Emails Point To John Brennan As Benghazi Talking Points Editor
“A fifth-grader can see that Brennan’s involvement in the Benghazi cover-up is greater than these redacted and incomplete emails indicate. Now he’s safely ensconced at the CIA, directing the agency he subverted.” -IBD
(Investors Business Daily)
Brennan revised clear-cut agency intelligence. He played politics with national security.
He should be held accountable.
National Security: If a thorough investigation is conducted into the origins of the al-Qaida attacks on Benghazi, Republicans will regret not blocking John Brennan’s confirmation as CIA director.
Not only did Brennan, as White House counterterrorism czar, take his eye off al-Qaida in Libya, but Wednesday night’s White House email dump in response to congressional subpoena reveals he played a role in the Benghazi cover-up.
This is something we’ve suspected since last fall, when we first called for his resignation.
Then in January, when the president outrageously nominated him for CIA director, we argued that Benghazigate should automatically disqualify him for such a sensitive national security post.
He wasn’t suited for the job he had, let alone director of intelligence.
Now we have evidence Brennan was personally involved in covering his own failure.
A Sept. 14 high-level email conveys: “FYI, Brennan will have edits.” Another reads: “John’s edits below.”
Though heavily redacted, the emails clearly show Brennan had final say over CIA talking points. He was the key revisionist. Before he reviewed the notes, the CIA stated unequivocally that al-Qaida was behind the attacks on U.S. diplomats and CIA operatives in Libya.
After he got them, al-Qaida is scrubbed and the attacks are blamed on a “spontaneously inspired” protest started in Cairo.
On Saturday, Sept. 15, Brennan led a White House meeting with security aides and senior State Department officials. There, they crafted the final version of the talking points fed to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.
On Sunday, she told every major TV news show that a YouTube video offensive to Muslims caused the attacks and that it wasn’t terrorism.
This was demonstrably false.
Republicans agreed to stop delaying Brennan’s confirmation vote in exchange for White House emails. They should have held out for more.
Missing from the dump are exchanges with Brennan’s office. Also, what did Brennan say in that Sept. 15 deputies meeting? We don’t know. He was never asked.
Just like he was never asked why he’s so soft on Islamic jihad. Or why early in the administration he said he’d go after terrorists with a “scalpel” and not a “hammer” to “win the hearts and minds” of Muslims.
Or why when terrorists are caught on U.S. soil, as in the case of the Christmas Day bomber, does he insist on letting them lawyer up.
Or why he bleached “jihad” from all counterterror training at the FBI and Homeland Security.
Or why he argued the term “jihadists” should not be used to describe America’s Islamist enemies, and why he once defended jihad as “a legitimate tenet of Islam.”
A fifth-grader can see that Brennan’s involvement in the Benghazi cover-up is greater than these redacted and incomplete emails indicate. Now he’s safely ensconced at the CIA, directing the agency he subverted.
Brennan revised clear-cut agency intelligence. He played politics with national security.
He should be held accountable.
Publius Prime 