Speaking on May 10, White House spokesman Jay Carney said emails that show a State Dept. official watering down Benghazi talking points was released by Republicans to “politicize” the attack.
Carney’s statement is in reaction to leaked email excepts which show “a top State Department official pushing to water down the intelligence community’s initial story-line on the Benghazi attack.”
Carney blamed the leak on the Republicans, whom he said are trying to score political points.
The White House is under growing pressure to explain the changes that were made to the talking points. Carney has long claimed that only one aspect of the talking points was changed by the White House or the State Department. But a May 10 ABC News report countered this claim, showing that the points were “revised 12 times.” And these revisions included the deletion of references to Al Qaeda, which were in the initial set of talking points.
When questioned on this report, Carney said the deleted information on Al Qaeda involved “speculation about who [was] responsible [for the attack], [and] other things like warnings that may or may not be relevant.”
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