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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Clinton Confidant Revealed as Source of Benghazi Misinformation
By Helle Dale | May 28, 2015 | 5:02 PM EDT
Hillary Clinton (AP Photo)
One of the mysteries surrounding the Benghazi scandal appears to have been
solved with the release of the private emails of former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton.
The question was who came up with the false narrative of the cause of the
attack on the U.S. Benghazi consulate on Sept. 11, 2012. The answer,
according to emails obtained by The New York Times, is Sidney Blumenthal,
former journalist and longtime confidante of the Clintons.
Both the Department of Defense and the State Department immediately
identified terrorism as the cause of the attack on Benghazi. But it was
Hillary Clinton, in remarks at the U.S.-Morocco Strategic Dialogue on Sept.
13 of that year, who first suggested the activity at the Benghazi consulate
began as a demonstration over an anti-Islam YouTube video. And now
compelling evidence in the email trail points to Blumenthal as the source of
that narrative.
Blumenthal had been communicating extensively but privately with Clinton on
the subject of Libya, where he had various sources of intelligence and was
advising a group of potential investors. Blumenthal’s role is revealed in
nearly 350 pages of emails, a sizable portion of the 850 reviewed by The New
York Times.
On Sept. 12, Blumenthal wrote in a memo to Clinton that the attacks were by
“demonstrators” who “were inspired by what many devout Libyans viewed as
a sacrilegious Internet video on the prophet Mohammed originating in America
.” Clinton forwarded Blumenthal’s account to others at State, and it
became the foundation of the Obama administration’s narrative for the next
two weeks.
This narrative formed the basis for, among other things, President Obama’s
speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 25; a video featuring Obama and
Clinton speaking to Muslims and denouncing religious intolerance; and the
appearance of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on five national talk shows on
Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, during which she denounced the Benghazi attack as
the “direct result” of a “heinous and offensive video.”
But the real facts of the attack appear to have been communicated to the
Obama administration, including Clinton, in timely fashion. On Sept. 13,
even Blumenthal had written back to Clinton with a more comprehensive update
. In this memo, Blumenthal stated members of Ansar al-Shariah, the Libyan
terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda, had planned the attacks for a month
and had used a nearby protest as cover.
This version conforms more closely to Defense Department documents obtained
by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request and also
released last week. The House Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi
wasted no time issuing a subpoena to Blumenthal, who has said he will comply.
Were it not for the chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and the committee’s
diligence, Clinton’s private emails and the full facts of the Benghazi
scandal might never be known.
Helle C. Dale is the Heritage Foundation's senior fellow in public diplomacy
. Her work focuses on the U.S. government’s institutions and programs for
strategic outreach to the public of foreign countries, as well as more
traditional diplomacy. |
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