Report: Ex-CIA Deputy Director May Have Altered Benghazi Talking Points

The recent Senate Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi suggests that the former deputy director of the CIA played a role in shaping the official "talking points" about the September 2012 attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Michael Morell may have altered the government's explanation for the assault to benefit the Obama administration, reports Fox News.

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The panel's reports showed that on Sept.15, four days after the attacks and one day before U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on various Sunday talk shows, Morell received an email from the CIA station chief in Libya stating that they were "not/not an escalation of protests."

But that same day, according to Fox News' chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge, although Morell cut the word "Islamic" from the talking points, he left the word "demonstration."

And despite the fact that the CIA and the FBI on Sept. 18 reviewed the closed circuit footage showing there were no protests, President Obama still referred to a demonstration two days later, reported Fox.

Intelligence analysts stayed with the explanation "without sufficient intelligence or eyewitness statements to corroborate that assertion. The IC (intelligence community) took too long to correct these erroneous reports," said the Senate report.

In November 2012, as the controversy over the talking points escalated, Morell accompanied Rice to a meeting with Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Morell defended Rice's TV appearances and maintained there was confusion about what happened in Benghazi, Graham told Fox.

"What I found curious is that he did not accept responsibility for changing the talking points. He told me the FBI had done this. I called the FBI — they went ballistic. And I am sure somebody from the FBI called Mike Morell, but within 24 hours, his statement was changed where he admitted the CIA had done it," Graham said.

Herridge pointed to an interview Morell gave to The Wall Street Journal last August in which he spoke about his interest "in advising future presidential campaigns," and noted that The Journal, citing unnamed officials, also reported that Morell "is close to Hillary Clinton."

"He's put himself out there as a political player," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch is reportedly suing in federal court for the talking points documents and recently obtained 70 heavily redacted pages.

"You have to wonder what he was thinking at the time he was deleting these talking points in a way that benefited the Obama administration, and Hillary Clinton personally," Fitton said.

Since leaving government Morell has joined Beacon Global Strategies, a government relations firm founded by Philippe Reines, whom the New York Times magazine recently described as "Clinton's principal gatekeeper."

Morell issued a written statement to Fox saying that the Senate report "…strongly supports the CIA's long-standing position that neither the unclassified talking points nor the classified analysis on which they were based were in any way politicized. While not perfect, neither the talking points nor the analysis were produced with any political agenda in mind. None."

"I think given what was said by him and others, and where they're headed, down the political road, would justify revisiting this issue," Graham told Fox.

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