Transcripts For CSPAN Benghazi Consulate Attack Investigation 20140406

I thank mr. Morell for volunteering to testify once again. A terrorist attack against u. S. Facilities is a serious event and this committee has been conducting a thorough and detailed investigation for the last 19 months to understand exactly what happened. We have held over 17 member events reviewed thousands of documents mostly classified interviewed the men on the ground that night. I want to focus on how this Committee Received inaccurate talking points and how the administration used those talking points to perpetrate a false narrative about the attacks. After the attacks this committee immediately sought the truth. We received a closed briefing with nctc folks and then petraeus on september 1 and september 13 respectively. After the director then petraeus briefing some members of this committee sought guidance about what could be said publicly in an unclassified forum. We knew that our constituents the American People certainly needed to know the truth about the attacks. Unfortunately, the talking points did not reflect the best Information Available. They did not mention that Al Qaedalinked terrorist were involved in the attacks. Through briefings and Intelligence Reports assessed they were involved. The talking points suggested that there had been a demonstration and when there had been none and the officers on the ground said so. Talking points were so devoid of facts or useful information that i in fact dismissed them didnt use them. In fact on september 12, 2012, i made a Public Statement that the attack had all the hallmarks of al qaeda. I dont believe any members of this committee actually used the talking points after the attacks. As director petraeus described, they were useless. You indicated that you did not know susan rice would appear on the sunday talk shows on september 16. Your statement replies that you would have written different talking points if you knew that she would use them that particular day. But susan rice did use them as the spokesman for the United States government she used them to tell the American People that there had been a protest spawned by an anti islamic video. She made no mention of al qaeda. She focused on the protest. You told the day before she appeared in public that the chief of station reported that there was no protest. The public needs to hear exactly what those talking points how those talking points were created. The American People should understand your role and the role of the Intelligence Committee in that process. I must conclude that the white house used your talking points to perpetrate its own misguided political agenda. I believe that the white house wanted america to believe al qaeda to be on the run. Thus, they need it had attacks to be in response to an ant islamic video so the white house used your talking points to say so. But we knew that al qaeda and other affiliates and participated in the attacks. Officers on the ground knew that there was no protest. The American People had known that those officers knew if the administration told them the truth the public would now know that these terrorists were to blame. The public would better understand the threat we are facing today. And our intelligence and defense professionals could have been mobilized with greater speed to find and take these terrorists off the battlefield. I dont believe the administration learned the lesson of its failure, ub fortunately. Ambassador rice stated on february 23 of this year that she had no regrets. She still believed the talking points represented, the best information that we had at the time. That is simply wrong. By the materials and documentation in possession of this committee. The white house wants to ignore reality and perpetrate the fallsy that al qaeda and other islamic extremists are on the verge of defeat. This is a very, very important issue. Al qaeda is growing and Planning Operations against americans in their safe havens is in libya, syria, iraq, and elsewhere. Yet the administration continues to talk and act as if al qaeda is on the run. They foolishly focus on al qaeda, quote, core but it makes no difference whether the terrorists who target americans are directed by al qaeda in pakistan or al qaeda in yemen. Lets also not forget the state department ignored amp warnings about the deteriorating threat environment in libya and rejected requests for additional security reports from officers in the ground in benghazi. The Defense Department failed to posture itself to protect facilities in harms way. Despite ample warnings. Benghazi highlights our failures and signals our future. We know the location of some of the benghazi attackers and we have the capability to and the capacity to get them the administration has done neither and we will unfortunately the longer this goes the more risk they pose and the wrong message it sends to reinforce to those who perpetrated the attack. They refuse to act on what we know is true. Al qaeda is a greater threat today than it was on september 10, 2001. And it is most highlighted by the sheer volume of threat stream targeted at aspirational and in some case operational details to attack americans and westerners, our allies. Our nation must redouble its efforts against this threat. We must continue to confront the terrorist threats with every tool that we have. And with a clear mind about what is at stake. The 19 months since our four americans were killed by terrorists and we still have not brought any to justice. This is a disgrace. In the nine months i have remaining as chairman of this committee i will continue demanding that the administration take Decisive Action against the benghazi terrorists before turning to our witness i recognize the Ranking Member for any opening comments he wish to make. Thank you, mr. Chairman. First based on your announcement that you are retiring i want to take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership on this committee, your commitment to bipartisan and your dedication to find answers at transformed this committee into a shining example of what good can come when we Work Together in a bipartisan way. We have had a wide diversity of opinions on this committee. I disagree with some of the things you said. That doesnt mean we dont get along and work. We disagree we argue but we always focus on the end game how to get there together and each of us all members of this committee respects and gets along with each other even though we disagree on many issues. You fostered has resultd in a committee with an unparalleled track record with accomplishment passing intelligence authorization act passing Cyber Security legislation and proposing bipartisan to reform meta data increases privacy and civil liberty and preserves important capability. The committee will miss you and your leadership but we still have you until the end of this congress and we know you will continue to roll up your sleeves and continue the work the people. Today as we turn our attention to the tragic events in benghazi we know that there were many heroes and many people who suffered great loss that day. We mourn the deaths of ambassador chris steven and glenn and we honor the other men and women who acted courageously that day to save the lives of others. No one left a comrade behind. We owe it to them and to the countless others who risked their lives to defend america to find out what went wrong to make sure it doesnt happen again. Which is what were doing today. The independent accountability review board headed by admiral mike mullin and ambassador Thomas Pickering completed a comprehensive review of the situation and issued 29 recommendations. The government is implementing those recommendations especially when it comes to increasing security. We in congress have also combed through every aspect of this tragedy. We have run down every allegation. On this committee alone we have reviewed thousands of classified documents and watched frame after frame of security video and interviewed the key intelligence individuals on the ground. We also found areas that must be improved. But to date we have found absolutely no inappropriate motivation. Specifically todays hearing we have also found no conspiracy in the editing of the talking points only never ending conspiracy theories. I was the one who asked for the talking points the days immediately following the tragedy. I asked for them to aid our ability for this committee to communicate without revealing classified communication in what we knew would be a very media driven. We have only found evidence that the talking points were editted to check classification and to safeguard the investigation and eventual prosecution which has to be our ultimate goal finding and Holding Accountable those who committed the terrible act which killed our americans. And this is the third time we have had mr. Moral before this committee. In my dealings with him he has been frank honest and forth coming and i expect he will do so today. After today i hope we can get back to our more pressing work passing intelligence authorization act and improving Cyber Security and reforming fisa. In the meantime let me say thank you for coming before the Committee Even after you have retired. Your service to this country for over 30 years has been exemplary and we all owe you especially those deployed in hot spots around the world a debt of gratitude. I thank you and yield back. Thank you for the kind words and the one thing is we have worked in a bipartisan way we will continue to do that the remaining months that i know you will be Ranking Member and i will be chairman thank you for that. Before turning to our witness, as this is an investigative hearing we are going to swear the witness in before he testifies. This is the prerogative of every Committee Chair it has not been the custom here at the Intelligence Committee. So while it is always against the law to provide false statements to congress, the act of swearing . A witness impressing upon him or her the gravity of the proceeding and the need to tell the full and complete truth. So with that, i would ask mr. Morell if you would please stand not too much longer. Could you please raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me god . So help me god. Let the record reflect the witness has answered