FPI / June 26, 2020
By Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch announced that the Department of Justice released 80 pages of records that show top Obama White House officials scrambling to “evolve” its false claims that the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on U.S. Government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, began “spontaneously” in response to an anti-Muslim video on the Internet.
The emails show top Obama White House official Ben Rhodes and Clinton State Department Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan joking about being called “liars” and “leakers.”
The records were produced in response to a Judicial Watch 2016 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the DOJ failed to comply with a July 7, 2016, FOIA request for records of the FBI’s investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her tenure.
“Joking about being called ‘liars’ after being caught lying about the Benghazi terrorist attack says a lot about the Obama-Clinton team’s contempt for the rule of law and those four innocent Americans murdered in Libya September 11, 2012,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
“The documents also show that Ben Rhodes, the Obama White House official who created the false story for Susan Rice to use on Benghazi, was planning to orchestrate again an ‘evolving’ explanation about the Benghazi attack by the Intelligence Community in time for then-President Obama’s re-election.”
On September 16, 2012, then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday television talk shows claiming the Benghazi attack was incited spontaneously by an anti-Muslim Internet video.
The newly released records show a redacted official’s email from September 27, 2012 to then-deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes and then-NSC spokesman Tommy Vietor, copying then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, saying, “What’s the plan here?”
Rhodes responds: “Broader plan is IC [intelligence community] acknowledgement of an evolving assessment of what took place, which happens to be true (unlike just about everything else we’ve seen reported on Benghazi.)”
Further along in the email thread, an official whose name is redacted, says, “Everyone know [sic] Susan [in her TV appearances] was using not just IC approved guidance, but IC created.”
Additionally, Rhodes says to Sullivan and other redacted officials: “At least you’re only a liar. Could be worse – we’re liars and also allegedly leakers. So you’ve got that going for you, which is something.”
Sullivan replies: “We’re only lying footsoldiers [sic]. You’re lying masterminds. That’s cooler.”
A redacted official replies to Sullivan: “I prefer that we go by henchmen. Has more of a Marvel comic sinisterness to it. There should be a cable show where all the guests, and the anchor, have to wear polygraphs. Or, when there’s a dispute between source, the aggrieved parties take a poly, with some neutral third party rendering judgment. The Biggest Liar.”
Rhodes says to Sullivan: “I’d like to go on television and tell everybody what I think…. Look at it this way. I[t] could be worse. You could be a career bureaucrat whose greatest thrill in life is leaking half-truths, self-justifications and outright lies to the likes of Eli Lake, Kim Dozier, and whoever picks up the phone at Fox News.”
Judicial Watch previously uncovered that on September 14, 2012 Rhodes and other Obama administration officials were attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Barack Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.”
Also included were numerous emails sent during the assault on the Benghazi diplomatic facility.
The contemporaneous and dramatic emails describe the assault as an “attack:”
September 11, 2012, 6:41 PM – Senior Advisor Eric Pelofsky, to Susan Rice: “As reported, the Benghazi compound came under attack and it took a bit of time for the ‘Annex’ colleagues and Libyan February 17 brigade to secure it. One of our colleagues was killed – IMO Sean Smith. Amb Chris Stevens, who was visiting Benghazi this week is missing. U.S. and Libyan colleagues are looking for him…”
At 8:51 p.m., Pelofsky tells Rice and others that “Post received a call from a person using an [sic] RSO phone that Chris was given saying the caller was with a person matching Chris’s description at a hospital and that he was alive and well. Of course, if he were alive and well, one could ask why he didn’t make the call himself.”
Later that evening, Pelofsky emailed Rice that he was “very, very worried. In particular that he [Stevens] is either dead or this was a concerted effort to kidnap him.” Rice replied, “God forbid.”
Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and two CIA operatives, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, both former Navy SEALs, were killed in the Benghazi terrorist attack.
FPI, Free Press International
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