Today ABC News confirmed that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to an original CIA draft on the Benghazi massacre. Nuland pushed her superiors to completely delete numerous references of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. She also persuaded more senior officials to delete information on at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants prior to 9-11. After all, an election was coming up.
Obama officials agreed with Nuland and decided to lie to the American people and claim that the offensive YouTube video was the reason for the attack.
But during her press conference on September 17, 2012, Victoria Nuland told reporters that what Ambassador Risce said on the Sunday talk shows was “very clear, very precise, about what our initial assessment of what happened.”
Victoria Nuland lied.
Here’s the transcript from the State Department:
QUESTION: Toria, in Friday’s briefing, Friday evening, you essentially stated that all questions concerning any aspect of the Benghazi attack – the circumstances surrounding it, the outcome of it, et cetera – would henceforth be directed by you to the FBI since it’s their investigation.
And yet, on five Sunday shows yesterday, Ambassador Rice, who works for the same agency as you, was giving the latest U.S. assessment of how this event unfolded, specifically by saying we don’t believe it was premeditated or preplanned, and by saying that those with heavy arms and so forth showed up, in essence, as she put it, to hijack an ongoing demonstration.
So my first question for you is: Given that Ambassador Rice is out there talking publicly about it and not referring Bob Schieffer and Chris Wallace and the rest to the FBI, may we consider that we can again begin asking you questions at this podium about the circumstances of the attack? If it’s fair for the Ambassador to discuss it, it should be fair in this room, correct?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by reminding you that Ambassador Rice outranks me, as does my own boss, so she is often at liberty to say more than I am. And I guess that’s going to continue to be the case.
What I will say, though, is that Ambassador Rice, in her comments on every network over the weekend, was very clear, very precise, about what our initial assessment of what happened is. And this was not just her assessment. It was also an assessment that you’ve heard in comments coming from the intelligence community, in comments coming from the White House. I don’t have anything to give you beyond that.She also made clear, as I had on Friday, that there is an ongoing FBI investigation. So frankly, I’m not sure that it’s useful to go beyond that. I’m not capable of going beyond that, and we’ll have to just see what the FBI investigation brings us.
QUESTION: You would acknowledge, however, that the account of the events, the preliminary account of the events that Ambassador Rice offered, diverges starkly from the account offered by the Libyan President, correct?
MS. NULAND: Well, we’ve heard a number of different things from Libya. I would simply say that what – the comments that Ambassador Rice made accurately reflect our government’s initial assessment.
It’s very clear today that lib Victoria Nuland was not honest with reporters.