in the affirmative. I too want to thank you for your 30 plus years in the intelligence service. Youve had a highly decorated and certainly distinguished career for those 30 years. Its important you have the opportunity to provide testimony today and i would recognize you for your Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, thank you very much for the invitation to be here today. As the chairman knows, when he asked me a few weeks ago to testify today on benghazi, my response was a quick and a decisive yes. And as he also knows, i specifically asked that this be an open hearing. Why was i so decisive and why did i want this to be an open hearing . Because much has been said and many allegations have been made about the handling of benghazi by the c. I. A. And its leadership including me. Much of this discussion has been inaccurate. And the congress and the American People deserve to know the facts. I want to start by making my most important point of the day and it repeats something that both the chairman and the Ranking Member said. I want to take a minute to honor the patriots that america lost on that tragic night in benghazi. Chris stevens, shawn smith, tyrone woods, and glenn daugherty. They died serving their country. And it is paramount that we never lose sight of their service, their dedication, and their bravery. Mr. Chairman, i have submitted a comprehensive and detailed 23page written statement. I respectfully request that it be placed in the record. Wousm. It covers the development and evolution of c. I. A. s classified analysis of what happened in benghazi and my role in that process. It also covers the preparation of the now famous unclassified talking points and my role in that process. And it covers the specific allegations that have been levied against me. Time does not permit me to go into all this detail during my oral statement so i urge anyone who is concerned about this issue to read the full written statement in order to get a complete understanding of what transpired. In fact, i would ask with respect to that the committee make my written statement available on its website. Mr. Chairman, i want both the committee and the American People to know that i take very seriously the allegations about how the c. I. A. In general and about how i in particular handled the analysis and the talking points. As this committee knows, the ethical code under which Intelligence Officers carry out their responsibilities calls for total objectivity to call it like you see it. No matter what the audience wants to hear, no matter the implications for policy, and no matter the political consequences. In short, speak truth to power. I served the Central Intelligence agency for 33 years and i always abided by that code. I served six president s, three republicans and three democrats. I served as president george w. Bushs first daily intelligence briefer and i served as president obamas Deputy Director and acting director of the c. I. A. During this entire service i never allowed politics to influence what i said or did. Never. I believe the facts in my written statement make clear that neither i nor anyone else at the c. I. A. Worked to alter the analysis or the talking points in a way that compromised our responsibility to the American People. We did not deliberatively downplay the role of terrorists in the benghazi attack in our analysis or in the talking points. And neither i nor anyone else at the agency deliberatively misled anyone in congress about any aspect of the tragedy in benghazi. Mr. Chairman, none of what i just said should be interested to mean that we at the c. I. A. Did anything right. No organization ever does. There are thing that is we should have done differently. There are areas where the c. I. A. S Performance and my own performance could have been better. But none of our actions were the result of political influence in the intelligence process. None. Let me touch on three specific issues. One. C. I. A. Analyst the most talented and highly trained analysts in our government concluded less than 24 hours after the attack that a protest had preceded the assault on the state departments facility in benghazi. They arrived at this initial judgment with good reason and without any input from the white house, the state department, or the c. I. A. Leadership. Their judgment was coordinated across the Intelligence Community which meant that it was a judgment of the entire community, not just the c. I. A. As you know, subsequent information revealed this judgment to be incorrect. But and let me emphasize this our analysts reached their initial judgment because that is where the best available information at the time led them. Not because of politics. Indeed, our analysts did what they are trained to do, make a judgment based on the best information at hand, make clear that that judgment might change as new information becomes available, and then adjust that judgment as necessary. That is what i expected of them. It is what you expect of them. And it is what the American People expect of them. And it is exactly what they did. Two. The c. I. A. s then most Senior Analyst on terrorism an outstanding officer whom this committee knows well, wrote the first draft of the unclassified talking points. Neither the white house, the state department, nor i did so as some have alleged. After our top analyst wrote the first draft, many changes were made to the talking points over a period of time. Including some by agency officers, some by other agencies, and some by me. The process inside the c. I. A. To produce the talking points could have been better in several respects. And i discussed this in detail in my written testimony. But to be very clear, the white house did not make any substantive changes to the talking points nor did they ask me to make any substantive changes to the talking points. And while the talking points could have been better, the judgment that the attacks evolved from a protest was fully consistent with the Intelligence Communitys classified analysis at the time. Three. On the morning that i editted the talking points our station chief in triply, a talented Operations Officer for whom i have a great deal of respect sent his daily update to c. I. A. Headquarters addressing the 0ongoing security situation across libya. This email has rightly received some attention and let me address it. There was a line toward the end of the email that claimed the attack in benghazi was, and i quote, not slash, not an escalation of a protest. End quote. This email was received by my staff and by a number of other officials at the agency. As the record indicates, my actions in response to the station chiefs email were appropriate and consistent with my responsibilities as Deputy Director. I wanted to get the analysis right and to make sure that the right people knew about the station chiefs view. Upon reading the station chiefs email, i immediately recognized the discrepancy between the station chiefs view and the judgment of our analysts. I asked for more information from the station chief and i gave policymakers a heads up on the issue. I asked our analyst to revisit their judgment based on the station chiefs comments and to do so quickly. They did that and based on the totality of the Information Available to them they stuck to their initial conclusion. Mr. Chairman, i did not hide nor did i downplay the station chiefs comments as some have suggested. In fact, i did just the opposite. I addressed this critical difference of opinion immediately and appropriately. Mr. Chairman, i want to make two final points. First, i take what happened in benghazi very seriously and very personally. As Deputy Director and acticing director of an agency that lost a number of brave men and women on my watch, no one wanted to know more than i exactly what led to the attack, how we could have responded better, and what we could do to minimize the chances of a tragedy like this happening again. Second, as washington discusses this important issue, we ought to leave politics out of it plain and simple. Since leaving government, i have had the opportunity to speak with Many Americans around the country about the very Serious National Security threats facing the United States and the essential role our Intelligence Community plays in protecting americans from those threats. Very often i am asked about the tragedy in benghazi. While those who have engaged me on this issue want to know how this happened, they have made very clear to me that there is no room for politics in any discussion about the death of four brave americans. I could not agree more. Mr. Chairman, that concludes my Opening Statement. I look forward to answering all of your questions. Thank you very much. Mr. Moral i asked several of these questions in closed session previously. I think it is important to ask again now that youre before the American People in open session. Our committee has in our possession some 4,000 pages of Intelligence Community cables and assessments highlighted the deteriorating security assessment prior to the september 2011 2012 attack. Are you familiar with the ics extensive threat reporting in benghazi before the attack . Yes, sir, i am. Familiar with the attempted murder of the British Ambassador . Yes, sir. Are you aware that the british pulled out all diplomatic officials in benghazi . Yes, i am. The committee has documentation the was actively tracking prior to the attack. Were you aware of that . Yes. We have received testimony from several Security Officers stationed in benghazi that security upgrades were made in response to threat condition. Were you aware of that . Yes, sir. The committee has informed the c. I. A. Officials on the ground in libya had concerns about colocating with the state department at the temporary Mission Facility given the physical security gaps at the facility and the threat environment in benghazi. Are you familiar with that . Im familiar with that now. I was not familiar with that at the time. So you were not familiar that some of those assessments happened in august . I think it was actually a little earlier than that but yes. July or august maybe . Yes, sir. Were you aware that the state Department Officials had a discussion with c. I. A. Officers about overnighting at the annex the week of the attack due to the threat and physical