WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) — White House spokesman Jay Carney Tuesday accused Republicans of fabricating emails related to the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya.
Asked about a leaked partial email obtained by CNN, Carney responded by saying a report he had seen showed Republicans not only leaked emails that have been shared with Congress but “decided to fabricate portions of an email and make up portions of an email in order to fit a political narrative.”
“And I think — I’m not surprised by it because we’ve seen it again and again,” Carney said.
He cited Republicans’ uproar over then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s signature on one email that turned out to be “an automated signature and she had no involvement in that email.”
“So I think it just reinforces what we’ve seen, which is an ongoing effort to politicize this, to take — to cherry-pick information, or in this case, just make it up, in order to fit a political narrative,” Carney said.
Carney went on to note there have been reports House Speaker John Boehner is “obsessed” with Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack, in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died and using it for political gain.
“So the speaker of the House is ‘obsessed’ with this, has made all sorts of demands, and that it turns out that his office was provided the information, but obsessed as he was, he didn’t show up to get the briefing and spend the time with the emails,” Carney said. “But a staffer did, so he has known all along what these emails contain and what they don’t contain.
“So I think the evidence is pretty overwhelming.”
Asked why the administration doesn’t just release the all the emails to put the matter to rest, Carney said “releasing internal deliberations is something that goes to the kind of protections that have existed for the executive branch for many administrations of both parties.”
He said the administration already “did something rather extraordinary” when it provided the emails to the relevant committees so they could “spend all the time they wanted with them, make notes, copy them verbatim — or not so verbatim, as it turns out — and then go on their way and make their assessments.”
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
