Benghazigate: State Department Officials Say We Never Concluded the Benghazi Consulate Attack was Related to Protest about a YouTube Video

RUT-ROH, the Hillary Clinton State Department just contradicted the Obama White House … Move over Watergate, you have Benghazigate and this one is much, much worse. Just four weeks before the 2012 election.

The State Department stated that  “it never concluded that the consulate attack in Libya stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam”. Really, because that is not what the Obama Administration tried to put forth to “We the People”

The State Department said Tuesday it never concluded that the consulate attack in Libya stemmed from protests over an American-made video ridiculing Islam, raising further questions about why the Obama administration used that explanation for more than a week after assailants killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

The revelation came as new documents suggested internal disagreement over appropriate levels of security before the attack, which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the U.S.

Briefing reporters ahead of a hotly anticipated congressional hearing Wednesday, State Department officials provided their most detailed rundown of how a peaceful day in Benghazi devolved into a sustained attack that involved multiple groups of men armed with weapons such as machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars over an expanse of more than a mile.

But asked about the administration’s initial — and since retracted — explanation linking the violence to protests over an anti-Muslim video circulating on the Internet, one official said, “That was not our conclusion.”

More at the AP.

Michelle Malkin asks the question if the VIDEO was not the reason why the violence occurred in Benghazi, then why did they trot out U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice on the Sunday talk shows and present a narrative that was false? All the while she still hadn’t received the memo several days after the attack.

The news that the State Department never concluded that the Benghazo consulate attack and murder of Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans was not a result of a video comes as Hot Air reminds us on the eve of the House hearings on the Benghazi, Libya Consulate attack.  Will individuals now tell the truth to insulate themselves from this debacle? Worse than that, the attempted cover up of the incompetence that took place in not protecting a US Ambassador in a hostile area.

Two new questions for you, then, as the hearings get going. First, if State didn’t circulate the “spontaneous protest” nonsense within the administration, who did? Eli Lake traced it back to a set of CIA talking points distributed to Congress early on, but as far as I know, no one’s ever explained why the CIA was pushing that theory when there were at least a dozen intel reports within the first hours pointing to something more sinister and deliberate. And second, if State was innocent in pushing the “spontaneous protest” line, how is it that Susan Rice — a top State Department employee, don’tcha know — ended up being the administration’s chief mouthpiece for that talking point on the Sunday shows? Didn’t anyone from State think of mentioning to her beforehand, “Oh, by the way, we have zero evidence to support what you’re about to go on national TV and say”?

The result of this hearing could rock the polls even more than the past Presidential debate.