security concerns at the temporary Mission Facility . I was not aware of that. Were you aware that the terrorist attack in benghazi on september 2011, 2012 involved military style movements, rpgs and accurate mortar fire and prepositioning . Yes, sir. In your role as c. I. A. Deputy director did you value the opinion of your chief of station . You becha. In your statement you said that the chief of station indicated to you that there was no protest in the attack was not opportunity stick. The chiefs assessment was based on conversations with eye witnesses the Security Officers who were in benghazi the Regional Security officer on the ground and the political officers who were in tripoli. I understand how maybe a low level analyst making a mistake but what concerns the committee and i think the investigators were that the very fact of your distinguished career you rose to the ranks as one of the best analysts because of your expertise and instincts you became director of an intelligence analysts the top analyst at c. I. A. You were with president bush in florida on september 11, 2001 and told him immediately that your gut instinct was that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the september 11th attacks. So help me understand, help our investigators understand, if you will, knowing all of the information you could possibly come to the conclusion that this was that this coordinated assault on september 11 was anything other than a terrorist attack. Congressman, i would say a number of things. First of all, the analysts on the 13th of september produced a piece of analyst that said that the attack in benghazi evolved spontaneously from a protest, as you know. That judgment by the analyst was based on a number of press reports and Intelligence Reports saying there was a protest including one Intelligence Report from our station in benghazi. At the time the analyst made that judgment, there was not a single piece of Information Available to the analyst saying there was not a protest. So they made that judgment on the 13th. When i received the station chiefs email on the morning of the 15th, as i said, i noticed the discrepancy. The station chief in his email said that there were two reasons why he thought there was not a protest. The first reason he gave was that there were press reports saying there was no protest. I personally did not find that reason compelling because there were quite frankly press reports saying that there were protests. The second reason he gave, the second reason he gave in that email was that his officers from benghazi base when they went to rescue their state Department Colleagues at the state Department Facility did not see a protest when they arrived. That was not compelling to me, either, because they did not arrive until an hour after the attack started and it is quite possible quite likely that any protest would have dissipated by then. And third, in my mind was the report from the previous day sent in by station saying there was a protest. So i felt that if the analysts were going to relook at their judgment made just two days before that they needed more information from the station chief on why he thought what he thought. And thats what i asked for that morning. Was for him to go back and to produce a piece of paper that provided more detail on why he believed there to be no protest. He did that in 24 hours. Now, the other thing i did that morning given the importance of this issue was to let my colleagues on the deputys Committee Meeting know that the station chief had a different view, that that view was different from the analysts and that we were working to sort it out and that we would get back to them. Thats what happened. Thats what i did. On november 15th, 2012, when you appeared before this committee with director clapper and director olsen to discuss the benghazi attacks, i asked at that time why the talking points had been changed to remove any references to al qaeda. Mr. Clapper answered for the panel that he did not know. Im curious that you were sitting at this on the same panel certainly heard the question but you didnt say anything. Can you tell us me why . So first of all at that time i did not know who removed the reference to al qaeda. And i had a similar exchange with senator burr on the senate Intelligence Committee on this issue. So at the time i did not know. But to be fair, and in retrospect, what i wish i would have done was to say to you chairman i do not know who took al qaeda out of the talking points. But you should know that i myself made a number of changes to the points. Thats what i should have said. I didnt. So you just said earlier there was no coordination with you and the white house on what those talking points would look like. Is that correct . So the talking points were sent to the white house. The white house the National Security staff actually, the National Security staff suggested three changes. All of them were editorial in nature. U none of them were substaptive. I have a chart, easel i would like to put up. I hope you can read that. Were going to give you a copy at the desk. Just to refresh your memory here. Maybe you can help us understand it. This is an enlarged copy of the draft with your handwriting and your notes on the memo itself. And it has a list of names in the bottom right order. You absolutely can. This brings back memories. Im sure it did. Can you just go down the list of names. So one of the questions i think the investigators had is the list of names at the time you were drafting it would indicate that you were at least in some contact or concerned or would have to run it through these individuals. Can you walk through that list and tell us who those individuals were at the time you were editing these talking points . Yes. Can i give a little bit of background mr. Chairman . Sure. So i was made aware of the talking points late in the afternoon on friday the 14th. When i was made aware of the talking points and i was shown the current draft of the talking points, i reacted very strongly to the inclusion of the warning language in the talking points. And i reacted strongly to that warning language because quite frankly i felt it wasnt responsive to the committees request about what happened in benghazi on the 11th. And more importantly, i thought it was an effort by the Central Intelligence agency to make it look like we had warned and to to shift any blame responsibility for the attack to the state department and it did not give the state department any opportunity to say what they did with the warnings. So i didnt think the warning language should be in there. I made a decision at that moment that when i got these talking points i was going to take that warning language out. So the next Morning Saturday morning i come in and my executive oolssistnt tells me that state department is very upset antithe warning language as well and that as a result the talking points are in limbo. Theyre stuck. He also tells me that because of that the then deputy National Security adviser Dennis Mcdonough wants to talk about the talking points at the deputies meeting scheduled for that morning. So we have the deputies meeting and dennis never raises the talking points. At the end of the meeting dennis goes around the table and gives everybody around the horn because we were on a sibites, gave everybody the opportunity to and im sorry . Dennis mcdonough deputy advigser at the time. White house chief of staff. Gave each of us an opportunity to say one more thing. What i said at that point was look im aware that there are interagency concerns with the talking points. I have my own concerns with the talking points. I will edit them and i will send them back around for a final coordination before we send them to the committee. So what youre looking at here is what i did. Im responsible for the changes on this piece of paper. The names you see are the names of the individuals who i wanted to send the talking points to one more time before we sent them to you. So let me go through them. The first you see ncsndi. What i wanted to make sure is that the final version of the talking points were ok from the perspective of our Operations Officers and from the perspective of our analysts. And i was most interested in knowing that they were ok from the perspective of the director of ota who you know that you and i both have Great Respect for. Then lets go down the names. Robert cardello was and is the number three in the office of the director of National Intelligence. He represents the dni at deputies meetings. Alan pino was the National Intelligence officer for the middle east. He was at that deputies meeting. Matt olsen was and is the director of the National Counter terrorism center. Jake sullivan was then the head of policy planning at state department and is now the Vice President s National Security adviser. Mark guilano was head of the f. B. I. s National Security division. Lisa monaco was head of the department of justices National Security division and ben rhodes was the spokesperson for the National Security Council Staff. So during any of those conversations with anyone on that list no one including the spokesperson for the National Security council indicated that they needed to be changes for any other for any reason whatsoever . So i never spoke to any of these people. We only sent them an email. The changes that were suggested by the National Security staff was at that point at that point they had made two suggestions earlier in the process before i was even aware that the talking points existed. But at that point in the process the only change that the National Security staff suggested was a change that was suggested by ben rhodes to change the word counsulate to diplomatic post and he suggested that change for accuracy purposes since it was technically not a consulate. That was the only change that was suggested at that time to the talking points. Did anyone tell you that the talking points were going to be used for susan rice . No, sir. Ambassador of the United Nations . No, sir. Did anyone tell you in the subsequent days on september 15th, once you realized that there was a fairly extensive description of why the conclusion was that it was not a protest on the 15th did that information ever make it to the hands of the individuals who would have provided those