New State Documents Show Quick White House Effort to Link Benghazi to Internet Video

Judicial Watch has released new State Department documents that raise more questions about the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission at Benghazi, Libya. The documents show the White House contacted YouTube over an Internet video as one of its first moves after the initial attack.

The documents, from the agency’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, were provided to Judicial Watch in response to a court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on October 16, 2014, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01733)). The lawsuit seeks “any and all logs, reports, or other records” the Washington-based Diplomatic Security Command Center produced between September 10, 2012, and September 13, 2012, relating to the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya.”

The documents detail that only three hours after the initial attack on U.S. personnel in Benghazi, the White House contacted YouTube in an apparent effort to initially blame the assault on an obscure “Pastor John video,” rather than filmmaker Nakoula “Mark” Basseley Nakoula. The administration falsely claimed that Nakoula’s video, “Innocence of Muslims,” provoked the attack. The email also references the involvement of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Judicial Watch, through separate litigation, previously uncovered documents that show Obama White House officials set Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi response):

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