Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140404

Im not sure if it was classified, but how Many Americans that were at locations actually save based on the training in each partys of the ca Security Force you always have seen, from what i have seen in the chair and i have traveled a lot of members of the committee all of the world and understand to the security is and what they do and what theyre trained for. I want to answer the question, does the cna feel abandoned by the u. S. Military in the situation . No, we did not. Explain what the security is, how many they are, and if its not classified, how Many Americans were saved because of their training and expertise . I dont think that i can go into specific numbers. While i will say is something the chairman said earlier. I have no doubt, there is no doubt in my mind that had the cia Security Officers from the benghazi base not responded to the state Department Facility that we would have lost many more state Department Officers there. There is no doubt in my mind. Theres also no doubt in my mind that have cia officers and u. S. Military officers responded from tripoli to benghazi. Which is oversees her miles. Which is over 600 miles. And then i responded that night and went to benghazi more americans would have died at the cia base. I believe there is actually a very large number of americans who are alive today thanks to the response of both the cia officers at the benghazi base and the cia and military officers from tripoli. All the evidence that i have heard in the hearings that i attended, not one time did anyone make a comment that they felt they were abandoned by the United States government or the United States military. I know of no stand down order from anybody in the military. I am aware of several requests by ca for military support that nine. Those requests were honored and delivered. I want to get one last question. We commend this committee, need to respond to the public. Yet we have the issue of, we cannot violate lot about giving of classified information. We need, especially members do not been on the committee as long as other members, we need guidance sometimes on the classified issue. What have we learned as far as asking for simple, direct talking points to help us deal with the issue and not give out classified information . You had to do over because everyone need to guidance. How would you handle this in the future . Help us deal with that issue of talking points. As the committee knows. He gets mad and says, not going to do it. One of the things that i did when i was acting director the second time was asked for a Lessons Learned paper. And that paper really had to conclusions. The first conclusion is that we should really not be in the business of writing and classified talking points for the American People. We do not do that for the sake of a branch, and we, in general, do not do that for congress. So this paper concluded that we should be reluctant to do that. We are very good at speaking to policymakers. We are not trained as speaking to the American Public. We see extremists and terrorists as the same thing. Obviously the American Public does not read my first idea on Lessons Learned would have been to push back and say, why doesnt the committee take a first ad that writing the talking points and then we will take a look at them. The second conclusion that the Lessons Learned paper came to was, if we do right unclassified talking points then the sensitive experts should be involved in the editorial process all the way through and not do what we did in this case, which was experts up front, a bunch of Congressional Affairs and Public Affairs people in the middle and then only bring experts at the end. You look at general colin powell who went to the United Nations and was relying information received from the community. Weapons of mass destruction. The same thing with susan rice, she relied of liberation given at the time. She went through a tough time when she was really responding to what informations she got. There are a lot of lessons to learn here. Yes, sir. Yield back. Mr. Don barry, thank mr. Mr. Chairman and mr. Morale, thank you for being here, your years of service. I want to try to understand better the deputies meeting in the 15th and your subsequent edits to the talking points. Were you all having daily deputies meetings at this time . Yes, sir. We were having twice daily. Serve twice a day on the 13th, the 14th, the 15th you would have these Video Conference meetings in which you participated as a deputy for the cia. Thats correct. And i presume there would be a deputy from state and defense as well as members of the White House National Security Council staff. Fbi, doj, in ctc. Yes, sir. Okay debut so as we review the emails of the night of the well, let me back up just a second. Im sorry. As best you remember, the deputies meetings, the two deputies meetings on the 14th, i presume benghazi had to be a major issue the you discussed. It was not, sir. It was not a major issue. We were not looking backwards at that point. We were looking for words. The focus of all of these deputies meetings, particularly the ones on saturday and sunday, susan rice was on the sundays shows. I was at a deputy meeting. The focus of those on keeping american safe in all the places in the world where they were continuing protests and demonstrations. We were not looking backwards of what happened in benghazi. Were looking for and how we keep american save. Which is interesting to me. Even on the 14th, the basic tenor of the meetings was, we get the americans out. Air not going to worry about libya. Not that we were we were still very worried about tripoli. We were not focused on benghazi because we were focused on keeping american safe Going Forward. And the two meetings on the 14th, do you remember talking points ever coming up there . On the 14th, no. I do not remember that. As i go and look it the emails, as of nine, 10 00 on the night of the 14th it looks like fbi has signed off. The talking points have been edited to reflect the state department concerns, although it does not say that the side of. So i am not clear why a new did you have conversations after 10 00 at night from the state department that said, we are still not happy . No, sir. So as of 10 00 at night there is email that says, okay, we made these changes. Fbi is a cake. There was a brief answer back and said no. What time was a deputy deputies meeting the next morning . I believe it was a. M. I believe it was a. M. Okay. Did you have conversations with state department folks or emails from state department folks that morning before the deputies meeting this said, we are still not happy with these talking points . No, sir. But as i said earlier, mike executive assistant to only of the state barbara was not happy with the talking points are to amend the 14th of the morning of the 15th . As i arrived at work on the 15th. I guess and you have already testified today that they never came up at the deputies meeting, the talking points didnt until you brought them up. Right. It was not part of the agenda, even though the National Security Council Staff have been the ones to suggest dream about but that deputies meeting. Correct. I guess what i am puzzled by, as you look at that the edit the made that were on that chart you take up most of the words basically that there in the talking points. And even though the fbi is okay with them you take out words because you are afraid they will damage the fbi investigation. You take everything that is even related to warnings and a bunch of other stuff, too. To me it seems like youre more interested in protecting the state department and the state department is and more interested in protecting the fbi and the fbi is. In director patraeus is concerned because he wanted more information so that doesnt make sense to me. Can you explain the motivation . As i said earlier, first of all, if you look at what i took out, the vast majority is in permission related to the warnings. As i said earlier, i thought it inappropriate for the cia to the say publicly that we warned of an attack coming. We also have been there that we had sent a warning cable to cairo, which i see absolutely no relevance of sending a warning gear will to carry out what happened in benghazi. Pound is just therefore rely on a blind on the state department. Did nothing that appropriate. But that there would be plenty of time to of a conversation about what was warned and who responded and have. Added not think of that discussion should start publicly. That was the judgment i made at the time. Love me ask you one other sentence. The white availability of weapons and experienced fighters almost certainly been treated to the validity of the tax. That is just a statement. I saw it as speculative, to respective. We did not know that the attackers had any specific training. We just did not know at that point. I saw in a speculative. I did not think that it was helpful. And im not saying a made all the right decisions in each one of these cases, but thats why i made the decision. Its just a drastic change from what had been toy out for todays your process. Thats why ive been puzzled by the changes you made that seemingly are more protective of other agencies that even those other agencies are. I think you for your response. Thank you very much for coming in to your many years of service. I want to align myself with what Ranking Member mr. Of the ruthless per said in expressing all of our heart felt sadness for those who were killed and our appreciation for those who are still alive, have served us so bravely. There are all heroes. And i think that we should be focusing on what we can do to make sure that the jazzy like this never happens again. We should be trying to apprehend the murderers who killed these brave americans. I think anything short of that is an incredible displacement of time and resources. The changes in the talking points, as you make any changes for political reasons . No, sir. Did you know whether or not there were protests when you ended the talking points . Sir, when i edited the talking points are believed that there were protests in beverly did because that is what my analysts thought. Some mention has been made about the chief of station comments or memo, the statement that this was not a protest. Yes, sir. Does one assessment from any chief of station regardless of qualified that person is trump all other assessment . No, sir. It does