talking points to susan rice . I dont follow. Your chief of station sent a very detailed communication to you and your staff indicating all of the reasons he believed that this was an extremist attack that was had some level of preplanning. Did that information ever make it to the individuals on the list . Did they ever hear about this conversation . From you or from the agency . Yes. So the detailed email sent by the chief of station on the morning of the 16th what i did with that was two things. The first thing i did with that was immediately sent it to the analyst and say so now what do you think . And the analyst responded to that email hours later saying look were sticking to our judgment. The second thing i did was to send that document to director petraeus and i think my note to him said Something Like sir i do not know what to make of this discrepancy between the station chief and the analyst ive asked the analyst to look at it and i believe his response was well lets see what the analysts say. I do know that either the monday or tuesday of the following week just as i had given the deputies a heads up that this was an issue i told the deputies orally that the analysts had looked at the issue and that they were sticking with their judgment that there had been a protest. So with all of your training all of your experience, your gut reaction, did you believe that was the right decision . So i believed what my analysts said that there was a protest. I also believed it to be a terrorist attack. You see, we never saw those two things as mutually exclusive. And so i believed both of those at the same time. Knowing what you know now, would you have been surprised that many of the eye witnesses that weve talked to said they were surprised by the narrative on sunday the 16th . They were shocked . Members of your organization that were i think the word was shocked. Im a little surprised by that. Quite frankly. Because if they were members of my organization then they would have seen the analysis written on the 13th that said there was a protest and said the attack evolved spontaneously from the protest. So they were shocked on sunday when they heard that. They should have been shocked on thursday the 13th when they read it. And you are familiar with the executive on the 12th, something that i received and read, did say that it was likely not an opportunistic . It was because of the description of the armed insurgency that in fact on the 12th was in fact on that day. So there was a different narrative on from the folks on the ground than there was in the analysts here. And you can imagine how that creates confusion and the investigators and why some might draw that conclusion in the height of a Political Campaign that maybe something doesnt look right here give tn folks on the ground and the testimony of those on the ground were completely different than what the analytical product was including on the 15th which was a very detailed email highlighting the differences of opinion on this particular case from the folks on the ground during the event. Chairman let me actually read you what that piece on the 12th said. It said the presence of armed assailtents from the incidents outset suggests that this was an intentional assault and not escalation of the protest. Very interesting. Heres what really happened though. So the analysts who wrote the piece in a very, very Early Morning hours of the 12th mind you the attacks had just occurred, and the analysts were putting together what we call a situation report, when the analysts finished with the piece and when the analysts went home that sentence was not in there. That sentence was added by one of the editors after the analyst left. The editors said that she thought there needed to be a bottom line. She was a trained military analyst and she wrote that sentence. When the analyst came in the next morning, they were very unhappy that that sentence had been added and they complained about the addition of that sentence. So thats what happened. It was a bureaucratic, it was a bureaucratic mistake. No politics. I can certainly understand the confusion it created. And in retrospect, what we probably should have done was when we wrote the piece on the 13th was to make it clear how the language evolved from what was said on the 12th to get rid of that confusion. I agree with you 100 . And im not sure i would call it a bureaucratic mistake if the analyst was right. That analyst was not an analyst was not a Counter Terrorism analyst was not an analyst on benghazi she was acting as an editor and she added a judgment that she had no right to add. Maybe a gut training. On your time you can ask the question. I just want to ask again. We have questions here have a lot of questions here on that i want to pass off to members and i will have some at the end. At any time did you have any verbal conversation with anybody at the white house about what the nature of those talking points were and what they needed to look like . No, sir. At any time did you have any conversation with anybody at the white house and i mean anybody that had anything to do with preparing susan rice for going out and being the face for america on that september 16th . No, sir. In fact i didnt even know she was going to be on the sunday shows. And no one asked you to prepare talking points for you . No, sir. No one asked the agency either through the director or yourself to prepare any documents for her . No, sir. Was she briefed by the agency or had information or materials available from all the of the materials we discussed did she have any of those materials before she went on . I believe she had the talking points. Just the talking points. I believe she had the talking points but she would have also had access to all the intelligence information that she had received in the days before. Without would that have include it had september analysis from your chief of station on the ground . No. Why not . That wasnt disseminated outside c. I. A. Dont you think that was an important document to get in the hands of someone who was going to brief the country what was actually happening on the ground . Like i said, he gave two reasons why he believed what he believed. Like i said i did not find earth one of them compelling. Like i said i asked him for more information. It took him 24 hours to produce that. Once he produced that i asked the analysts to relook at their judgment. They did within hours. They stuck to their judgment. And like i said, i did give the deputies an oral heads up at the station chief had a different view. Well, i have more questions. I know theres a lot of folks that want to ask questions. Ill get back to the second round if i may. Mr. Chairman mr. Schiff i would like to be in regular order but give my time and then back to regular order. I thank the Ranking Member and i also want to take the opportunity to thank the chairman for the way he has led our committee. He brought a real commitment to the countrys security to this job. Youve beep very thorough in your preparations for the hearings and although we have on occasion butted heads, its never diminished my respect for you. Mr. Morell, likewise, i want to thank you for your decades of service to the country. I really appreciate all youve done and regret that its necessary for you to come in today yet again on this issue. But very grateful that you were more than willing to do so and we have the opportunity to i hope put these issues finally to rest. Thank you, sir. The detailed email that you got from the chief of station on september 16th, did not include any reference to terrorist attack. That terminology. Or did it . I dont recall, sir. To us, the word extremist was a synonym for the word terrorist. Not only for the analysts but also for our operators. So when we said the word extremist we meant terrorist. And clearly, thats not true for everybody. And i think from here on out, well be more careful in thinking about what the audience is going to hear when they hear the word that we write and say. But if the chiefs of stations own report did not include the term terrorist or terrorist attack, it wasnt because he necessarily concluded that wasnt the case but that other words are often used as a proxy. Thats correct. He thought this was a terrorist attack. And similarly, do you recall whether there was any whether the chief of station was willing at that time to ascribe this to al qaeda per se . So in his detailed email on the 16th he said regarding motivation, he said we dont know what motivated the attackers. But he said i think there are three possibilities. The first was an attack on the anniversary of 9 11. To use the 9 11 anniversary as the reason for the attack. The second reason he the second motivation was the call for revenge by zawahiri for the death of a senior al qaeda leader in pakistan named Abu Yaya Libby just days before. The third motivation that he ascribed as a possible motivation was the Youtube Video. So in this detailed memorandum, the station chief could not discount the possibility even then that the video played a role in the attacks on the facilities . That is correct. Now, a couple of the reasons that the chief of station cited for believing there was no spontaneous demonstration were that he discounted certain signals intelligence. Is that right . Thats correct. And that signals intelligence indicated that there was a demonstration initially at the consulate . Thats correct. And even if you discounted that particular signals intelligence, was that the only signals intelligence and it was pointing in the direction indicating that there had been a protest . There were sir, there were roughly 12 reports. Some of them press reports. Some of them Intelligence Reports. Indicating that there was a protest. The Intelligence Reports included reporting from the National Security agency, from the Central Intelligence agency, and from the department of defense. Indicating what . Indicating that there was a protest prior to the assault on the state Department Facility. So when the chief of station gave as another reason why he believed there had been no protests that there were a couple press reports indicating there were no protests those were in contrast to other reports indicating there had been a protest . Thats right. So we know there wasnt a protest so its not about what happened its about what we knew at the time. Right . Correct. So the analysts perhaps unlike the chief of station would have the signt, the complete press reports, the other intelligence products to make their assessment whereas the chief of station might have some of that but not necessarily the whole collection of intelligence . Thats correct, sir. Is that part of the reason why when you got his email on the 16th that you went back to him to say can you give us more substantiation because this is inconsistent with some of the other reporting were getting . Sir, it was his email on the 15th that i went back and asked him for more information. Thats the last question. Mr. Westmoreland who has been leading this investigation. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Morell. With all your years in the c. I. A. , who is the one person that you would count on the most to get your information from anything that happened in country where he was the station chief . Im sorry. Could you ask the question again . Who would you go to to get the most Accurate Information if you wanted to find out about an incident that happened in country . I would if im looking for the c. I. A. s judgment about what happened in a particular case, i would go to my analysts. Not to people that were on the ground . The chief of stations view is very important. But it is not determinative. So the analyst that is not there, he is the most important . Sir, there are two sides to the Central Intelligence agency. There is an Operations Side and there is an analytic side that makes analytic judgments. Ok. This analyst, was he the gentleman that was at the roundtable with director petraeus on the 11th . The senior that i spoke about who did the first draft of the talking points, the director of our office of terrorism analyst is a woman, and yes i believe she was with director petraeus in front of this committee. Yes. Ok. And so on september 14th, i think the general i mean, the director was there with this analyst. And at 4 42 p. M. On september 14th, officers in the c. I. A. s office of Public Affairs and Congressional Affairs deleted the phrase, with ties to al qaeda. So your analysts, the one that knew what was going on that you took their analysis from, used the word al qaeda. Right . Yes, sir. The officers who made this change say that they were trying to ensure the talking points contained no information that would hinder the f. B. I. s investigation. The same c. I. A. Officers changed the word attacks. So this analyst that youre counting on originally used the word attack. Correct . Yes, sir. It says then that you it was changed to demonstrations. Yes, sir. Now, were they demonstrating rpgs, mortars, heavy machine guns. Is that what they were demonstrating . Sir, they dont remember exactly why they changed attacks to demonstrations. But one of the things but your analysts, the ones that our giving so much credence to originally had attack and originally had al qaeda. Yes. Their talking points. Yes they did. One of the reasons they say they made that change is because it didnt make a lot of sense to say that attacks evolved into assaults. But youre relying on this ladys analysis. Is that not correct . Yes. Ok. And it says they also changed the phrase they participated in the attacks to the extremist participated in violent demonstrations. Now, were these you know, i mean, im having a hard time why you would want to say with four americans dead the place set on fire, that its a demonstration rather than an attack when rpgs, heavy machine guns, mortars, and others were used. How can you call that a demonstration . So, sir, the change that you just mentioned from attacks to demonstrations was a change that was actually made before the Senior Analyst sent the talking points to the office of Congressional Affairs. It was a change that was recommended by the Operations Officers who she was coordinating with and she was ok with that change. So but my point is youre not counting on the analysts in what she analyzed. You were counting on what other people said was wrong not on that third change, sir. She made she made that change before she sept it to the office of Congressional Affairs. As my written testimony makes clear. So it was her. She thought they need it had changes not somebody else. She agreed with the change. Ok. When is the first time you heard from the chief of station in tripoli that this was a planned coordinated attack . So the first this is complicated. Let me walk you through this. Ok . So the first indication that there was not a protest was a disseminated Intelligence Report from our station on that friday. And what that report said is that our officers who went from benghazi base to try to rescue the state Department Colleagues did not see a protest when they arrived. That was the first indication. Our analyst discounted that. For the reasons i explained earlier. Ok. The second time the second time was the morning the saturday morning was the saturday morning in which the chief of station sent an email with a very short reference to i dont think there was a protest. Let me give you two reasons why. And then the third time was on sunday morning when he sent a much more detailed note explaining why he thought that. Two points. One, the information that you said the analyst had was a news report. And i think it came from some calls that were from around benghazi that were made to another country by somebody. Was what the news report was. The other thing is a demonstration. And we all saw the demonstrations in cairo, in all around the world, these demonstrations. Youre saying you have a problem with this grs team that got there. I dont think it was an hour. It was an hour, sir. Ok. Well, i think its more like 45 minutes. But when you see those demonstrations, they dont just last for 30 minutes and then everybody go home. You would see people wandering around and doing things. They did not see that. What they saw the was the end of an rpg and heavy machine guns and being shot at. They didnt see anybody around with a sign protesting something. And if you watched the rest of the videos or any of the videos that come from demonstrations, those people are there for hours. Not minutes. But hours. Sir, what the analysts thought im just telling you what the analysts thought. What the analysts thought was that if there was a protest which they believed outside of the state Department Facility and the attacks starts that most likely that protest is going to break up and dissipate. Thats what they thought. And it is not an unreasonable thing to think. Mr. Ruppersberger. You want to thank mr. Westmoreland and also congresswoman Jan Shakowski for your Oversight Committee and investigation in this matter. I have two areas to get into so other people can have the chance to ask their questions. First, when i was asked for the talking points i was asking for something simple to give some of our new members talking points was asking for something simple to give some of our new members talking points that were unclassified knowing this would be a media issue. And i was very im really concerned right now that it got to the level where it got and that we really didnt get the talking points back in a day or two and it just goes to show sometimes where we go and what we need something basic in government it goes beyond where it should be. So i hope we can learn from this situation. Now, i never expected more than a year and a half after the attack that we would still be talking about this. Who changed the talking points. Protests or no protest. And i think the focus of where we need to be now is the s to find the bad guys who killed americans. That should be the focus. And also to make sure we learn from what happened at both areas in benghazi to make sure that our facilities for americans, the state department or the Intelligence Community, are safe. And we know what to do. Now, we need to focus again as i said on tracking down the people who did this and i hope were close to that. Now, i have a letter from the department of defense that said it has responded to six congressional investigations in this case has participated in 50 congressional hearings briefings and interviews and dedicated thousands of man hours to this task. Costing the taxpayers millions of dollars, the c. I. A. Has respondd in a similar magnitude. How much money do you feel that the c. I. A. Has spent on this issue right now . Sir, i really cant speculate on that. I dont know. Its probably close to where the department of defense is. Secondly, despite all this, no evidence that ive seen and if you have any please tell us that a motivation that theres no evidence of political motivation thats been uncovered. But yet this still continues. Can you tell us what kind of threat terrorist groups like al qaeda and answar alsharif still pose to america and the world . So i believe that the terrorist threat to America Today is very significant. The way i talk about this is that we are still at war with al qaeda. Very much at war with al qaeda. And in that war both sides have had a great victory. Our great victory has been the deccimation near defeat of the al qaeda leadership in pakistan. But al qaedas great victory has been the spread of its ideology across a very wide swath of the muslim world, from Northern Nigeria into the sahal, across north africa, in east africa. In syria, in iraq, and so both sides have had this great victory. And the threat to americans remains very, very significant. And congressman, i am deeply concerned that the threat is actually going to grow in the years ahead. And do you think the fact of whether or not in the beginning it was inspired by the news media from the protests or whether it was a planned attack at this point how would that make any difference on the focus of finding terrorists or dealing with a situation as it occurred in benghazi . There was no doubt in my mind and there was no doubt in the analysts mind although they said extremists rather than terrorists but there was no doubt in my mind or the analysts mind that this was a terrorist attack regardless of what motivated them and regardless of whether or not there was a protest or not. Well, i would think from that position that we would move forward. And our focus is catching the bad guys. The other question i want to get