posted October 26, 2013|updated May 16, 2013
- [Times appear to be Washington EDT, which is 6 hours behind Benghazi time.]
6:07 p.m [Tuesday].: The State Department’s Operations Center sends an email to the White House, Pentagon, FBI and other government agencies that said Ansar al-Sharia has claimed credit for the attack on its Facebook and Twitter accounts. (The existence of the email was not disclosed until Reuters reported it on Oct. 24.)
...
About 10:00 p.m. [Tuesday]: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issues a statement confirming that one State official was killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi. Her statement, which MSNBC posted at 10:32 p.m., made reference to the anti-Muslim video.
Clinton: 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.
Sometime between 10 pm EDT and the next day, the 'movie' excuse evolved.
...
- Sept. 13 [Thursday]: CNN reports that unnamed “State Department officials” say the incident in Benghazi was a “clearly planned military-type attack” unrelated to the anti-Muslim movie.
CNN: “It was not an innocent mob,” one senior official said. “The video or 9/11 made a handy excuse and could be fortuitous from their perspective but this was a clearly planned military-type attack.”
...
The back-and-forth editing of the 'official' talkingpoints took place during the days leading up to Rice's appearances on the Sunday talks shows [September 16]. Obama was still using the movie excuse in his UN speech, September 25, 2012.
They knew it was a lie from the first mention of it.