not. It is a datapoint, an important datapoint that the analysts take into account, but station chiefs do not determine the analytic line of the Central Intelligence agency. The analyst to. As i recall, meeting on february the 13th two days after this tragedy to place when general patraeus was in our committee for classified roundtable briefing you were not there. No, sir. But you were briefed on what happened of all was said. I was told much later in the date about the request for the talking point. That is the only feedback i got. I was out speaking specifically of the talking point. I was going to talk about a specific question that general patraeus was asked as a response for you laid out for us why he believed it was not only sparked by the protest but why it was spontaneous in his belief. Someone on our committee specifically as telling the world this could happen. The people destroy ever on the streets with this type of weaponry in the car . And he stated to well, yes, they do, and they look for opportunities. Was he making this stuff up, or is this, in your view was this assessment that he gave to us the best assessment given what he knew at that time . I think it was a mixture of the analysts and a mixture of his own view based on his military experience. This is a man who serve in combat, served in combat areas and had the vast amount of experience. Extensive experience. Thank you. I would like to go back. Believe that we should be looking at what we can do to make sure this never happens again and not mistakes on talking points. Major tragedy of this nature never happens again. We should be doubling down and doing Everything Possible to apprehend these murderers. Thank you. I yield back. Remind me again why this to depart was upset by the talking points. I was told that they did not want to warning language. And you went in july was going to ask another question, he talked about deleting from the talking points above the notifying the embassy in cairo of social media reports calling for demonstrations. Yes, sir. But you dont see any relevance to that and the cable going to cairo and the fact that this was all being blamed on a video, the protest was because of the video. En explanation a member of the committee asked for give us unless by talking points on what happened in benghazi the night of the 11th of the 12th. I did not see the Central Intelligence is he sending a warning cable to carry saying that there is a potential violent demonstration coming a as the embassy as relevant to what happened and and gauzy. Even though the demonstration that was coming was over the Youtube Video. Correct. Why was ambassador rice chosen to go on the sunday talk show . Do you have any idea . I have no idea. What was your reaction when you saw her explanation about what happened . I did not see her on the sunday shows. You never seen you never seen a did messier on the sunday shows. And it was probably days later that i read what she said of the shows. And what was your reaction when you finally did . My reaction was to fold, what was that what she said about the attacks involving spontaneously from a protest was exactly what the talking points that and it was exactly what the Intelligence Community analysts believed. This was something that the analysts have attributed. You said on september 13th and analysts said it was purchased based on and it was based on number of precedents are reports. In the u. S. In the example of how many, numerous reports iraq. Said iraq half and half, but im not sure. And when you finally ride ambassador rices summer morning talkshow transcripts were you found out finally about the did you complain to the white house that all about what she was saying all were you comfortable with what she said . I did not complain to anyone. A conflict with the seal was and the analysts. Once you notice that he immediately address it and in your, the way you dress a was appropriate. I addressed it Barry Berkeley i was the one who spotted what this dos said. It was in the bottom of an email. It was three or four sentences. I was the one responded and said , this is inconsistent with what the analysts think. We need to dig into this and figure this out and resolve this. I was the one to do that. That is inappropriate role for the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence agency. I would expect the Deputy Director to do that. And i asked the chief of station for more information. As you know i explained that. Provided with a target for hours. I think thats pretty quick. Would you consider a shift from a protest to a coordinated attack a large shift . Two thoughts, two thoughts. One is, yes, that is a significant change. The Second Thought is, as i said earlier, we never thought the protest and a terrorist attack were mutually exclusive. What the analysts believed really from 9 11 could it have been a terrorist act directed a protest . Sure. Absolutely. Well was that no attempt after ambassador rice went on five or six sunday morning talk shows whatever correct the record . In fact, it was more an attack and it was a protest. I dont follow you, sir. She went out and she said it was solely because of the Youtube Video. Later we learned that, no, it was more an attack and it was about the Youtube Video. There was never an attempt to correct the record. Sir, there is a divorce decree what it was, which was a terrorist attack, and what motivated it. Those are two completely different things. No doubt it was a terrorist attack. To this day we still dont know the motivations of the people who conducted the attack because we have not, many of them. The analysts have views about what motivated the attack. The analyst view is that it is one of two things, what happened in cairo as these guys in benghazi saw what happened in cairo and wanted to do the same thing. The other possibility of the analysts see it is the revenge for the death. Xbox we just heard from congressman schiff that the chief of station seized three possibilities, 9 11 anniversary, revenge, and the video. So the chief of station things that the video may have been motivation for the attack in benghazi. So a big difference which ran what happened, and attack, and motivation. Yield back. Thank you, mr. Moreau. I really appreciate your testimony. Given your three decades of service to our nation always working to protect our security and never in a partisan role our spirit, and i believe what you are telling us today in your account of what happened. I appreciate that the first point that you made was that he wanted to honor the heroes of lost their lives. We all have to keep that in mind. I fully supported the account accountability review board investigation, the conclusions and findings that they had and how we get done this more effectively. We, the intelligence committee, have held extensive hearings, a tremendous number of documents. I serve as the Ranking Member with chair and westmoreland on the subcommittee in the oversight. We have several hearings in interviews on this. And throw all of this i have not seen any evidence that anyone lied or intentionally misled the American People about the attack nor that anyone, including you, and appropriately ended the talking points which this committee has asked for. We all agree that mistakes were made some the executive been done better off the process. I agree with do what your internal review found no effort of a part of the sale is Public Affairs officers. Then the talking plus to accommodate a certain political agenda or to the the criticism for the agency or the a restoration. Ultimately it is critical though we determine what happened so that we can apprehend the perpetrators i believe we have shifted from legitimate fact based the oversight into a partisan Spirit Campaign there will be times when this committee will want help in commenting. And there will want to do so. I would understand the reluctance. May becoming a bus across a broad stock and bonds. I want to ask you. As i said when i was acting director i asked her to reduce. The first review was a review of our performance in producing the analysis. The Second Review was a review on our performance on the talking points. I ask the director of intelligence, the analyst, the agency to do the analytic view. Asked a senior attorney in our office of general counsel to do the review of the talking points i told the individual that i expected him to look at my on performance, and he knew that i was deadly serious about. I told you what the bottom lines of the talking points specimens wind were. We should be reluctant to do talking points in the future, but if we your distinguished government service, by the way, played in your job a year now have and as a rise regroup . It is important to remember that we lost more brave americans that day. We must make sure that we must make sure that we never allow Something Like that to happen again. I supported the investigation which interviewed more than 100 people. We reviewed thousands of documents, hours of video. We spoke with people on the ground in benghazi as well as tripoli and washington, military and intelligence officials within government as well as to outside experts. We come in this committee, have also conducted extensive oversight. You have been before last three times. We have reviewed thousands of classified documents and interviewed the central figures. But i have said i believe that hes never ending benghazi hearings have become very costly distraction. In my opinion far too moderate. Is needlessly consuming thousands of man hours. And i think deborah is very disappointing. That being said, some of the allegations out there. I think you again for your candor. I hope that your testimony today is going to put an end to what i agree has become a basis Conspiracy Theory and allow this committee to return to the urgent work that we have before us. So on that point i am going to move to an area that does solve nationalsecurity and concerning dress that we have to deal with. While protecting the program. And if you remember the recommendations were the government should not hold the data and there should be a court order prior to any query and who held the data we would leave up to the experts. The president s recommendation is completely consistent with the review groups. I actually believe that the house plan and this committees plan is very very close to the review groups recommendation. In some ways i must tell you i like this committees approach a little bit better