into is we as Americans Care very much about our men and women on the ground, whether military, Intelligence Community, whatever that is. And we always our theme we never leave an american behind. We always stand up for our people. And theres been allegations out there that ive heard off and on that we left our americans behind in this situation. Now, can you please discuss i think its important the longstanding security expectation and procedures that c. I. A. Stations and bases have particularly in remote and dangerous parts in the world . Does the c. I. A. Expect the military assets will be able to provide immediate attention no matter where they are in the world . And what im getting to, is that up your own security and theyre well trained. And even in this situation if it werent for the smoke that would have happened, hopefully that were looking back it did happen. But hopefully your people trained and did what they were supposed to do. Another thing that hasnt come out and but i can say the word about. About how Many Americans both locations in benghazi were actually saved based on the training and expertise of the c. I. A. Security force who always have seemed from what ive seen and the chairman and i have traveled all over the world and understand what that who that security is and what they do and what theyre trained for . Because i want to ask the question did the c. I. A. Feel abandoned by the u. S. Military in this situation . No, we did not. Can you explain what the security is, what these people are and how Many Americans were saved in this benghazi situation because of their training and expertise and courage . Sir, i dont think i can go into specific numbers. But what i will say is something the chairman said earlier. I have no doubt there is no doubt in my mind that had the c. I. A. Security officers from 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. And there is also no doubt in my mind that had c. I. A. Officers and u. S. Military officers responded from tripoli to benghazi which is over 600 miles. Had they not responded that night and went to benghazi that more americans would have died at c. I. A. s base in benghazi. So i believe there is actually a very large number of americans who are alive today thanks to the response of both the c. I. A. Officers at benghazi base and the c. I. A. And military officers from tripoli. All the evidence that ive heard in the hearings that i attended and not one time did anyone make a comment that they felt they were abandoned by the United States government or by the United States military. I know of no stand down order from anybody in the military. I am aware of several requests by c. I. A. For military support that night and those requests were honored and delivered. I want to get one last question that we on this committee need to respond to the public. And yet we have the issue of we cant violate any the law about giving out classified information. But we need some especially members who havent 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 . If you had it to do over because Everyone Needs guidance and facts and data. Thats the key issue here. Were trying to find the facts for the American Public. How would you handle this in the future if we make a request to help us deal with that issue of talking points . As the committee knows general clapper gets mad and said im not going to do it. Im going to say that, too. As this committee knows one of the things that i did when i was acting director the second time was ask for a Lessons Learned paper on the talking points process. And that paper really had two conclusions. The first conclusion is that we should really not be in the business of writing unclassified talking points for the American People. We do not do that for the executive branch. And we in general do not do that for congress. So this paper conclude that had we should be reluctant to do that. We are very good at speaking to policy makers. We are not trained at speaking to the American Public. We see extremists and terrorists as the same thing. Obviously the American Public does not. So my first idea on Lessons Learned would have been to push back and say why doesnt the committee take a first stab at writing the talking points and then well take a look at them . The second conclusion that the Lessons Learned paper came to was if we do write unclassified talking points, then the substantive expert 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, bunch of Congressional Affairs and Public Affairs people in the middle, and only bring the ex in, in the end. Have the experts go throughout. You look at general colin powell who went to the United Nations and was relying on information received from the community and about what was weapons of mass destruction in iraq. The same with susan rice. Then she went through a tough time when she was really responding to what information she got. So theres a lot of lessons to learn here. Yes, sir. Yield back. Mr. Thornberry. Thank you mr. Chairman and mr. Morell and for your years of service to the c. I. A. I want to understand better the deputys meeting and your edits to the talking points. Were you having daily meetings at this time . Yes, sir. We were having twice daily deputy meetings. So twice a day on the 13, 14, 15 you would have these Video Conference meetings in which you participated as the deputy for the c. I. A. 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. F. B. I. , doj, nctc. Yes, sir. Ok. So as we reviewed the emails of the night of the let me back up for just a second. On the as best you remember the deputies meetings, the two on the 14th i presume benghazi had to be a major issue you all discussed. It was not, sir. It was not. We were not looking backwards at that point. We were looking forward. So the focus of all of these deputies meetings, particularly the ones on saturday, and sunday, susan rice was on the sunday shows i was at a deputies meeting. The focus was keeping americans safe on all the places in the world where there were continuing protests and demonstrations. So we were not looking backward. We were looking forward on how do we keep americans safe. Which is interesting to me. So even on the 14th your the basic tenor of the meetings was we got the americans out so were not going to worry about libya any more . Its not that we are not going to worry about libya. We were still very worried about tripoli where we still had americans but we were not focused on benghazi because we were keeping americans safe Going Forward. Ant on the two meetings on the 14th do you remember talking points ever coming up there . No, i do not remember that. As i go and look at the emails as of 9 00, 10 00 at the night of the 14th, it looks like f. B. I. Has signed off, they have the talking points have been editted to reflect the state department concerns although it doesnt say theyve signed off. So im not clear why did you have conversations after 10 00 at night from the state department that said were still not happy . No, sir. So as of 10 00 at night theres this email that says ok weve made these changes f. B. I. Is ok can we go ahead and send them and there was a brief answer back that said no. What time was your deputies meeting the next morning . I believe it was 8 00 a. M. I believe. Ok. And did you have conversations with state department folks or emails from state department folks that morning before the deputies meeting that said were still not happy with these talking points . No, sir. It was not part of the agenda. Even though the ones from the National Security staff had been the ones to suggest bringing it up. What i am puzzled by, as you look at the edits that you made that were on the chart, you take out most of the words that are in the talking points. Even though the fbi is ok with them, you take out words because you are afraid they will damage the fbi investigation. You take out everything even related to warnings and a bunch of other stuff. It seems like you are more interested in protecting the state department than protecting the state department is. More interested in protecting the fbi than the fbi is. Director petraeus wanted more information about warnings in there. That does not make sense to me, can you explain the motivation . If you look at what i took out, the vast majority is information related to warnings. As i said earlier, i thought it inappropriate for the cia to say publicly that we warned of an attack coming. We also had him there that we had sent a warning cable to cairo, which i see no relevance of sending a warning cable to cairo to what happened in benghazi. I simply saw this as a way for cia to pound its chest and say look, we warned. Therefore allaying all the blame on the state department. I did not think that appropriate. I thought there would be plenty of time to have a conversation about what was warned and who responded and how. I did not think that discussion should start publicly, that was the judgment i made at a time. One other sentence, the wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in libya almost certainly contributed to the valley of the attacks to the lethality of the attacks. We did not know about the training of the attackers at that point, i thought it was speculative and not helpful. I am not saying i made the right decisions, but that is the decision i made. It is just such a drastic change. The decisions seem to be more protective of other agencies that even the other agencies are. Mr. Morell, thank you for coming and for your many years of service. I want to align myself with what our Ranking Member, mr. Rippers ruppersburger said, expressing my heartfelt sadness for those who served us so bravely. We should be focusing on what we can do to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again. We should be trying to apprehend the murderers who killed these brave americans. Anything short of that is an incredible misplacement of time and resources. The changes in the talking points do you make any changes for political reasons . No, sir. Did you know whether or not there were protests when you edited the talking points . I believed that there were protests because that is what my analyst thought. Some engine has been made about the chief of station comments, or memo, stating that this was not a protest issue. Yes. Does one assessment