Shocking testimony from Gregory Hicks, a top U.S. official in Libya during the September attack on our Benghazi consulate, makes it increasingly clear that the Obama administration misled the American people about the Benghazi assault.
All
the emerging evidence shows that the administration tried to spin the Benghazi
story to match its triumphant claim that al Qaeda is all but eliminated. A
deadly attack on a U.S. consulate by al Qaeda-linked terrorists doesn’t fit the
narrative, so the administration dismissed intelligence reports revealing that known terrorists were involved in
the attack, insisting instead that it
evolved out of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islamic YouTube
video.
The
Weekly Standard today offers new details
about Obama officials’ removal of references to al Qaeda and affiliated groups
from the CIA’s initial talking points on the attack. (The magazine’s graphic
showing the editing of the talking points is below.) This supports the damning
findings of an interim investigative report
released by five congressional committees, which found that White House and top
State Department officials altered the talking points to protect the State
Department from criticism; that contrary to administration claims, the talking
points were not changed to protect classified information; and that pre-attack
reductions in security levels at the Benghazi consulate were approved at the
highest levels of the State Department, which contradicts Hillary Clinton’s
statements on the issue.
Then
there is the testimony
of Hicks himself. Having reported from Libya that the consulate was under
terrorist attack, he described to a House committee his shock when he first
heard the administration’s false narrative. After challenging its story, he was
effectively demoted.
In
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, we will continue to
demand an honest explanation of the Benghazi
attack and a full account of what seems to be a coordinated cover-up. Four
Americans were killed in Benghazi, and the American people deserve to know
exactly what happened there and why they were not told the truth.
