Policy

Clapper Not Personally Responsible for Changes to Benghazi Talking Points

Which doesn't really clarify what in hell the Obama administration is up to

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James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, did not change the talking points on Benghazi that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used on several talk shows days after the Sept. 11 attack.

"It was not Director Clapper who personally modified the talking points," ODNI Spokesman Shawn Turner told The Cable. "The reporter who originally wrote that does not cover the IC [intelligence community] so she thought that since Clapper heads the IC, it would be OK to say he modified the talking points."

Turner was referring to this Nov. 20 CBS report, which has since been revised to say that the changes, which included removing references to al Qaeda and terrorism, were made at the Office of the DNI but not necessarily by Clapper himself. The report now states that the talking points were passed from the CIA to ODNI, where some edits were made, and then on to the FBI, where further edits were made.