because it actually speeds the process and it allows to bring into, to bring into play some of the data that is not currently in play meaning there was a gap out there today that i worry about and what you have crafted allows for the closure that gap and i think thats very important. I could support the president s plan. I could also support this committees plan and since i have this opportunity to speak to the American People i want them to know how much oversight that this committee does on all sorts of issues and it is not it is rigorous oversight. I have sat in this chair a lot. Rigorous oversight tough questions, fair questions and on the program was there more oversight than on the 215 program. Thank you mr. Morell and i want to thank and commend the chairman and Ranking Member for the hard work they put in and attending the press conference with that legislation and the data being held by the government. I appreciate that and i appreciate your comments today and your insight so hopefully Going Forward we will pass this legislation soon and you said it right. The program is vital to our National Security that the American People have to have confidence in it that we are doing things the right way. I think this is t quite frankly that was at best leading by mission or lying by omission. We trusted you and by not being forthcoming i think you violate your obligation to this committee and to the congress. You dismiss the email to the station chief in benghazi. We cant go into the details of the email but i have a different interpretation from yours. You and congressman schiff made reference to signals intelligence. We know what the station chief felt. Why did you believe that should not be significant . He is the guy in the ground. He is the guy who is the closest to it and if you bring up issues of signal intelligence today when those who are familiar with the full context of that no whites not taken seriously is again misleading here today. He said theres no politics in no changes done for political reasons yet if we look at victoria niland, she says she has serious concerns. She was on talking points. Arming members of congress to make assertions to the media that can be used by members to beat the state department for not paying attention to agency warnings. Thats clearly a concern by the state department about their reputation. We also have for instance a memo to then rose among others. There is massive misinformation out there particular in congress. This is a response not only to the House Intelligence Committee but also guidance we need to brief members press and correct the record so clearly the administration wanted to use this for political purposes or at least framed in the nature of the debate. And then victoria niland finally i guess she says that this is to resolve all of my issues or as mr. Conway mentioned those of my leadership and the question is who is the leadership and who is she talking about . Who was she talking about the seventh floor and who on the seventh floor . Then we go to general petraeus. General petraeus at the very end and i dont know anyone who is a leader in any department or agency who is more controlling than general petraeus and yet he says frankly it seems so passive. This is certainly what not what vice chairman Robert Burger was hoping to get. Why was general petraeus sitting back the way he was when it goes against everything i saw in the testimony for a committee. And then susan rice and senator mccain and the fbi and you brought up the fbi changing talking points are later that day that have been changed. Then after you leave the government beacon global and the person in the leadership in the state department. They then we go to cbs news and i believe his brother is the director of cbs news and you can smile and say its all conspiracies and iceland by themselves i might agree with you. This is why people have questions. I would ask you questions and you can enter whatever is you want to. At what time we told the general petraeus was under investigation . Were you aware of it on the day the talking points were prepared . I dont remember the timing of my awareness. Of that investigation. Thats pretty significant. Heres the director of the cia under investigation and it was seemed to me he shouldve should have been told immediately by the white house on a moments notice. And also to have that influence his talking points. I did not know anything about what was going on with general petraeus until the day he resigned priests be so no one told you anything . No one ever said anything to it all . No. You had no knowledge of that . No sir. When you accompanied susan rice to senator mccain and senator ayotte and senator graham is a customary for cia officials to accompany a president ial nominee . I was asked to go. Is it customary for that to be done in . It was an ad hoc thing. It doesnt happen every day where it was not a president ial nominee. Politically you mentioned. She had not been nominated yet. She was going up there to try to explain what she had said what she said on the sunday shows. I was asked to go with her. Who has to . The white house dennis mcdonough. I was asked to go to explain one thing and wanting one thing only the consistency between the talking points about the attack of evolving from a protest. I was asked to talk about the consistency between the talking points in the classified analysis. That is why i was asked to go and that is why i did it. The main question you are asked by the fbi you got wrong. Everything he volunteered he got wrong. Yes sir i got it wrong. You are going up there were susan rice to brief the senators on what happened in the key facts you were wrong. I was asked the question who took alqaeda out of the talking points and i got it wrong. I said the fbi when in fact the cia was the one to take it out of the talking points. What i was thinking at the time was about another change that the fbi had asked for. The fbi made another change because it did not want to be too definitive about who conducted the attack. So i got it mixed up. I corrected the record as soon as i found out. They call the fbi in the fbi protested vigorously. Nobody from the fbi ever called me to complain. Did they call the cia . They called nobody at the cia and i just checked this. They called nobody the cia. I corrected the record long before i knew that the fbi was upset. In fact i did not know the fbi was upset until a couple of months ago. How come you checked at . You had two months to prepare. How come and 74 hours you decide to do at . The congressman what happened was i was asked a question. I made a mistake. I got in the car to go back to langley. I langley. My head of Congressional Affairs who was with me in the meeting said michael a. Think you got that wrong. I said well lets go find out and ineffective lets correct the record. Will make up back to headquarters we had a meeting in my office where i found out that i was indeed wrong and i told my ahead of Congressional Affairs to correct the record. Within two or three hours he had done so. Not within 24 as some people have said and i didnt wait until i heard the fbi was upset before i corrected the record. I corrected the record as soon as i found out. How many in this town do that . We have to believe an awful lot of circumstances in this totality to accept your version. I find that difficult. I yield back. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Morell can you speculate or how do you feel the reasons why we have not been able to bring the perpetrators to justice . Congressman thats a very good question. It has been eight months since i left my job as Deputy Director so i have no idea what the status of the investigation is. I have no idea what the status of cia support of that investigation is so i really cant speculate on where things stand. Its really a question for the federal bureau of investigation. Speaker2 my colleagues on the other side who think this is some kind of a witchhunt the reason where pressing is because we dont have retribution. We are getting bureaucratic whatever you want to call it about why nobody can take responsibility. You talk to the fbi and they have one version and i know this is in the cias job that anyone who wants to know why this is a going away thats the reason its not going away. I want to see them brought to justice. I want to see retribution. I would pull the switch if i could. Thats why the mac and people are upset. That is why the committee is not going to let it go and thats why most of the American People i get this question more and more and more and we get talking points and we get about who said this and the station chief said that in the bottom line is that we have got people running around who killed americans who are sipping mai tais or whatever they are sipping and we can do anything about it. That is why i dont think we should let it go. I dont think the American People should let it go and especially for the memory of those heroes and everyone else in the cia and excuse me mr. Morell you have been there for so many years. You have seen brave men and women put their lives in harms way time and time again. What we want to send the message to the rest of the people out there on the vine clad that time can go by in the United States of america cant bring these thugs to just. I yield back. Mr. Congressman. All the resources we have to bear, we get all kinds of stories about why this can happen. Now if it was a month later or if it was two months later we might say okay there might be some reasons why but this is a long time. This is a long time and i think we send a message to anyone else who wants to pull this kind of a stunt that you know maybe the United States is in so serious about all of this. I dont blame this on you but for anyone whos wondering why this is going on this is why its going on. This should never be let go until we get to the bottom of it. No apology necessary. