was omitted from a previous version due to an inadvertent error in the editing process.”

(In one of those onl...

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Looks like you and your continued incoherent, hysterical, effeminate claims of wrongdoing by Republicans got slammed to the deck once again. Three Pinocchios from the Washington Post on "Republicans Doctored Emails"...and bitch please. If I were one of the ones killed over there I would sure as hell hope that someone back here would be stomping the gu ...[text shortened]... evious version due to an inadvertent error in the editing process.”

(In one of those onl...

I see nothing in your long-rambling reply. First, it is not disputed that the Republican version of the emails were different than the actual emails, and that the Republicans favored their version -- the altered version.

Second, the CIA led the talking points revisions and the State Department contributed. The White House was third in line in terms of influence, with only a focus on the investigation, not politics.

The White House was not involved in the typical quasi-blame game between the CIA and State Department. Again, the focus of the White House was to be smart about the investigation. Not politics. The wild-ass conspiracy of Fox News and their right-wing hacks are ridiculous.

There is no fire. There is no smoking gun. There is no wolf. "There is no there."

The White House was and is concerned about stating information publicly that could compromise the investigation in capturing and prosecuting those who carried out the Benghazi attack, and rightfully so. Indeed, there is likely information still being maintained in confidence or classified so not to jeopardize the search for the thugs or to weaken later prosecution.

Originally posted by moon1969
I see nothing in your long-rambling reply. First, it is not disputed that the Republican version of the emails were different than the actual emails, and that the Republicans favored their version -- the altered version.

Second, the CIA led the talking points revisions and the State Department contributed. The White House was third in line in terms of i ...[text shortened]... ce or classified so not to jeopardize the search for the thugs or to weaken later prosecution.

I wonder if you'd be able to deny the truth of being smacked repeatedly in the face as willingly as you deny the truth about Benghazi.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
I wonder if you'd be able to deny the truth of being smacked repeatedly in the face as willingly as you deny the truth about Benghazi.

Look in the mirror. No one including Dick Isaa has demonstrated evidence that the White House doctored talking points for political gain. How long will you keep denying the truth and not admitting the unAmerican political witch hunt of the right-wing.

Note the incredible similarities of McCarthy and Isaa.

Originally posted by moon1969
Look in the mirror. No one including Dick Isaa has demonstrated evidence that the White House doctored talking points for political gain. How long will you keep denying the truth and not admitting the unAmerican political witch hunt of the right-wing.

Note the incredible similarities of McCarthy and Isaa.

Which with hunt are you talking about? The witch hunt by the Department of Justice targeting the AP and Fox News, or the witch hunt by the IRS targeting conservative groups?

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Which with hunt are you talking about? The witch hunt by the Department of Justice targeting the AP and Fox News, or the witch hunt by the IRS targeting conservative groups?

I notice you dodged the question. When will you admit to yourself that Dick Isaa is on a unAmerican witch hunt regarding the Benghazi talking points for sheer political gain against the President without demonstrating any supporting evidence?

Notice any similarities between McCarthy and Isaa?

Originally posted by moon1969
I notice you dodged the question. When will you admit to yourself that Dick Isaa is on a unAmerican witch hunt regarding the Benghazi talking points for sheer political gain against the President without demonstrating any supporting evidence?

Notice any similarities between McCarthy and Isaa?

Jesus. I can only attribute your last post to willful ignorance.

You don't think it's significant that the State Department chose to alter the facts presented to the public in an election season?

EDIT: I'll tell you where I see an analog to McCarthyism in American government. In the IRS' persecution of conservative political groups.

EDIT 2: your comparison of McCarthy and Issa in this context is absurd.

Originally posted by sasquatch672
Jesus. I can only attribute your last post to willful ignorance.

You don't think it's significant that the State Department chose to alter the facts presented to the public in an election season?

EDIT: I'll tell you where I see an analog to McCarthyism in American government. In the IRS' persecution of conservative political groups.

"We're getting to proving it." --Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

"Well, first of all, we're looking at the IRS for how big the problem is," he replied. "As you know as late as last week the administration is still trying to say there's a few rogue agents in Cincinnati when in fact the indication is they were directly being ordered from Washington."

--Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Note what Issa is doing. He does it all the time--start an unsubstantiated allegation with an absolute declaration ("when in fact" ) and follow it with weasel words ("the indication is" ). This smear-and-caveat technique allows him to ruin reputations without being called a liar.

McCarthy would be proud.