ABC Exclusive: "New Questions for the White House this Morning"

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

* "SUGGEST...???" KEEP READING, FOLKS!

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

* "EDITED...???" WATCH THE VIDEO ABC POSTED ALONG WITH THIS STORY; "SCRUBBED" IS MORE LIKE IT!

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

* "SUGGEST...???" UH-HUH. "EDITS INCLUDED REQUESTS FROM THE STATE DEPARTMENT..." SOUNDS LIKE "PROVE" RATHER THAN "SUGGEST" TO ME.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

* "APPEAR...?!?!" SERIOUSLY... FOLKS...

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

* EITHER CARNEY WAS LYING ON HIS OWN (AND NO ONE WITHIN THE ADMINISTRATION NOTICED) OR ELSE HE WAS LYING AT THE BEHEST OF HIS BOSS... BARRACK HUSSEIN OBAMA... PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Summaries of White House and State Department emails - some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard - show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

* FOLKS... THERE WAS A COVER-UP... A SUCCESSFUL COVER-UP. HAD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE KNOWN THE TRUTH PRIOR TO LAST NOVEMBER'S ELECTION PERHAPS THE OUTCOME OF THAT ELECTION WOULD HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT. IN ANY CASE... THE ADMINISTRATION LIED AGAIN AND AGAIN AND THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA LARGELY SAT ON THEIR HANDS - OR WORSE - GAVE THE LIES CREDENCE.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:

“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya.  These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?  Concerned …”

The paragraph was entirely deleted.

* GEEZUS...

Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA’s first drafts said the attack appeared to have been “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” but the CIA version went on to say, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.” The draft went on to specifically name  the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.

* JUST AS A SIDE NOTE: THE CIA IS APPARENTLY LARGELY INCOMPETENT. THEY WERE LARGELY INCOMPETENT UNDER CLINTON... UNDER BUSH... AND THINGS ONLY SEEM TO HAVE GOTTEN WORSE UNDER OBAMA.

Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”

* BULL$HIT!

In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, “The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions.”

After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland’s concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough.

“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” Nuland wrote.

In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.

* MEANING THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S POLITICAL CONCERNS... PARTISAN CONCERNS...

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

* SIDE NOTE: WHAT FBI INVESTIGATION...??? THE CONSULATE - WHAT WAS LEFT OF IT - WAS LEFT UNGUARDED FOR WEEKS AND IF MEMORY SERVES WHEN THE FBI FINALLY VISITED THE SCENE THEY ONLY STAYED FOR SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE EVACUATING OUT OF "SAFETY CONCERNS." THEN THE SITE WAS AGAIN LEFT UNGUARDED. REMEMBER THE REPORTER WHO FOUND THE AMBASSADOR'S DIARY? REMEMBER THE REPORTS OF CLASSIFIED PAPERS FOUND AMIDST THE RUINS?

After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.

* EVEN IF ONE WERE TO BUY THAT THEY WERE CONCERNED WITH "TIPPING OFF AL QAEDA (AND WHY WOULD THEY BE?) THERE'S SIMPLY NO EXCUSE FOR SCRUBBING THE PRE-ATTACK SECURITY WARNINGS! THIS WAS PURE POLITICAL - PERSONAL - CYA ON THE PART OF THE ADMINISTRATION.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said none of this contradicts what he said about the talking points because ultimately all versions were actually written and signed-off by the CIA.

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and non-substantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”

* FOLKS... THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO SHAME... NO INTEGRITY... AND REPRESENT THE WORST OF AMERICAN POLITICS.