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Morell to follow up on mr. Lobiondos questioned the reason the perpetrators have not been brought to justice yet is because they are not labeled alqaeda by the United States government. Isnt that right . At sir i dont know that. But the cia, you know this. The cia did consider them to be alqaeda didnt they . See what we said and what the analysts still believe is that the attackers that night, some of them were affiliated with alqaeda. I want to switch topics here. He participated in your testimony and the Deputies Committee on september 12. You dont mention it but you also participated in the deputies call on the 13th. Who else participated in that call . Which one . On the 12th in the 13th . P. I dont remember in detail cermak who participated. Can you be more specific . Was anyone from tripoli on those calls . Beyond the 12th i am certain of it because i was in i ran at the time and i remember that both the chief of station and the deputy chief of mission were on and i believe they were also on the 13th but i dont remember that for certain cermak. Mr. Morell and our investigation and this has been going on for a long time, the first evidence that we had a mention of this mysterious and tell problem is actually you brought it up on the 13th. So i dont remember. I dont remember saying that there was briefing the deputies that there was a protest at the deputies meeting on the 13th but i would not be surprised at all that i did so. Its. Maybe this will spur your recollection because i know was a long time ago. You got an update from the chief of station. Mr. Mcdonough led the call. Youve got a quick update and then mr. Mcdonough turned to you and you talked about this new stream, this new product. Is that right . Again i dont remember but as i said i would not be surprised if they briefed the deputies on the 13th that the attack had evolved from a protest. Why wouldnt i be surprised . Because that very morning we published a piece that said that. My job as Deputy Director was to represent the views of the cia at the deputies meeting so i wouldnt be surprised at all cermak. So did you, did the deputy National Security adviser Denis Mcdonough who is now the white house chief of staff did he know about that problem product . Which product are we talking about . On the 13th . He would have read that product that morning. Did you conspire beforehand . No. Conspire to do what . To talk about the process that led to the attacks . No. So you have not talked to Denis Mcdonough and he was not prompting you . This was the cias considered judgment at the time , a written product produced. All of the community had signed off on the product. Right. One of the problems here mr. Morell discharge day and the Diplomatic Security officials all the dod officials and all the cia station personnel and benghazi have all reported by this time that the assault began as a preplanned attack not a protest. So in other words the product that you were using on the 13th was contradicted by every Single Person that was on the ground in libya. Didnt know it at the time sir. Didnt know it until saturday morning when the chief of station sent an email. What were you guys talking about then in the deputy committees meeting that occurred on the 12th in the 13th . On the 12 there was no discussion of a protest. There was no discussion of a protest on the 12. On the 13th any discussion of the protest would have been based on the classified product that was produced that morning. But in all the discussions were you ever involved in any discussions with aaa . Yes. On the 12th and 13th . They run the screen on the 12th and i believe the 13th what did they say about the protests . They did not say was a protest. This committee cant do the chairman went out as he said in his Opening Statement we have on this committee significant intelligence product. The chairman of the committee was able to go out and say this was an attack. On the 12th i believe and you are telling me you were on calls with aaa on the Deputies Committee sometimes twice a day and you dont know until the 14th or 15th that everybody on the ground believes this was a preplanned attack. Sir we believe from the getgo that this was an attack. We believe from the getgo that this was a terrorist attack. The analysts did not believe then or now that there was significant preplanning. I understand that mr. Morell but the problem is that you have got all of these conflicting stories. The stories that you talked to the senators and it was mr. King brought up that there was a change by the fbi and not the white house. Later he took responsibility for that and then there are other contradictions about whether or not in the talking points whether the white house was involved or not. All of this has proven to be false but ive read your testimony and you have an excuse for everything. For all of that you have an excuse which is fine but when the chairman asked you about when you sat next to jim clapper in november of 2012 you dont have an excuse. You only have an apology. I have an explanation of why i did not say anything in response to the question who took alqaeda out of the talking points because i did not know at the time who did that. The chairman was asking. You sat in front of our committee in november of 2012 than you had a chance to stop stop you wouldnt have had to be here today had you just said what you knew at the time. I dont believe that at all cermak. I would be here anyway because only thing i would have been able to say at that time was mr. Chairman i do not know who removed alqaeda from the talking points for what i can tell you mr. Chairman is that i myself play the role and those talking points. That was the only thing i couldve set at the time. My time has expired mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Chair thank you. Mr. Morell on september 11 we know there was a fair amount of activity going on at the compound that day and benghazi. Chris stevens was after that day in the turkish ambassador came to visit ambassador stevens at the compound that day. We know from eyewitness testimony on the ground contemporaneous from the rso that was there that the turkish ambassador when he was there and all through the day there were no sightings, no indication in any way of any gathering or any protesters around the compound around benghazi. There was closedcircuit television. It was that every 17th brigade. There were people they are offering security no one at any time prior to the attack gave any indication that there was a protest going on at the compound. The rso himself said there was nothing going on at the compound. The chief of station in tripoli had no indication of any protest going on. The political officers had no indication of anything going on. The grs officers coming from the annex over, anyone involved in this situation cant cut no one had any indication that the protests going on and yet the Obama Administration allowed its spokesman for the first time in the first Public Disclosure five times on the sunday morning shows made a false narrative that a Youtube Video was the reason that explained that there were protesters that we now know are aberrations that never existed were there. This is a false narrative. This is why this is not a small issue. This is a big issue mr. Morell because we have emails in front of us cables in front of us that dont lie. That is not conspiracy. Emails in the cables are very clear about what we knew and when we knew it. We knew that while the attack was going on that there was already from the state department at fort 4 05 p. M. An alert that the compound was under attack. The second was at 6 08 p. M. That an alqaeda linked terrorist Group Operating in libya claimed credit for the attack. We also know that a cable that was sent on september 12 by cia station chief in libya reported reported eyewitnesses confirm the participation of islamic militants and make clear that u. S. Facilities and benghazi had come under attack even if in your first draft from the cia distributed internally showed this is 11 15 a. M. We have date stamps on it. The cia and the u. S. Government knew islamic extremists with ties to alqaeda participated in the attack. All of that we knew. What changed is when the talking points prepared again by your office, when those talking points intersected with the white house and those organizations within the white house included Senior State Department officials, senior National Security officials conquer all of those that you have talked to us about proper bordello out when Matt Jake Markley said ben, the only change that happened were senior white house officials. And we know from the emails particularly from Victoria Nuland that is then referenced by my colleagues from the date stamp time again at 9 24 p. M. Ms. Newland wrote that the problem remains. Her superiors were unhappy. The changes that were made did not resolve all of my issues are those of my building leadership. We also know ben rose from the National Security Foreign Policy further advised the group. The issues were solved the following morning at the white house. At the white house saturday before ms. Rice went on the sunday morning shows. They were resolved overnight. They were resolved in favor of the white house and what is really odd here is the false narrative given on sunday morning on the sunday morning shows somehow strangely added up the view of the white house six weeks before the president ial election that alqaeda was nearly defeated and the global war on terror was over. Everyone on this committee knows that wasnt true that alqaeda was not defeated. Everyone on this committee both sides of the aisle know the global war on terror was not over. That was the narrative of the white house running up to the president ial election. How weird that ultimately was reflected in the talking points against all the knowledge from people on the ground and not which the committee had. That is why we are upset because the American People from my perspective were intentionally misled by this administration as to what happened and benghazi. Chairman can i respond . I would make two points maam. Number one the narrative that the attack evolved spontaneously from a protest was a narrative that Intelligence Community analysts believed. Not just cia analysts, Intelligence Community analysts. That turned out to be incorrect but that is what they believed at the time. There is no politics there whatsoever. Thats point number one. Number two is what they actually give you the facts of what the state department changed in those talking points and what the white house changed. The white house change three things. The first thing the white house changed was to add cairo in front of the word emcee for the sake of clarity. The second thing the white house changed was to rearrange a couple of sentences purely stylistic. The thing the white the third thing the white house change was to change the were consulate from diplomatic posts for accuracy. The