from any chief of station, regardless of how qualified that person is, trump all other assessments . No. It is an important data point that the analysts take into account. Station chiefs do not determine the analytic line at the Central Intelligence agency, the analysts do. As i recall him a meeting on february 13, two days after this tragedy took place, when general petraeus was in our committee for a classified roundtable briefing, you were not there. No. But you were briefed on what was said . I was told later in the day about the request for the talking points. That is the only feedback i got. I was not speaking to the talking points specifically. I was going to talk about a specific question that general petraeus was asked and his response. He laid out for us why he believed it was not only sparked by this protest, but why it was spontaneous, and his believe. Someone on our committee specifically asked him. How in the world could this happen, do people just drive around the streets with this type of weaponry in the car . He stated, yes, they do. They look for opportunities. Was he making this stuff up . In your view, was this assessment that he gave to us the best assessment given what he knew at the time . I think it was a mixture of the analysts view and a mixture of his own view based on his military experience. This is a man who has served in combat areas and had a vast amount of experience. Extensive experience. I would like to go back. I believe we should be looking at what we can do to make sure this never happens again. Not mistakes on talking points. Make sure a tragedy of this nature never happens again and we should be doubling down and doing Everything Possible to apprehend these murderers. Thank you, i yield back. Mr. Morell, remind me why the state department was upset with the talking points . I was told they did not like the warning language either. And you went in, i was going to ask another question, but you talk about deleting the line from the talking points about the notifying the embassy of cairo of social media reports calling for demonstrations. Yes. But you do not see any relevance to that, the cable going to cairo, and the fact that this was all being blamed on a video. The protest was because of the video. In an explanation, a member of the committee asked for unclassified talking points on what happened in benghazi the night of the 11th and the 12th. I did not see the cia sending a warning cable to cairo saying there is a potential violent demonstration coming against the embassy as relevant to what happened in benghazi. Even though the demonstration that was coming was over that Youtube Video . Correct. Why was ambassador rice chosen to go on the sunday talk shows . No idea. What was your reaction when you saw her explanation about what happened . I did not see her on the sunday shows. You have never seen i did not see her, i was in a deputies meeting. It was days later that i read what she said on the shows. What was your reaction when you finally did . Twofold one was that what she said about the attacks evolving spontaneously from a protest was exactly what the talking points said. It was exactly what the Intelligence Community analysts believed. When she talks about the video, my reaction was that is not something that the analysts have attributed this attack too. You said on september 13, and analysts said it was a protest based on a number of press and intel reports. How many . Numerous reports . Roughly a dozen. How much were press . About halfandhalf, the committee has all those documents. When you finally read ambassador rices sunday morning talkshow transcripts, did you complain to the white house at all about what she was saying . R were you comfortable with what she said . I did not complain to anybody, sir. You also stated that you noted there was a conflict between the cos and the analysts. Once you notice that, you adjust addressed it. How quickly and what do you consider appropriate . I addressed it very quickly. I was the one who spotted what the cos said in the bottom of an email. It was three or four sentences. I was the one who said this is inconsistent with what the analysts think. We need to figure this out and resolve this. I was the one to do that. That is an appropriate role for the equity director of the cia. I would expect the Deputy Director to do that. I asked the chief of station for more information. I explained that earlier. He provided it within 24 hours. Within 12 hours, i asked the analysts to provide their view on whether they should change their analysis based on whether the chief of station said. I think that is pretty quick. Do you consider a shift from a protest to a coordinated attack a large shift . Two thoughts one is yes. That is significant. The second thought, as i said earlier, we never thought that a protest and a terrorist attack were mutually exclusive. What the analysts believed from day one could it have been a protest customer could have been a terrorist attack that erupted into a protest . Sure. Why didnt ambassador rice, who went on five or six shows, ever correct the record . That it was more of an attack than a protest. I do not follow you. She said it was solely because of the Youtube Video. Later we learned it was more of an attack men about the Youtube Video. There was never an attempt to correct the record. There was a difference between what it was, a terrorist attack, and what motivated it. Those are two different things. No doubt it was a terrorist attack. To this day we still do not know the motivations of the people who conducted the attack because we have not caught any of them. The analysts have views about what motivated the attack. The analysts view is that it was one of two things. It was what happened in cairo. These guys in benghazi saw what happened in cairo and wanted to do the same thing. The other possibility they see is the revenge for the death of allibi. We just heard from congressman schiff that the chief of station sees three possibilities 9 11 anniversary, revenge for allib i, and the video. The chief of station thanks that the video may have been motivation for the attack in benghazi. A big difference between what happened, and attack, and motivation. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Morell. 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 or spirit. I believe what you are telling us today and your account of what happened. I appreciate that the first point that you made was that you wanted to honor the heroes who lost their lives. We all have to keep that in mind. I fully supported the accountability review boards investigation of the incident. The conclusions and findings that they had on how we could have done this more effectively. In the Intelligence Committee, we have held hearings and review documents. I said as the Ranking Member with chairman was moreland on the subcommittee on oversight. Throughout all of this, i have not seen evidence that anyone lied or intentionally misled the American People about the attack. Nor that anyone, including you, mr. Morell, inappropriately edited the talking points with this committee has asked for. We all agree that mistakes were made. There were some things that could have been done better throughout the process of drafting and distributing talking points. I agree with you that you and what your internal review found that there was no effort on the part of the cias Public Affairs officers to spend the talking points to accommodate a political agenda or deflect criticism for the agency or the administration. Alternately, it is critical that we determine what happened so that we can apprehend the perpetrators and prevent future tragedies at our consulate facilities around the world. I believe we have shifted from legitimate, factbased oversight into a partisan smear campaign. We must not continue to demean those who lost their lives by perpetrating this obviously political attack line. Going forward, there will be other times when this committee will want help in commenting on National Security issues to the American Public. They will want to protect classified information, although i would understand the reluctance in coming up with unclassified talking points. What are the key lessons that the cia has learned from this tragic incident . As i said, when i was acting director, i asked for two reviews. The first review was a review of our performance in producing the analysis. The Second Review was a radio of the Second Review was a review of our performance on the talking points. I asked the directorate of intelligence, the analytic arm of the agency, to do the analytic review. And i asked a senior attorney in our office of general counsel to do a review on the talking points. I told him i expected him to look at my own performance. He know that i was deadly serious about that. I told you what the bottom lines of the talking points Lessons Learned were. We should be reluctant to do talking points in the future. But if we do, the experts should be there every step of the way. On the analytic review, we had four lessons. The importance of the precision of language. That first sentence in the analysis on the 13th and the first sentence in the talking points on the attacks evolving spontaneously from a protest was not well written. What the analysts believed was not that the protesters became the attackers. They believed that the terrorists opportunistically took advantage of the process to attack. The precision of land which is very important. That was number one. Number two, beware of unconscious bias. What the analysts were saying to themselves was one of the reasons we bought into the idea that there was a protest, based on a dozen or so pieces of intelligence, which is not a lot. Was the fact that there were protests and demonstrations going on all over the place. They said that the fact that there were demonstrations going on all over the place influenced their judgment about benghazi and that they needed to be careful about that kind of bias four. The third point was that they needed to be quicker to write about a change in analysis once they make that change. When we heard from the li byans on the 18th that they had seen the video from the state Department Facility and sauna protest, our analysts were prepared to write but it took them four days to publish a piece. What