BOMBSHELL! Newly Released Emails Reveal Obama Admin’s Reaction to Benghazi

By Greg Campbell 

Emails obtained by Judicial Watch have revealed that the top priority after the Benghazi terrorist attack was not national security nor was it ensuring a proper investigation into who orchestrated an attack on our consulate that left four Americans dead.

 

No, the priority of top advisors in the earliest days after the Benghazi attack was ensuring that President Obama “looked good” prior the 2012 election.

 

As part of a Freedom of Information Lawsuit, the Obama Administration released nearly 100 pages of documents to Judicial Watch, the government watchdog group, that shows that then-Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was prompted to lie to the American people repeatedly during her round of appearances on morning talk shows where she pushed the narrative that a YouTube video was responsible for an impromptu protest in Benghazi that simply got out of hand. 

In reality, the terrorist attack on the consulate in Benghazi was an orchestrated attack- a fact that had been denied by the Obama Administration for weeks following the attack and Rice’s appearances.

 

Among the pages of documents was an email from Ben Rhodes, assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, dated September 14^th, 2012. The email was sent to around a dozen members of the president’s top advisors and assistants with the subject: “RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET.”

 

The email enumerates the top priorities of these media appearances as being:  

To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”

 

and

 

“To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”  

Rhodes also wrote, 

“I think that people have come to trust that President Obama provides leadership that is steady and statesmanlike. There are always going to be challenges that emerge around the world, and time and again, he has shown that we can meet them.” 

Payton Knopf, the former deputy spokesman at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations also communicated in the released emails that the Benghazi attack was “complex,” but Rice still maintained her narrative that the Benghazi attack was “spontaneous.” 

Then-CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell is credited in the emails as being the person chiefly responsible for altering the talking points. An email notes, 

“The first draft apparently seemed unsuitable … because they seemed to encourage the reader to infer incorrectly that the CIA had warned about a specific attack on our embassy. Morell noted that these points were not good and he had taken a heavy hand to editing them. He noted that he would be happy to work with [then deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton] Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to develop appropriate talking points.”

Judicial Watch’s President Tom Fitton expressed outrage over the emails, noting that the emails appeared more in-line with a public relations strategy dedicated to damage control rather than dealing with the terrorist attack that killed Americans. 

“Now we know the Obama White House’s chief concern about the Benghazi attack was making sure that President Obama looked good,” Fitton said in a statement. “And these documents undermine the Obama administration’s narrative that it thought the Benghazi attack had something to do with protests or an Internet video.”

 

“Given the explosive material in these documents, it is no surprise that we had to go to federal court to pry them loose from the Obama State Department,” Fitton said. 

The Benghazi terrorist attack occurred as President Obama maintained a tight presidential race with Mitt Romney. By refocusing the narrative, the Obama Administration was able to largely downplay the significant impact of his administration’s weak foreign policy on American security abroad.

 

The released emails appear to confirm what the Tea Party and conservatives have long believed, that the Obama Administration has been infinitely more concerned with avoiding blame than ensuring this kind of tragedy doesn’t happen again or finding justice for the families of those ruthlessly murdered.