Again, they allege that Brennan was covertly ordering weapons raids in the region and that the 9/11/12 attacks were in retaliation for those raids. If that's true, the administration would indeed have a motive to push the narrative that the attacks were retaliation for a video, not Brennan's operation.
Via The Hill:
“Brennan was involved,” Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said after the briefing. “It's pretty obvious what happened.”
“At the end of the day it should have been pretty easy to determine who made the changes and what changes were made.”
He described an “extensive, bureaucratic and frankly unnecessary process” that led to the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations publicly linking the attack to a peaceful protest gone awry. Republicans have accused the White House of twisting the talking points to avoid harming Obama's national security reputation ahead of the November elections.Despite this revelation, the media narrative - even in conservative circles - is that the emails don't show an effort to avoid pinning the attacks on terrorists. The apathy and lack of consideration for the work of Webb and Murphy is a bit stunning, really.
From Greta Wire (via Hot Air):
One source familiar with the briefing indicated that they did not believe the emails shed any new light on anything that was not already known and said the messages did not demonstrate an effort by the administration to deliberately downplay the role of “al Qai’da” or “terrorists.”That last statement from Greta Wire's Chad Pergram is a bit curious, considering that Hillary Clinton herself released a statement as the 9/11/12 attacks were taking place, before Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were murdered, in which she seemed to sow the seeds for the narrative Rice would enunciate five days later on five separate talk shows. Clinton made several subsequent statements between that one and Rice's Sunday show appearances in which she at least implied that same thing. Now we know that Brennan was involved in the process that allowed the furtherance of that narrative.
Emails I obtained in October made it clear that the State Department said very early on that the attacks were driven by an al Qai’da affiliated group.