New details from the investigation of last year’s Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, reveal 12 revisions were made to the talking points about the attack.
Edits included the State Department referencing al Qaeda and prior CIA warnings.
The versions obtained by ABC News show how the drafts evolved from the CIA’s original version to the final draft distributed to Congress, which was used by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice on five Sunday talk shows following the attack.
White House press secretary Jay Carney contends the edits were “stylistic and non-substantive.”
“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive.”
“This all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here,” he added.
