WH Benghazi emails have different quotes than earlier reported
(CBS News) WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama called Thursday for tighter security for U.S. diplomatic facilities to prevent an attack like the one in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
The Benghazi attack is a political controversy. Republicans claim the administration watered down the facts in talking points given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for television appearances while Obama was running for re-election. Republicans on Capitol Hill claimed they found proof in White House emails that they leaked to reporters last week. It turns out some of the quotes were wrong.
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.
One email was written by deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.
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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."
Below: President Obama calls on Congress to help bolster diplomatic security.
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.
