Kathianne
08-06-2016, 08:39 AM
http://nypost.com/2016/08/05/that-spooks-for-hillary-endorsement-came-from-the-guy-who-took-al-qaeda-out-of-the-benghazi-talking-points/
Ex-CIA spook who whitewashed Benghazi endorses Hillary (http://nypost.com/2016/08/05/that-spooks-for-hillary-endorsement-came-from-the-guy-who-took-al-qaeda-out-of-the-benghazi-talking-points/)
By Kenneth R. Timmerman (http://nypost.com/author/kenneth-r-timmerman/) August 5, 2016 |
Hillary has become a spook’s candidate. Former deputy CIA Director Michael Morell, who so conveniently covered her tracks in Benghazi, has now confirmed it.
In a glowing endorsement his friends at The New York Times prominently featured Friday, Morell gave his full-throated support to Clinton (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i-ran-the-cia-now-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton.html), while insisting that he was no partisan and had even voted Republican in the past.
...
Those are strong words, especially coming from someone who we are led to believe is an unimpeachable source. But is he?
The “non-partisan” Morell was caught “mis-speaking” to Congress about his role in sanitizing the infamous CIA talking points prepared for US Ambassador Susan Rice to deliver on the Sunday talk shows after the Benghazi attacks. And when he was caught out, like a faithful soldier, he fell on his sword.
Here’s how it happened: After Susan Rice’s outlandish claims on the Sunday talk shows that the Benghazi attacks began as a spontaneous protest over a “hateful” YouTube video, Congress began asking where she had gotten that information. This is how lawmakers discovered that the intelligence community had drafted her talking points, with input from the White House and Hillary Clinton’s staff.
Early drafts of the talking points included a mention of al Qaeda. But that reference was removed in the final drafts. Sen. Lindsay Graham explained to me what happened next.
“On Nov. 27, 2012, Morell and Susan Rice came into my office,” he told me. “I asked Morell who changed [the talking points]. He said, the FBI deleted the reference to al Qaeda because of an ongoing criminal investigation. So I called the FBI. They said, no, they didn’t change the talking points. They were furious.”
Apparently, that was an understatement: Someone at a senior level at FBI called the CIA to protest directly. Graham continued the story: “At 4 p.m. that day, CIA called me and said Morell ‘mis-spoke’ in his meeting with me, and that CIA deleted [the reference to al Qaeda], but they couldn’t give a reason why.”
Graham thought the reason was obvious: “If the truth had been known that al Qaeda killed four Americans seven weeks before an election, it would have been a different political story.”
Remember what Obama and his surrogates were saying? “Osama is dead, GM is alive.” That was their campaign mantra.
In fact, it was Morell himself who made those changes.
Morell subsequently testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and eventually before the Benghazi Select Committee, twisting himself into a pretzel to explain why he removed any mention of the al Qaeda involvement in the attacks.
He ultimately claimed he believed news reports calling the Benghazi attacks a protest gone wild were more credible than repeated e-mails and cables from his own station chief in Libya insisting there had never been a protest.
It was an admission of gross incompetence — or partisanship. But that was the party line Clinton was putting out.
...
Ex-CIA spook who whitewashed Benghazi endorses Hillary (http://nypost.com/2016/08/05/that-spooks-for-hillary-endorsement-came-from-the-guy-who-took-al-qaeda-out-of-the-benghazi-talking-points/)
By Kenneth R. Timmerman (http://nypost.com/author/kenneth-r-timmerman/) August 5, 2016 |
Hillary has become a spook’s candidate. Former deputy CIA Director Michael Morell, who so conveniently covered her tracks in Benghazi, has now confirmed it.
In a glowing endorsement his friends at The New York Times prominently featured Friday, Morell gave his full-throated support to Clinton (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/05/opinion/campaign-stops/i-ran-the-cia-now-im-endorsing-hillary-clinton.html), while insisting that he was no partisan and had even voted Republican in the past.
...
Those are strong words, especially coming from someone who we are led to believe is an unimpeachable source. But is he?
The “non-partisan” Morell was caught “mis-speaking” to Congress about his role in sanitizing the infamous CIA talking points prepared for US Ambassador Susan Rice to deliver on the Sunday talk shows after the Benghazi attacks. And when he was caught out, like a faithful soldier, he fell on his sword.
Here’s how it happened: After Susan Rice’s outlandish claims on the Sunday talk shows that the Benghazi attacks began as a spontaneous protest over a “hateful” YouTube video, Congress began asking where she had gotten that information. This is how lawmakers discovered that the intelligence community had drafted her talking points, with input from the White House and Hillary Clinton’s staff.
Early drafts of the talking points included a mention of al Qaeda. But that reference was removed in the final drafts. Sen. Lindsay Graham explained to me what happened next.
“On Nov. 27, 2012, Morell and Susan Rice came into my office,” he told me. “I asked Morell who changed [the talking points]. He said, the FBI deleted the reference to al Qaeda because of an ongoing criminal investigation. So I called the FBI. They said, no, they didn’t change the talking points. They were furious.”
Apparently, that was an understatement: Someone at a senior level at FBI called the CIA to protest directly. Graham continued the story: “At 4 p.m. that day, CIA called me and said Morell ‘mis-spoke’ in his meeting with me, and that CIA deleted [the reference to al Qaeda], but they couldn’t give a reason why.”
Graham thought the reason was obvious: “If the truth had been known that al Qaeda killed four Americans seven weeks before an election, it would have been a different political story.”
Remember what Obama and his surrogates were saying? “Osama is dead, GM is alive.” That was their campaign mantra.
In fact, it was Morell himself who made those changes.
Morell subsequently testified before the House Select Committee on Intelligence, and eventually before the Benghazi Select Committee, twisting himself into a pretzel to explain why he removed any mention of the al Qaeda involvement in the attacks.
He ultimately claimed he believed news reports calling the Benghazi attacks a protest gone wild were more credible than repeated e-mails and cables from his own station chief in Libya insisting there had never been a protest.
It was an admission of gross incompetence — or partisanship. But that was the party line Clinton was putting out.
...