Sharyl Attkisson, Frozen Out of CBSNews for Reporting Actual News, Reports on the Benghazi Hearings on Twitter

A lot of important stuff reported on Twitter, and in article format on her website.

There is a maze of contradictory testimony. First, Petraeus said the FBI, not the CIA, removed the references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorists."

Mike Morrel, Petraeus' former number two, admitted on Tuesday it had been the CIA, not the FBI, who deleted these references.

Within hours of Morrel's statement, CIA officials "corrected" it, stating that it was their belief CIA officials had deleted the references, not the FBI.

Morrel claims this was some kind of error on his part.

But how could Morrel erroneously think the FBI was deleting references to "al Qaeda" and "terrorism" when it was his own CIA doing so, and when he knew that he himself had deleted references to previous "warnings" of a coming terrorist attack?

But if you're worried that Morell might be out of a job due to all these "errors" he makes when preparing Talking Points for Susan Rice or in his Congressional testimony, don't sweat it for him.

He's doing okay.

There's more in the collection of Tweets I linked first.

From her article about this:

Under questioning from members on the committee, Morell described a process under which C.I.A. analysts in Washington provided an early assessment without seeking or receiving information from the many C.I.A. officers and other witnesses on the ground in Libya. And when the C.I.A. Tripoli station chief attempted to correct the record in an email to headquarters on Sept. 15, 2012, Morell says it was discounted as unreliable. According to Morell, the email claimed the attacks were “not an escalation of a protest.” However, Morell said that intel relied on press reports and C.I.A. officers on sight who probably would have arrived too late to see a protest anyway.

Emphasis added.

Morrell decided the actual people on the ground would "probably" have arrived too late to see the attack, so he ignored their attempt to clarify that this wasn't a "protest," and stuck with his Washington DC analysts.

...

Morell did acknowledge personally removing the word “Islamic” from the phrase “Islamic extremists” in the talking points and says he did it for two reasons: so as not to further inflame passions in the Islamic world and because “what other kind of extremists are there in Libya?”

Morell also explained why he removed language that his own agency had included in the talking points disclosing that the C.I.A. had provided “warnings” in advance of the attacks. Morell differed with his boss, then C.I.A. Director David Petraeus, who wanted the warning language included.

“I reacted very strongly to inclusion of the warning language,” Morell testified. “I thought it was an effort on the C.I.A.’s part to make it look like we had warned and shift any blame to the State Department…I made a decision at that moment I got the talking points I was going to take the… language out.”

Indeed, one State Department source says they felt the C.I.A. warning language was “throwing them under the bus.” The references were removed. It was left unexplained as to why Morell was calling the shots, subordinate to his boss, Petraeus who wanted the warning language included.

I'd like to hear Petraeus testify on this point, in light of Morrell's fresh disclosures. Representative Peter King characterized Petraeus as "passive" in the shaping of the talking points. I'm wondering if Petraeus had much to do with it at all, or just assigned it to his Deputy, Morrell.

Oh, and Morrell isn't just with an Obama and Hillary connected communications firm now.

CBS froze out Attkisson, but they did make space in their roster to hire a consultant.

After retiring from the C.IA. last year, Morell was hired as counsel to Beacon Global Strategies, a communications firm operated primarily by former Obama administration and Hillary Clinton officials. He also became a consultant for CBS News.

For a guy hired for his "communications" skills, Morell sure seems to make a lot of errors in communicating.

posted by Ace at 12:32 PM

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