RUSH: Now, this latest news on Benghazi that Darrell Issa has produced here, it’s a still-classified State Department e-mail. They haven’t released it. All they’re doing is talking about it. “A still-classified State Department e-mail says that one of the first responses from the White House to the Benghazi attack was to contact YouTube to warn of the ‘ramifications’ of allowing the posting of an anti-Islamic video, according to Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
“The memo suggests that even as the attack was still underway,” taking place, as the Al-Qaeda terrorists were unleashing hell on the consulate, “and before the CIA began the process of compiling talking points on its analysis of what happened — the White House believed it was in retaliation for a controversial video. The subject line of the e-mail, which was sent at 9:11 p.m. Eastern Time on the night of the attack, is ‘Update on Response to Actions — Libya.’
“The [e-mail] was written hours before the attack was over.” Now, here we were all worried that Obama didn’t do anything the night of the attack. Here we were all worried that Obama was off the grid. We were all worried, curious, “Where was Obama while all this was going on?” And now we find out. There was no record of him being in the Situation Room. There was no on-the-record of him being in contact with anybody in a leadership position.
He was on the phone with YouTube, Google, trying to get the video taken down.
Can you believe this? So in the middle of an attack on Benghazi, the White House calls Google (we’re being asked to believe) to take down the video, because Google owns YouTube. Now, there’s a problem with this. You’re missing the point of all this if you look at it that way. Issa’s point is they have claimed all along — the White House has.
The Regime has claimed all along that the CIA is who told them the attacks were due to the video. But the e-mails that claim the White House was on the phone with YouTube to get the video taken down occurred before the CIA ever said anything at the time. So Issa’s point is, from the beginning of this controversy to the present, the White House has said, “The CIA is who told us that a video on the Internet caused this.”
The problem is, this e-mail that says the White House called YouTube to get the video taken down happened before the CIA told them that it was a video. That’s Issa’s point. Issa’s point is: You guys don’t have your story straight here. And they haven’t released this State Department memo, the e-mail to the State Department. Its still classified. Nobody’s seen it. We’re just hearing about what is supposedly in it.
So we are now being asked to believe that the White House… This is just my thought process. Let’s say I’m part of the Regime, I’m in the White House, I’m high up, I’m a close advisor. We have this attack at the consulate going on. Who calls YouTube? What in the world…? Who would call? The attack’s already underway! I’ll tell you what’s going on here.
Again, the root of all this begins in Cairo, earlier in the day. Remember that the State Department, the embassy in Cairo issued an apology — a written and spoken apology — before anything has happened, and this apology was for a video. When it was released, we were saying, “Well, what are you apologizing for? We haven’t done anything and there haven’t been any terrorist attacks.
“There haven’t been any protests.” They said, “Well, we thought we’d the get out in front of it. We thought if we apologized in advance for this video,” which nobody had seen, “then maybe the protestors will not protest.” That’s what the State Department said. So this whole thing is really contingent on who came up with what policy and idea to treat what had not happened yet in Cairo, with an apology in advance that did reference this video.
Again, this is before the CIA even told the White House about it. This is earlier in the day. This is hours before Benghazi even began, and it made no sense at the time. I remember being stunned when I found out, when we all learned that the State Department had issued an apology before anything happened — and the first reaction from the White House was, “Well, it was a rogue employee who just got too excited, was too eager, and hit the ‘send’ button the wrong time.
“It was not meant to go out when it did,” and they just chalked it up to some lackey. “That made a mistake.” It turns out it was done on purpose, and it was done on purpose to establish that there was this really, really bad video. Then you have to remember what we’ve learned, that everybody involved had intelligence that there were gonna be protests in Cairo.
There was also intel that there might be hostilities over in Libya, in Benghazi. So it is clear — and we also have been relatively with certitude assured that it was Mrs. Clinton who conceived of the idea to use the video as the excuse for all this. There’s credence for that because of the original apology issued by the embassy in Cairo before anybody had done anything. This is like you going across the street and apologizing to your neighbor because your kid broke their kitchen window.
Except the kitchen window hasn’t been broken yet.
But you go ahead and get the apology out of the way just in case your kid happens to do it. And then when it happens, you have a reason. You concoct an excuse why your kid broke the neighbor’s window and it’s all taken care of in advance. The whole purpose of this was to get this video out as the reason for all the hostilities. ‘Cause remember, it was shortly before the Democrat convention Obama was saying, “Bin Laden’s dead!
“Osama’s dead! GM’s alive!” They had slayed the evil Al-Qaeda. They couldn’t admit this. Just like Obama campaigned on the VA and had done all of that and made sure the VA worked, they were touting… Wait ’til you hear this. All these media people way back when were touting the VA as the model for Obamacare, how wonderful it was. “The VA, that’s where everybody ought to be looking.”
Well, Obama had done the same thing with Al-Qaeda and terrorism and bin Laden. So they couldn’t allow… Remember, everything is buzz and PR and image with these people. There is no Realville for them. They have to manipulate public opinion. They can’t rely, and never do rely, on honest public perception of real events. They can’t withstand that. They have to massage public opinion; they have to create opinions in people’s minds for events that having them cover.
And that’s exactly all this was.
So now out of the blue, here comes an e-mail that conveniently says that Obama or somebody at the White House was on the phone with YouTube in the middle of the attack, chiding them and demanding they pull it down. But Issa caught ’em by saying, “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! You told us that it was the CIA who told you that the video was responsible for it. So how in the world could you have called YouTube and asked them to take down the video when at the time you made the call, you hadn’t even been told the video was the reason for it?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Folks, at the very least, doesn’t the latest news of unreleased e-mails about Benghazi, doesn’t it prove that we still don’t know all there is to know about it? And doesn’t it justify the Select Committee in the House continuing to dig deep? I mean, just today, after all of this, after all that’s gone on, after all of this time, there is a still classified State Department e-mail that says in the midst of the attack the White House, we don’t know who, called YouTube, and they just tell us this today? And if these e-mails exonerate the White House, Obama and Hillary and Panetta and whoever else was involved, why weren’t they declassified long ago?
I mean, what national security secrets could they be protecting in ’em? It’s been two years, dude, two years. And we just now yesterday learn about this still classified e-mail. I mean, stop and think of this. Ambassador is under assault, four Americans under assault, all begging for assistance. I mean, hell’s flying, hell’s unleashed over there, and they call YouTube to pull down a video?
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