But here's where the plot thickens.
DNI spokesman Shawn Turner told CBS News, "The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack." He added that this classified information was shared with the White House. CBS News then quite correctly concludes that as a member of Obama's cabinet, Susan Rice would would've known this. All cabinet members are given classified briefings.
The bottom line, then, is that during her Sunday show appearances, Rice knew the information she was spreading was false.
CBS: Office of the DNI cut al-Qaeda and terrorism references from Benghazi talking points
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Nov 20, 2012 11:01 AM by Ed Morrissey
Meet James Clapper the latest fall guy for the White House on Benghazi. After last weeks hearings in Congress showed that the talking points from the CIA had been changed to eliminate the mention of terrorism, Washington erupted into a whodunit. CBS reports today that the culprit has been found sort of: ...
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Video(CBS) at the link
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CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to al Qaeda and terrorism from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes.
However, an intelligence source tells CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan the links to al Qaeda were deemed too tenuous to make public, because there was not strong confidence in the person providing the intelligence. CIA Director David Petraeus, however, told Congress he agreed to release the information the reference to al Qaeda in an early draft of the talking points, which were also distributed to select lawmakers.
The intelligence community assessed from the very beginning that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. DNI spokesman Shawn Turner tells CBS News. That information was shared at a classified level which Rice, as a member of President Obamas cabinet, would have been privy to.
The head of the DNI is James Clapper, an Obama appointee. He ultimately did review the points, before they were given to Ambassador Rice and members of the House intelligence committee on Sept. 14. They were compiled the day before.
Note that this report doesnt pin the blame on Clapper himself. It instead locates the change in Clappers office, allowing for a rather non-specific assignment that makes almost no sense at all. Are we to believe that a Clapper aide overruled David Petraeus assessment of Benghazi? If so, on what basis?
The report also states that the reason for the redaction was because the link to AQ was too tenuous. However, the presence of mortars and RPGs, as well as coordinated fire and attack strategies in play, made it clear almost immediately to Petraeus and others in the CIA that this was much more than a spontaneous demonstration run amok. That made the YouTube video explanation rather tenuous too, no? And yet that stayed in the talking points while terrorism got excised.
This explanation seems even more tenuous than the previous stories coming from the White House. If Petraeus knew almost immediately that this was an act of deliberate terrorism and included that in his talking points, then we need an explanation of who in the office of the DNI removed that explanation, and why more than just the too tenuous excuse here that turned out to be totally wrong and whether they got pressured to do so.