changes the state department made, just too they wanted to change the were consulate to diplomatic post for exactly the same reason. The second change the state department made was to remove the entire bullet on unfair of sharia. The state Department Said it was premature to single out a specific group in the cia agreed because the only unclassified evidence we had at the time was on sir al sharias Public Statement which they then retracted. So the state department and the white house makes five changes only, all of them in my view fairly significant. Mr. Morell they didnt have to change because you made the changes for them. Thats the point. That is why you are in front of this committee today. He made significant substantive changes for the white house weather is on the half we dont know but we know that you are the one that made those changes. If you look at the record what you will see is the changes i made were fully consistent with what are analysts believed at the time period. The analysts that were part of the bureaucracy not the individuals who were on the ground to have eyewitness testimony and who as early as september 12 had sent you a cable that it was not a protest that was in fact an attack. Those were intentionally ignored. So maam do believe we should have accepted the chief of stations be without question . I believe the totality of the information was obfuscated and there was an intentionintention al misleading of the public. If you believe we should have accepted his explanation of what happened you also need to accept his view that it could have been the video that motivated individuals to attack that night. We spoke with them yesterday behind closed doors. He was adamant from the very beginning that this was not a spontaneous protest. We heard from him directly yesterday that at no time did he agree it was based upon the video. It isnt just him. If the rso. As the chief of the base and those that came from a annex. Its the political officers. All of them agreed. You take that verses some press reports and one signal the weight and balance or even equal. It is neither equal. The evidence overwhelmingly pointed to an attack that was alqaeda or jihadist related. Who was in just one piece. There was also reporting from the station. More than one cygnet . There was also reporting from the cia station that there was a protest as well as from the department of defense. Cygnet . There was a human peace. There was cygnet and there was from the department of defense. There were multiple intelligence pieces. Thank you mr. Chair. Thanks mr. Morell for being here. Thank you for your service to our nation and i also thank all of those who also worked at the cia a those nameless and faceless individuals that continue to work hard to make sure that a nation is protected. Like everyone who is set today one of the most important things and tried to make sure that this doesnt happen again and i would put out that Something Like this probably wouldnt have happened and probably wont happen again if all the issues were given their due attention. The hundreds of issues prior to the attack that clearly ended the deteriorated security and the two prior attacks in the temperate facility in the assassination attempt on the british ambassador. The british pulled out of benghazi in the light of the fact that multiple requests were made for increased security to increase the Security Posture which were denied unlike the cia a facility for request for additional personnel and security material for granted. Another has been a lot of talk about who made what change in plan. Perhaps something you may want to bring back in your conversations. Its very simple. Microsofmicrosof t word track changes and perhaps in the future we will know who made what change in wind. The issue of whether or not this is being politically driven but me ask why was the cia Public Affairs Affairs Affairs and Congressional Affairs office is so intimately involved in the drafting of these talking points without having subject matter present. That in and of itself seems like something was done more from a Public Relations perspective than from a substandard perspective. Speaker2 thoughts on that. One is that was not inappropriate for the office of Public Affairs and office of Congressional Affairs to be involved in this. After all it was a convening of congress have asked for them and they were going to be made public. So not appropriate for them to have been involved. What didnt go right was the exclusion of the substandard expert in the editing session conducted by those two offices. That was the mistake that was made. The question is a following. Why wasnt there an expert looked in at that point in time knowing their request for this committee to be able to go out and give some type of informed view of what happened. Skin dont know the answer to that question. The at the point when the editing session occurred i was not even aware that the committee had made the request. Moving to my colleagues that have referenced the email from Victoria Nuland timestamp that doesnt resolve the issues of my leadership. I will tell you the more concerning email was the one that was timestamp the same day at 7 39 p. M. From victoria. Again it beats is perhaps on a path of some of the changes are concerns being driven by perception and political thought rather than substantive thought and that was the panel to my point could be abused by members being members of congress, to beat the state department for not paying attention to agency warning so why do we want to feed that concern . So this doesnt seem to be talking about was that an attack or was it an assault or a protest or demonstration in who was responsible but trying to make sure the department of state was being protected based on what was going to be provided. Granted this process was taking place before the talking points came to you for final edit but in the totality of looking all the information provided to this committee we see the state department trying to backtrack or cover themselves from not paying attention to warnings to. The followon email was from david adams referring to ms. Newman. The last one especially were we to members like we have been repeatedly warned. I spoke and google get comments back and that is when the final email came from her that doesnt address all the concerns or you can see why the information doesnt necessarily point to giving us the best possible information but being filtered so as to protect the department of state. Speaker2 things. One is i was not aware of any of those emails and i never saw any of those emails. Number two i made the decision earlier, much earlier than those emails were written. I made the decision to take the warning language out and the director chief of staff was standing there when i told him the warning language has to go and the reason why i thought it had to go and that was long before the state department ever wrote those emails. Understanding that happened on a parallel pathway. Not parallel. You didnt know they had requested it. Nonetheless they not knowing it was taken up by you the draft had not been edited when the email came out. They were still making that same request. I made the decision to take the warning language out long before it edited the talking points. Speaker2 does department of state know you were going to take that out . Probably not. Which goes back to the perception board and substandard information. Yes, so to be fair to them for us to have said that we warned them not give them the opportunity to say here is what we did in response to those warnings i felt was not appropriate. I appreciate that but the fact is they did nothing in response. Thank you mr. Morell. I yield back. Thank you mr. Chairman. There have been suggestions from the other side that we continue to process this. Its been 19 months. I would remind everyone theres an investigation across the capitol that has been going on for six years with tens of millions of dollars that continues to this day. Its perfectly important matter not only to those lost lives but this is about the trust and the cia. Its about Public Perception of cias role when it provides information to this committee. This is an agency that we all come to rely on and the American People need to be able to rely on it too and so i want to ask you why did this go to the interagency review process at all . We asked the cia for information on multiple occasions. Probably too much to folks annoyance. Where is it asking from recreation but why is ben rhodes makkah political appointee involved at all . This is a good question. Its a very good question. First of all it was very important that we coordinated the talking points with the rest of the Intelligence Community because this was an Intelligence Community judgment that i mentioned earlier. We can give you something about an analytic judgment without cordoning with those people who helped come to that judgment. Thats number one. Number two we have to provided to the fbi and the department of justice because they had just opened an investigation into the death of four americans and its very important that we not say anything in an unclassified session and it was very important that we not say anything in an unclassified session to put that investigation at risk. Number three we thought it important to to share those talking points with the state department which had just lost officers and number four we were getting talking points to a Congressional Committee to talk about a very important National Security issue and it is important to let the white house know when youre going to do that. That is why we went through the interagency process. This is what we are up against. Every single change that gets made makes this thing plainvanilla rather than getting to the heart of what was really going on. Happens at a time when you had a role more like a Public Affairs officer than an intelligence officer. When you see this put together is widely get the questions are getting today. Theres a legitimate line of inquiry about politicals actors putting out talking points of this committee that were requested not from the state department not from the white house but the Central Intelligence agency. The National Security staff with the organization at the white house that coordinated on those talking points. They are not a political entity. You said this committee was not intentionally misled. I think you also use the word deliberately. You think