Hillary Language On Benghazi Identical To Rhodes Email — 1 1/2 Days Before!

Dick Morris

On September 13, 2012, — one and a half days before Obama aide Ben Rhodes sent an email advising UN Ambassador Susan Rice to blame the Benghazi attacks on a protest over an anti-Muslim Internet video — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the identical language embedded in a statement about the attacks.

The congruence of the two word-for-word statements suggests, at the very least, a close coordination between and White House and Hillary Clinton to deceive the American people about the true nature of the attack in Benghazi. And it may also be evidence that Hillary Clinton engineered that decision immediately following the attacks. Was the cover-up Hillary’s idea? The emails beg the question. Now Congress must investigate and decide what the answer is.

Based on newly released emails, we know that Hillary Clinton was informed sometime before 9:45 on September 12, 2012 that the Benghazi attack was made by terrorists, not spontaneous protestors. Despite this information, she continued to publicly contradict that assessment and instead blamed the murder of the four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens on a phantom protest

Why would she do that? In order to deflect criticism away from the State Department’s inadequate security in Benghazi and to help the President perpetuate the myth that he had Al-Qaeda “on the run” as part of his election propaganda.

Look at the two statements:

Here is what Hillary said in her statement on the morning of September 13th about the attacks:

“…Let me state very clearly… that the United States Government had absolutely nothing to do with this video. We absolutely reject its content and message…This video is disgusting and reprehensible…There is no justification, none at all, for responding to this video with violence.”

Her language found its identical echo in the email sent by Rhodes 36 hours later on the afternoon of September 14th. Rhodes wrote:

“We’ve made our views on the video crystal clear. The United States Government had nothing to do with it. We reject its message and its content. We find it disgusting and reprehensible. But there is no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence.”

The language is virtually identical. Here it is line by line:

Hillary: “Let me state very clearly that the United States Government had absolutely nothing to do with this video.”

Rhodes: “We’ve made our views on the video crystal clear. The United States Government had nothing to do with it.”

Hillary: “We absolutely reject its content and message.”

Rhodes: “We reject its message and its content.”

Hillary: “The film is disgusting and reprehensible.”

Rhodes: “We find it disgusting and reprehensible.”

Hillary: “The film is no justification, none at all, for responding to this video with violence.”

Rhodes: “But there is no justification at all for responding to this movie with violence.”

From the moment of the attack, Hillary was the first government official to link it to the Internet video. She continued citing the unrelated video for several weeks — long after the State Department knew otherwise.

In a statement issued at about the time she spoke to President Obama at 10 PM on September 11th, while the attacks were still going on, she blamed them on the video:

“Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.”

So, from the outset, it may have been Hillary who injected the idea that the video caused the attack. Then, it appears, that it was her language that Rhodes copied in instructing Susan Rice on how to handle the issue during her appearances on all the Sunday talk shows.

But Hillary knew that was not the case. Because at 9:45 on the morning immediately after the attack, Assistant Secretary of State Beth Jones sent an email to Hillary Clinton reporting on a conversation she had with the Libyan Ambassador in which she told him that terrorists were responsible for the attack. There was no mention of any protest, demonstration, or video.

According to former CBS News correspondent Sheryl Atkinson, the email is labeled “Libya update from Beth Jones” [and says]:

“When [the Libyan Ambassador said his government suspected that former Qaddafi regime elements carried out the attacks, I told him the group that conducted the attacks -- Ansar al-Sharia -- is affiliated with Islamic extremists."

Later, Hillary's State Department requested that the talking points to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack."

Nuland warned, in an e mail that describing Benghazi as a terrorist attack and alluding to the previous warnings the State Department had gotten from the CIA about the imminence of such attacks: "could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …”

When Nuland was dissatisfied with the deletions made in the talking points, she protested: “These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” a likely reference to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

So the decision to blame the video may have not originated in the bowels of the State Department or in the White House, but it may have stemmed directly from the Secretary of State herself. Hillary Rodham Clinton.