Further, the Senate found it was Clinton’s top deputies, including officials known to be close to the Clintons, who were responsible for some major denials of security at the compound.
For some lawmakers, it defies logic that Clinton was not informed, especially since she was known to have taken a particular interest in the Benghazi facility. She reportedly called for the compound to be converted into a permanent mission before a scheduled trip to Libya in December 2012 that eventually was canceled.
Meanwhile,in defending the White House’s claim that an anti-Islam YouTube video provoked the attack, Clinton writes in her book that the video also sparked a protest at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo the same day.
However, the Cairo protests were announced days in advance as part of a movement to free the so-called blind sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In fact, on the day of the Sept. 11, 2012, protests in Cairo, CNN’s Nic Robertson interviewed the son of Rahman, who described the protest as being about freeing his father. No Muhammad film was mentioned.
Clinton, however, writes that the New York Times later proved in an investigation that the Muhammad video was “indeed a factor” in what happened in Benghazi.
Clinton was referring to a Dec. 28, 2013, New York Times piece by David D. Kirkpatrick titled “A Deadly Mix in Benghazi.”
This reporter released a series of articles questioning the veracity of Kirkpatrick’s piece, showing that details were contradicted by the U.S. government, Benghazi victims, and numerous other previous news reports – including Kirkpatrick’s own previous reporting.
In her book, Clinton defends the actions of then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, who on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, infamously appeared on five morning television programs where she asserted the attack was a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”
Writes Clinton: “Susan stated what the intelligence community believed, rightly or wrongly, at the time.”
Clinton’s claim is called into question by numerous revelations. For example, the U.S. immediately had surveillance video from the mission that showed there was no popular protest at all on Sept. 11, 2012.
Gregory Hicks, the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the attack, testified that he knew immediately it was a terrorist attack, not a protest turned violent. According to Hicks, “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go.”
The CIA’s station chief in Libya reportedly emailed his superiors on the day of the attack that it was “not an escalation of anti-American protest.”
The claim of a popular protest also defies logic. Spontaneous protesters do not show up with weapons, erect armed checkpoints surrounding the compound, and demonstrate insider knowledge of the facility while deploying military-style tactics to storm the U.S. mission.
Nor do spontaneous protesters know the exact location of a secretive CIA annex, including the specific coordinates of the building that were likely utilized to launch precision mortar strikes. Spontaneous protesters are not thought to be capable of mounting a fierce, hours-long gun battle with U.S. forces stationed inside the annex.