we were inadvertently misled . I think in looking back something that let people to think about this in not exactly the right way. An example i would give that will give two examples. The example i would give is not using the right language when we said the attack evolved spontaneously from the protest because that gave the impression that the protesters became the attackers. We couldve written that sentence better. When i sat here and did not speak up when director clapper was asked the question by the chairman who took al qaeda and i shouldve said something and i didnt. I did not lie. I did not mislead that i could have done better. Thats a long answer to a yes or no question. My question is were we misled . No. I have a different view. You talk today and you said we still not know the motivation for that. Correct and you will know until we actually get them. We know these were all qaeda affiliated participants at night. I think you know precisely why they attacked and killed in a a an american. I think you know was well so to sit here today and know we dont know the motivation of al qaeda when they kill americans is disingenuous. I think its focusing on the micromotivation of an individual at a mom and not it getting into the organizational behavior that lies behind that behavior. Not everyone there was associated with al qaeda. This was a mix of groups. This was a mix of people some of them were affiliated with al qaeda. I like you know except we wipe the al qaeda guys were there. I dont away the rest of them they are and why they decided to do the attack when they did. I dont know what motivated the timing. We wont know that until we talk to them. I yield back mr. Chairman. Thank you mr. Chairman. I would like to if i could change directions a little bit based on some of the other things he said. I think we have gone over at naseem these talking points and quite frankly we have all the stages of what the emails were backandforth and what you testified to at what you intended. I dont think you are a liar. I dont think youre a dishonest person. I think there were some mistakes you said you made. There is clearly political things going on in these emails whether people want to have knowledge that are not. I mean it is what it is. We are all human. You might say the people that work for the National Security apparatus and the white house arent political people. We know they are. They just are whether they be democrat or republican legislation. Just as the president and secretary clinton said they were against the surge in iraq for political reasons. The same thing i think is going on here. Aside from that one of the things you said you made mistakes in this whole process is he said you were again september 11. Where you at our embassy or where were you at that point collects fees so the evening of the 11th i was at dinner with their liaison partners. Okay, so when you talk about how youve relied on your analyst to give you whatever best information you could garner from benghazi will immediately after supposed to the station chief on an equal footing, say this event happened in amman and there was a station chief there. She were sitting at what you call washington ask an analyst back in washington what is happening in amman even though you were there and the station chief is fair . It seems to me if an equal are not greater weight would be on the person i was actually on the ground there. Cermak the way the process works is that the people on the ground collects information. They send that information to washington. Analysts take that information which is not the totality of the information because the analysts are getting information from all sorts of places. Notches from people on the ground. The analysts look at the totality of information and they come to a judgment and that is cias official position. Do you think thats the way to go . I do think thats the way to go. Let me Say Something else. Chiefs of station are encouraged if they have a different view to write their own analysis and disseminate it to policymakers. We encourage them to do that. Let me switch. You also talks about the military that showed up the next day at the annex. Who was the military . They were two military officers from tripoli who volunteered to go with our officers to benghazi and those two individuals are heroes. Absolute heroes. They were on the roof when those mortars hit and they successfully removed the injured and the dead from that rough under fire. They have been decorated and rightfully so. I am grateful that they volunteered to go to benghazi that night because had they not more people would have died. Can i ask a question with regards to this . We are talking about the annex in your personal that was there what americans can expect in the future should Something Like this happen again and to try to avoid it. That is where i think all of us want to get to and to not have four people get killed and the people on the grounds assigned to those places can expect when they go and serve their. If this would happen again and we have heard time and time again that there wasnt enough time for there to be a military or some kind of special forces response because of the distance that responders were from benghazi that day in a very hot spot or whatever. But my question is, by the time that ambassador stevens died which was shortly after midnight and the amount of time that went on and the amount of hours that went on before the two military guys showed up in the mortars at the annex thought we were told that there wasnt enough time or military response to get there. The one question that i continue to happen the one question we need to know moving forward so we can keep our agent and embassy safe is how did they know at the time that ambassador stevens was killed and the secretary of state and q. How did they know what it was going to end such there wouldnt be enough time to get a military response fair . It ended at don and they were hoping that it would end at don. We have absolutely no idea that would be the case but what if it went on for eight, 10 or 12 more hours . My problem is i dont feel like the frustration is ever going to send a response to benghazi and put boots on the ground in another middle eastern country because of whatever perception that might have political or otherwise. For them to just say there wasnt the amount of time to get anybody how did they know when it was going to and . I cant tell you about the decisionmaking and discussions at the department of defense because im totally unaware of those. What i can tell you is that there were three attacks that night. There was the attack on the diplomatic facility in benghazi. When our officers showed up at the diplomatic facility and rescued the state Department Officers and took them back to the cia annex there was a Second Attack and it occurred immediately upon their return to our base. That attack lasted about a halfhour or so in that attack was pulse. Things were quiet. Things were quiet for a number of hours. I dont know exactly, three and a half or four hours but things are quiet before. What i think cap and the guys who did the first attack on the annex went away got heavier weapons including mortars and came back for another go at it. There was a period of time in which it appeared that this was over. I understand that the semantic or question completely but i just offer that context. Mr. Chairman i appreciate it but for the safety of people like this in the future just because there is a gap in time knowing that nobody is coming from the United States of america is very disconcerting to me. Mr. Chairman can i just have one more second . Is that okay . I think you have asked the most important question which is what can we do Going Forward to minimize the chance of this happening again. We will never be able to guarantee that it wont happen again. There is always risk but i think the things that we need to do to make sure this doesnt happen again is one, i think we need to improve on intelligence collection. In these places like benghazi where there is real risk we need to make sure that we have battlefield awareness and i think this committee knows that in the days leading up to the attack in benghazi we were about ready to install a special system at her face in benghazi that would have given us better intelligence. So we need better intelligence. Two would need to make sure the Security Posture of these facilities is as good as it can possibly be in three i think we need to make sure the military is always posturing in a way that can respond quickly if necessary. Mr. Thornberry. Mr. Morell in addition to the reasons you were discussing with mr. Lobiondo and mr. Rooney on why this is important, this is another area i want to ask you about. We have heard for some time about the involvement of the National Security Council Staff in daytoday running of military operations, intelligence operations around the world. Secretary gates talks about this very explicitly in his memoirs and his anger at the micromanagement coming from the same staffers at the white house and talks about secretary clintons feel the same thing and others have written about that frustration. You served as Deputy Director of the cia, acting trip to the cia. Did you experience such frustrations as secretary gates and clinton and others . Peace orr as you know the Central Intelligence agency conducts some extremely sensitive operations. And i routinely, routinely discuss those operations with mr. Brennan and with mr. Mcdonough. I would ask a lot of questions just as i get asked a lot of questions here. I never felt i was being micromanage their nor have i ever felt i have been micromanage here. But did you experience or have knowledge of National Security Council Staffers directly calling chiefs of station around the world and being down into the daytoday daytoday max. That did not happen to my knowledge. The interaction between the National Security staff in the Central Intelligence agency was almost exclusively, not largely but almost exclusively from mr. Mcdonough and mr. Brennan to me. And what im wondering is, is that because of your level because we have all these emails the show of brady of people under them that were involved in these talking points and other things. I guess werent going is the light that shines on the daytoday operations, what does that tell us about not only how this administration works but the bigger institutional. Let me back up for just a second. Cia 33 years . Orr. Would you say that the cia is more independent today than it was when you entered or less . From micromanage and an up mean from a repugnant democratic but the influences the bosses from the white house . Hard for me to say. Very hard for me to say because when i started in 1980 i had no contact, association or interaction with the white house. I was 21 years old. So its really a question of my time working with this administration and with the Obama Administration. I honestly serve i did not see a huge difference in the extent of interest and questions about what it is we were saying analytically and doing operationally between the two administrations. Some of us have been around nearly as long as you and remember irancontra and the difficulties when operations are run out of the white house. Air raises grave concerns, again institutional concerns. As important as this incident is even beyond and particularly the candid comments of some people who serve in might administration race that which relates to the topics we are having here today. