Hillary’s Top Aides Knew from First Minutes that Benghazi Was a Terrorist Attack, E-mails Disclose

FULL TITLE: Hillary Clinton’s Top Aides Knew from First Minutes that Benghazi Was a Terrorist Attack, E-mails Disclose

From the very first moments of the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aides were advised that the compound was under a terrorist attack. In fact, less than two hours into the attack, they were told that the al-Qaeda affiliate in Libya, Ansar al-Sharia, had claimed responsibility.

These revelations and others are disclosed by a trove of e-mails and other documents pried from the State Department by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The FOIA litigation focuses on Mrs. Clinton’s involvement in the government actions before, during, and after the Benghazi attack, in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, was murdered by terrorists. Also killed in the attack were State Department information management officer Sean Smith, and two former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who were contract security employees and who had fought heroically, saving numerous American lives. At least ten other Americans were wounded, some quite seriously.

At 4:07 p.m., just minutes after the terrorist attack began, Cheryl Mills, Secretary Clinton’s chief-of-staff, and Joseph McManus, Mrs. Clinton’s executive assistant, received an e-mail from the State Department’s operations center (forwarded to her by Maria Sand, a special assistant to Secretary Clinton). It contained a report from the State Department’s regional security officer (RSO), entitled “U.S. Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi is Under Attack.” The e-mail explained that approximately 20 armed people had fired shots at the diplomatic mission, that explosions had been heard as well, and that Ambassador Stevens was believed to be in the compound with at least four other State Department officials.

About a half-hour later, another e-mail — this one from Scott Bultrowicz, then director of diplomatic security (DSCC) — related:

At 6:06 p.m., another e-mail that went to top State Department officials explained that the local al-Qaeda affiliate had claimed responsibility for the attack:

Despite this evidence that her top staffers were informed from the start that a terrorist attack was underway and that an al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group had claimed credit for it, Secretary Clinton issued an official statement claiming the assault may have been in “response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”

This was a reference to an obscure anti-Islamic video trailer for a film called Innocence of Muslims. Secretary Clinton’s statement took pains to add that “the United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others” — further intimating that the video was the cause of the attack.

I have previously recounted that this official Clinton statement was issued shortly after 10 p.m. — minutes after President Obama and Secretary Clinton spoke briefly on the telephone about events in Benghazi, according to Clinton’s congressional testimony. The White House initially denied that Obama had spoken with Clinton or other top cabinet officials that night. The president’s version of events changed after Secretary Clinton’s testimony.

As I’ve also previously detailed (see here and here), Gregory Hicks, Ambassador Stevens’ deputy who was in Tripoli at the time of the Benghazi attacks, was the main State Department official in Libya briefing his superiors that night. He testified before Congress that he briefed Secretary Clinton and her top aides at 8 p.m. He further testified that the video was a “non-event” in Benghazi.

Hicks added that he was clear in his briefing and other communications with his superiors that the Benghazi operation was a terrorist attack. Indeed, at the time he briefed Clinton, the pressing concern was that Ambassador Stevens might then be being held at a hospital that was under the control of terrorists. An hour later, at 9 p.m., Hicks learned from the Libyan prime minister that Stevens had been killed.

At 12:11 a.m., about two hours after the issuance of Secretary Clinton’s statement suggesting that the video had prompted the violence, Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief-of-staff, e-mailed State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland to ask, “Can we stop answering emails for the night Toria b/c now the first one is hanging out there.” This appears to be a suggestion that the State Department allow Secretary Clinton’s statement stand alone as the department’s narrative for the media. At the time, the attack was still ongoing and there were still press inquiries about Ambassador Stevens’s whereabouts and well-being.

The revelations in the newly released e-mails were unveiled by Judicial Watch this afternoon at a press conference in Washington. In a press statement, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton asserted that the e-mails left “no doubt that Hillary Clinton’s closest advisers knew the truth about the Benghazi attack from almost the moment it happened.” Mr. Fitton further opined that “it is inescapable that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton knowingly lied when she planted the false story about ‘inflammatory material being posted on the Internet.’ The contempt for the public’s right to know is evidenced not only in these documents but also in the fact that we had to file a lawsuit in federal court to obtain them.

It was obvious right after the Benghazi attack even to readers of the New York Times that it was a terrorist operation and not an angry mob.

Here we have Ethan Chorin writing in the Slimes on September 13, 2012. Chorin and a Mass General doc, Thomas Burke, were in Benghazi on a mission to assist Libyan doctors in establishing an emergency room at the Benghazi Medical Center:

On Tuesday night, even as the men who would kill him were closing in, Ambassador Stevens told us by phone how happy he was that the project was nearing fruition. He told us it was important to show our government’s support for such initiatives, and we made plans to meet with the medical center’s director general, Dr. Fathi al-Jehani, at the hospital the next morning. Dr. Jehani himself had been a target of violence for his forward-thinking views.
About half an hour later, I called the ambassador’s security detail to discuss the visit, only to hear the words “we’ve got a problem here” — with an alarming expletive inserted. The line went dead. And we were left to listen helplessly as the sounds of distant violence carried across the city to our hotel room — a long rocket-propelled grenade volley, and machine-gun fire that continued for the better part of an hour.
Ambassador Stevens arrived after midnight at Benghazi Medical Center, where we were to have met. Its emergency room staff, which included Libyan expatriates who had returned from well-paid jobs abroad, worked for 45 minutes to try to resuscitate him. It was no use.

So there it was two days after the fact in the Progressive New York Times: incontrovertible evidence Benghazi was a terrorist attack and not a popular uprising about a movie.

I think the Vast Majority of us Right Wingers thought so the minute we heard it. lol

Hillary Clinton is THE original source of the 'video did it' excuse for Benghazi, Cairo and all the rest of the embassy riots around the world. Hillary did it!

US Embassy in Cairo quietly deletes its ‘we stand by our condemnation’ tweet; Update: More deleted tweets!
These tweets happened at least six hours and as much as 12 hours before the attack in Benghazi.

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