ABC News: Susan Rice 'Got a Bad Rap' over Benghazi

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice has taken a lot of heat for making the talk show rounds on Sept. 16, 2012 and blaming Benghazi on “a spontaneous protest.”

But according to ABC News, the real blame lies with: the CIA for providing “faulty intelligence on spontaneous protests in Benghazi”; the State Department for “insisting that references to terrorism be deleted” from talking points; and the White House for “allowing those references to be deleted.” Through all this, Rice simply “got a bad rap.” 

It turns out that Rice’s comments did come from the now-infamous CIA talking points and, while those points were heavily edited, the White House emails suggest Rice had no part in the editing process.

All 12 versions of the Benghazi talking points, including the first draft written entirely by the CIA, use the words “spontaneously inspired by the protests.” That mistake belongs to the CIA. 

ABC News readily admits there were references to Al Qaeda affiliates and references to “CIA warnings about a terror threat in Benghazi” in the earliest versions of the talking points–but they were all edited out. 

The CIA did it, the State Department requested it, the White House allowed it–none of this should be held against Rice, especially now that Barack Obama has been named her as his National Security Advisor.