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman. I would just like to clear up a couple of things with mr. Morell. Her testimony about things were quiet before the ours is in direct conflict with things that we have heard from the grs folks that were there at the annex on the ground during that time period. When you are with president bush in florida and you immediately came up with the conclusion that Osama Bin Laden and al qaeda and im not asking you to go back to your thought process but what gave you the ability to know that . Because i knew at the time that there were only two countries who are capable of doing Something Like what happened on 9 11 iran and iraq and i thought they would have everything to lose and nothing to gain by doing so great i knew there was one other organization in the world who hate who had that capability and that was outside and so that is why it came to that conclusion. Between february and the attack between february of 2012 and the attack, we have approximately 4000 pages of Intelligence Reporting that came out of the cia on the beer so i am sure you were aware. Absolutely. You are aware about the ambassador, the red cross, the two or three bombings that were at the facility. This was september the 11th, the 11th anniversary of 9 11. Was it not in your thought process than of having seen or been aware of these 4000 pages of intelligence especially the july 12 assessment that the cia put out about al qaeda becoming stronger in libya. Did you not go through the thought process and come up with immediately in your mind who was capable of doing this . Who would want to do it on the 9 11 anniversary . Especially with your knowledge of all the Intelligence Reports. So the cia sent out a cable to all stations and bases in the days before the anniversary saying hamm pay attention. Its the anniversary. You know this would be a great time for these guys to hit us and please share this with your liaison partners and please share this with the chief of mission and with the rsos end so that warning did go out and that is something we always paid attention to was the anniversary of 9 11, absolutely. So your thought process, you never said it could be al qaeda . No. My thought process the analyst said from the getgo that al qaeda was involved in this attack from the getgo. So they said it was involved in the attack but you took it out of the talking points . I did not take it out. Some people have alleged that i i personally take out al qaeda from the talking points. That is not true. Who didnt . The group of officers from our office of Congressional Affairs and our office of Public Affairs took it out. I did not take it out. I did not know it was in there when i looked at the talking points. It turns out that taking it out was the right thing to do and let me explain why. Because the only way we knew that anybody who was involved in that attack that night was associated with al qaeda was from classified sources. So to even hand the director would have had to declassify that information, and i dont think that is what this committee was asking for. In fact i know that this committee was not asking for us to do classify anything. So it turns out an richer spec that taking it out was the right thing to do from a sources and methods perspective. So the classified was that it was al qaeda. Im confused. The only way cermak not the only way we knew that some of the people who were involved in the attack that night were associated with al qaeda was from classified sources. Could those classified sources tell you that it was a demonstration in . I dont know for possessing classified sources are not. It just seems if you look at the whole picture i think the majority of people look at when those talking points were editef the administrations philosophy of how they wanted to be portrayed in libya. You know, and the fact that now mr. Brennan is the director of the cia when he was the National Intelligence advisor i guess for security advisor to the white house and mcdonough was enough he is the chief of staff its hard to kind of get to a lot of information about maybe what they were looking at as a National Security advisor ursus what kind of job they have now but thank you for your 33 years of service. Mr. Nguyen as i just to clarify. How does the term al qaeda, how would that disclose classified sources number one and then secondly you also take out islamic extremists. I took out the word islamic in front of extremist. And i took it out for two reasons. Most importantly i took it out because we were dealing with protests and demonstrations across much of the Muslim Muslim world as a result of the video and the last thing i wanted to do was to do anything to further inflame those passions. That is why it took the word islamic out. It was a risk judgment. The second reason i took it out is because what other kind of extremists are there in libya . s. And just for clarification of the record but in the memo you have in front of you future a line through the sentence that being said there indications that islamic extremists participated in that line goes through all of that. Yeah so that was a mistake. It was seen the final talking points that got us back in the talking points. Speeches real quick when more time how does mentioning al qaeda disclose classified source . From what i was told, from what i was told chairman the only way way that when you got was from classified sources. There was nothing unclassified is said that al qaeda, that some of these individuals were associated with al qaeda. There was nothing classified. I have to tell you that confuses me greatly in all the conversations we have a on this Community Committee im not following that line logic on how that would disclose sources. I understand. Is hard to explain why. Again i came out the next day and said it had the hallmarks of an qaeda attack. Ill think that was disclosing classified sources in doing that. Anyway i just wanted to clarify that. Mr. Nunez. Mr. Morell i want to go back to the intelligence product that you reference on the 13th. Specifically who were the analysts they came up with that product collects. They were the analysts in our office of terrorism are you. So the cia only . The cia the analysts from the office of terrorism analysis drafted the peace and coordinated it across the Intelligence Community. You are telling me approved . I dont know exactly which ones. Youll have to ask agency for that but it was coordinated in the Intelligence Community and if the tni were here he would tell you was an Intelligence Community view. Who are the analyst. I know who the boss was. Do we know who the analysts were . Sure. There are analysts who focus on Extremist Group terrorist groups in north africa and i believe was those analyst to work on this product. You mention when you look into this he you said and im just paraphrasing here but you said there were more data points that showed that there was a protest. I think you use data points. What i said in a written statement was that there were a handful, a dozen or so reports saying that there was a protest. Pulled on a minute. Let me just clarify. Most of those dozen you reference were press reports. There were a few outliers as it related to signet and humid and signet this is important the reporting that we had at the time there were more human reports and signet reports that said there was not a protest. Not true. Not true. Skip believe thats true. Its not true. Congressman at the time the analysts wrote the piece that was published on the 13th the only information they had about a protest was that there was a protest. There was not a single piece of information that there was not a protest. That is what i was told. You may not have known about it but all the eyewitness on the ground and the emails in there were live chats. The analysts did not have access to what the people on the ground knew or were saying at the time. I would like at some point meet with all these analysts and let them explain this. I just dont understand this. It sounds like someone is getting thrown under the bus. Mr. Morell when one of the survivors, cia personnel survivors who leads the cia do you know what they told me . They told me they are leaving the cia because they dont want to be left to die again. That upsets me and i think it should upset you. If thats the way they feel that upsets me. So heres another problem with this. As it relates to the personnel. The cia personnel have the right to make a complaint with oig. Wrights . There were oig complaints filed as a relates to these benghazi attacks, for there . I am not aware. You are not aware that there were complaints filed to the oig . You know i dont remember. I am not aware of when they happened. I assume you have this. I am asking these questions for the record but did you ask cia Inspector General David Buckley not to conduct an investigation. No. He may have treat the director at some point but i do not recall. Cfa said earlier you didnt know. I am saying he may have briefed us that remember. Did you talk to general petraeus about this alleged investigation. Not that i remember. There are four murdered americans. I would think of the cias own personal file complaints the oig should follow up into an investigation. Yes, i believe so. Why didnt they . I dont know. Youll have to ask david. I yield back mr. Chairman. Ms. Ms. Bachmann. Thank you mr. Chairman thank you mr. Morell. I want to clarify to make sure that i understood what you said. Weather was the information for the people on the ground station chief. For instance we have information a cable sent september 12 by the cia station chief reported the participation of an islamic militancy may clear the u. S. Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. I was clearly sent by the station chief. We know the rs on the ground the political officers the grs officers again the tripoli chief all of them on the ground saw the same thing but i thought i just heard you say mr. Morell that the information taken from a eyewitnesses on the ground wasnt given to your analysts, that they looked at the press reports the intelligence project signet humid. Is that true . What you have to understand them is that the information didnt come all at one time. The information came in pieces over time and when the analysts wrote their piece on the 12th that was published on the 13th information that they had said there was a protest. Information they had no information and said there was no protest. There may have been people on the ground who knew there was no protest and they had not yet been interviewed and the centerpiece had not yet been disseminated. In fact they were not disseminated for some time. In fact they were not disseminated until after the analysts changed their judgment about a protest so there is a flow of information here that is really important to keep in mind is to think about how the analysts were trying to do their job here. But again it seems the proof text is very interesting because you have analysts that are surveying islamic news sources and islamic news sources can put out a propaganda narrative if you will then of course whatever your analysts report will be what they propaganda news sources say. Again what we heard behind closed doors from people on the ground is that as mr. Nunes just said it was an outlier report. One, that this was in fact a protest. Everything else he got, the guy in the ground, is that this was an attack and islamic inspired attack. So what im saying is that the analysts are only looking and if they are narrowing their focus to such an extent that they are only going to see what propagandists want them to see that none of us should be too surprised that is what we get for the products. It seems very strange and we are ill served on this committee as well as the American People if we dont take the totality of the information about something this important so we get it right. This wasnt just an immediate two days afterwards. The present of the United States two weeks later in front of the United Nations continued the false narrative that it was a Youtube Video that was responsible for what happened and as a matter fact that filmmaker went to jail for a year. He was the only scapegoat while the thugs and criminals and benghazi are still wandering the streets. He is the only one that is ever going to jail. Is it no wonder that the American People are absolutely upset about this . How interesting that at the u. N. The number one agenda item of the oic the organization of islamic cooperative their number one agenda item was to criminalize any speech in any country that somehow insults the prophet mohammed. Why is it that the false narrative that our president and secretary of state continue to put forward was parallel to the agenda of the oic . I dont get that. It had nothing to do with the facts on the ground reported by the eyewitnesses on the ground. Seems to me what you were lying on from your analysts didnt take into account the truth. That is what gives us problems. Man might just want to clear something up here that is really important. There is an implication what you are saying that the analysts were aware of the eyewitness accounts when they did their analysis. Voted on the 12th of disseminated on the 13th. They were not aware. They were not aware of the eyewitness accounts and i just wanted to clear that up. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Morell i am going back again to this Intelligence Report used on september 13 or that you had in your possession on september 13 called extremists capitalize on benghazi. That is the one you use, correct . And you know that you were quick to point out that there was no mention of that video in that. Correct. But he failed to mention there were two other cia pieces that were produced on the 12th both mention the quote recently released inflammatory video unquote. Were you out where of these two products published on september 12 . Probably. I dont know the context sir that those references were made. So the reference to benghazi protests wasnt related to the video what type of protested your analysts believe it was in reference to . So their view on what motivated the attackers that night changed over time. What they said on the 13th was that the attackers. You cant have it both ways. Are you going to let me into the question. I will but im just saying you cant have it both ways. Im not trying to have it both ways great and trying to explain the facts to you. On the 13th the analysts said that what motivated the attackers was what happened in cairo, that they saw the guys go over a fence in the Embassy Compound in cairo and wanted to do the same thing in benghazi. They later said, they later added another possible motivation which was solid. s called for revenge for the death of ali. Those are the two motivations they also talk about period. Why do your analysts ignore if they went along with a the protest in cairo and a protest on al lippi and thats fine if we are taking you at your word why did they ignore the other two pieces that talked about the video and they dont include that in this analysis . Ive not know the answer to that sir. Ideal back mr. Chairman. I see our time is out and i want to clarify for the public because i think this is important. The talking points are one of the data points on what concerns the committee as we look at all to classified material Going Forward and the narrative may not have been for a Political Campaign which is beyond your position mr. Morell but that narrative continued on afterword subsequently. We have seen the fact we have seen the pulling back the counterterrorism programs that we believe leave dangerous islamist extremists on the battlefield in a way that we didnt do before. We have seen the very fact that we have a number of individuals who have been left on the battlefield we now participate in this terrorist attack that killed americans in benghazi something that wouldnt have happened if for and our concern is trying to understand all of this and that narrative and did that narrative leads into what is real policy today. Which is why we see member so frustrated about what are we doing to bring these people back an affair of those involved in the decisions that dont believe it was terrorism which is alive and well unfortunately that poses a threat than you can see that narrative actually being implemented in a way that i think its dangerous to the United States. That is why think you see the concern of this committee and by the way behind closed doors in this committee theres bipartisan concern as you saw today about moving forward about things that are not being done that we used to do that i do believe puts america in a position to be more vulnerable. That is why think we see the interest and the emotion today. I can want to thank you for your candid testimony today. I want to thank you for your 33 years. Someone told me you started when youre 11. We do appreciated and thank you for being here voluntarily. You are welcome. Its good to be here and you and i have spoken at length about counterterrorism and you and i are both deeply deeply concerned about the threat to this country. I really appreciate that. Mr. Chairman thank you for this hearing. Its important to have these hearings. I do want to say to my republican members that i expect each and every one if you do have a point of view and i think the reason this committee has been so bipartisan is democrats and republicans might not agree but we respect the fact that someone has another point of view. We try to come together on what is right for the American People. I think where i am and i dont speak further members is we need to continue to have investigations when their issues as important to this and the American People are looking for answers. My point was that we have had six separate congressional hearings. We have had thousands of hours spent in the investigation and yet we are still looking for the issue of whether or not the facts that we had before us were politically motivated. I think this is really where this is coming down to and there are some people and there are people on both sides that might think it is or is not for the true facts and many of them. As a lawyer and that is what youve done today and the percentage are so well in that regard. I also want to talk about mr. Lobiondo. I respect him a lot. Hes a patriotic american. He works hard on the committee. That is where i am basically is what he is talking about. We need to make sure that we are finding is that guys who killed americans and that is where focus is now. The fbi is conducting a joint investigation working with other people and that is another area where we need to look. At this point where the evidence is we somehow have to decide where we are going from here. That should be the highest priority. If in fact and i have a lot of respect for mr. Pompeo who said the investigation could last for six years and thats fine. I know the chairman was a former fbi agent i was a former prosecutor. If there any facts or conclusions that we come to now we have look it up at this point you have to prioritize. We have so many issues have appeared, the russian cyberthreat i mean it goes on and on. You only have a certain amount of hours in a day so there comes a time where do we go . Do we keep getting these hearings hearings were a hearings were having hearings were having seen anything advocates of that one issue. Was issue. Was a politically no debate it or not . In conclusion i also have a lot of respect for you and i know you have served your country well. Sometimes allegations that get out there. He came before us and he did not back away and i believe your factual statements i hope will do a lot to clear up these allegations. We will have your statement on line for public review. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned