The New York Times had a reporter talking to attackers on the ground during the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans in September of 2012, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, and that reporter may know the identity of some of the murderers and perpetrators.
David Kirkpatrick is the Times reporter who wrote the story that forced the paper’s Editorial page editor to defensively declare on Monday that it has not chosen to endorse Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. The editor said that the paper had a reporter on the ground who was witnessing the attacks.
That admission is even in Kirpatrick’s story, which, as Breitbart News reported, has received considerable blowback for attempting to “whitewash the Benghazi tragedy.” The Times alleges that there was no al-Qaeda involvement in the attacks that killed four Americans (contradicting the paper’s own reporting), that murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens had “little understanding” of the region, and that the terrorists were motivated by an anti-Muhammed YouTube video:
Soon scores, if not hundreds, of others were racing to the scene. Some arrived with guns, some with cameras. The attackers had posted sentries at Venezia Road, adjacent to the compound, to guard their rear flank, but they let pass anyone trying to join the mayhem. Witnesses said young men rushing inside had left empty pickup trucks from Ansar al-Shariah, but also all the other big militias ostensibly allied with the government.
There is no doubt that anger over the video motivated many attackers. A Libyan journalist working for The New York Times was blocked from entering by the sentries outside, and he learned of the film from the fighters who stopped him. Other Libyan witnesses, too, said they received lectures from the attackers about the evil of the film and the virtue of defending the prophet.
Kirkpatrick tweeted Monday night that the Times had “a reporter on the scene talking to the attackers during the attack.” His tweet prompted those on Twitter, including a former U.N. spokesperson for George W. Bush, to wonder if the Times knew who the attackers were and whether the reporter who was on the ground witnessed the murder of a U.S. Ambassador without calling for help:
@RichardGrenell we had a reporter on the scene talking to the attackers during the attack- still invaluable
— David D. Kirkpatrick (@ddknyt) December 30, 2013
NYT reporter says NYT knows who Benghazi attackers are > @ddknyt: we had a reporter on the scene talking to the attackers during the attack
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) December 31, 2013
@RichardGrenell @ddknyt Was the @nytimes reporter supposedly in #Benghazi witnessing the murder of Amb. Stevens an American?
— Robert C. O’Brien (@robertcobrien) December 31, 2013
@RichardGrenell @ddknyt Did the @nytimes supposedly in #Benghazi have a SAT phone? Did he call for help for Amb. Stevens & Sean Smith?
— Robert C. O’Brien (@robertcobrien) December 31, 2013