they were saying is we have to move more quickly. The last Lesson Learned is that analysts have to push collectors to collect information more quickly. Aware of this comes from is that one of the criticisms is why didnt the phone and call the people on the ground in benghazi and asked them . The answer to that is i do not want my analysts being investigators, i do not think you one analysts being investigators. The fbi does not want my analysts being investigators and doing interviews. I do want my analysts picking up the phone and push collectors to produce more information and a more timely way. To push the fbi to get those iirs out more quickly. That is the fourth Lesson Learned. Thank you. Mr. Morell, thank you for your service. I went to identify mr. Thompsons comments about the importance of finding the folks who did this. Ms. Czajkowski lead you down a path i was going to talk about, the intellectual membranous of the intellectual nimbleness of analysts. We all have pride in a political point of view. Any sense that the analysts were impacted by their own personal beliefs . I do not believe so. With respect to the press reports, analytical work is art, not science. With the analysts have been able to tell that the press reports were a daisy chain of one percent reporting and then Subsequent Press reports. The sheer volume looks like a big deal but it was one persons misinformation. That is something they would look like, i dont know what the facts are in this case but that is something they think about when they look at press reports. The weight of evidence to change. The station chief emails that i have read, he is more direct in terms of it being an attack. The weight of evidence was unable to overcome the other biases in terms of decisionmaking. Is that a fair statement . It is fair. The analysts stuck with their judgment. When you get the information, you said someone from the state department was pushing back on the talking points. Ms. Nylund said that leadership is concerned about the warning language. She said my building leadership, what does she mean . I am not sure, you will have to ask her. I believe you are talking about ms. Nuland. She was a spokesperson at that time. I do not know that chain of command above her. There are a lot of comments being made about your post government employment. Would use be to us about what role, if any, discussions about your post government service, distinguished government service, played in the job that you now have. Sure. My first discussions with the can Global Strategies about going to work for them began in november, four months after i left the job. November november 2013. Four months after i left the job. I was attracted to working at beacon because i admired the four principles there. I think they are terrific public servants. It turns out they are terrific businessman, too. It is absolutely true that three of them are democrats. One of them is a republican and you know him very well, he was the staff director of this committee and worked in the bush white house. Had mitt romney won the white house, he would have been on the Transition Team for intelligence. In september 2012, that had nothing to do with my going to work for begin in november 2013. One final question, this may add more confusion. I have an email chain here that is dated 9 15 and 11 15 a. M. From matt olson to a michael j. M. Is that you . Yes. These are the points that ondi ledge sent to ruppersburger yesterday afternoon. At what point did the talking points actually come . I understand that nctc also did talking points. I did not know until that email that there were two sets of talking points. You would know better than i whether i want to sets of talking points. The reference to odni is nc tc . Yes. I yield back. Thank you. Mr. Morell, i want to thank you for testifying here today. I want to thank you for your 33 years of service to our country with a great distinction. You have always been Country First and have always done your duty and been very candid and forthcoming in your testimony before the committee whenever you have appeared before me since i have been on this committee. The fact that you are here voluntarily today reinforces how seriously you believe in the truth. We can all agree that benghazi was a terrible tragedy. It is important to remember that we lost four brave americans that day and we must make sure that we never let Something Like that ever happen again. I supported the independent arb investigation that interviewed more than 100 people, reviewed thousands of documents, watched hours of video. The arb spoke with people on the ground and benghazi as well as tripoli in washington. The top two military and intelligence they talked to military and intelligence officials, as well as outside experts. We in this committee has conducted over size. You have been before us three times and we have reviewed thousands of classified documents and interview the central figures. I have to i believe these neverending benghazi hearings have become a very costly distraction. They are far too partisan and no longer about finding and fixing problems. Instead, they have needlessly consumed thousands of manhours and millions of taxpayer dollars. I think that is very disappointing. That being said, i am happy that you have gotten the chance to address some of the allegations that are out there and to speak directly to us. I thank you again for your candor. I hope your testimony today will put on end to what i believe has become baseless conspiracy theories and at least allow the committee to return to the urgent work we have before us. On that point, i am going to move to an area that does involve real National Security concerns and threats that we have to deal with Going Forward. Part of that work is amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to eliminate collection of metadata while maintaining the capability of vital to keeping us and our allies safe. You are part of the president s panel that reviewed our intelligence programs, including that metadata collection program. This past sunday you said that the president s plan of approach were very close. You also said the house plan, you would be comfortable with that. Can you elaborate on your comments and give us further insight into this topic . Yes, sir. My main concern as i sat on the review group was how do we protect this Program Going forward. How do we make sure we still have this 215 program because i believe it is vital for the protection of this country. At the same time, it was absolutely clear that we have lost the trust of the American People and we needed to find a way to win it back. The review groups recommendations for designed to do both that. To win back that trust while protecting the program. If you remember, the review groups recommendations were the government should not hold the data. There should be a court order prior to any query. And who held the data we would leave up to experts. The president s recommendation is completely consistent with the review groups. I actually believe that the house plan, this committees plan, is very close to the review groups recommendation. In some ways i like this committees approach a little better. Because it actually speeds the process. It allows to bring into, bring in to play some of the data that is currently not in play. There is a gap out there that i worry about. What you guys have crafted here allows for the closure of that gap, that is very important. I could support the president s plan, i could also sport this committees plan. 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. It is not it is very vigorous oversight. I have sat in this chair a lot. Tough questions, fair questions. On no program was there a more oversight than the 215 program. Saying q, mr. Morell. I want to thank and commend the chairman and the Ranking Member for the work they have put on the legislation. Ending double data program and the data being held by the government. I appreciate that and appreciate your insight. Hopefully, Going Forward we will pass legislation soon. You said it right, the program is vital to our National Security, but the American People have to have confidence that were doing it the right way and it will never be abused. I think this is the right path forward. Thank you for your work on that bill with us. That was an important piece of legislation moving forward. It would not have happened without your help. Mr. King . So many questions from beginning to end on this whole issue of the talking points. To believe your version would require almost absolute faith in your word. Your first paragraph of your statement, you say you value the ability to communicate with congress and general and this committee in particular. You were sitting at the table along with other officials when we were trying to find out who changed the talking points. I dont think anyone on the committee had the faintest idea that you had anything to do with those talking points. It was not until six months later after all the questions were being asked in the inquiry about to changed the talking points, six months later we found out how directly involved you were when the white house released the emails. That was at best misleading by omission. At worst, lying by omission. We trusted you, by not being forthcoming i think you violated your obligation to this committee and to the congress. Several other things you dismissed the email to the station chief and benghazi. We cannot go into the details of that. I have a different interpretation. You made reference to signals intelligence. If we know what the station she felt, why he believed that not should be significant, he is the guy on the ground closest to it. For you to bring up the issue of signals intelligence today when those who were familiar with the full context know why it should not be taken seriously. It is again misleading. You said there was no politics and no changes done for political reasons. Yet, you look at Victoria Nuland. She said she had serious concerns on the talking points about arming members of congress to start making assertions to the media that can be abused by members to be the state department for not paying attention to agency warnings. That is clearly a concern about their reputation. We have we also have a memo, there is masses information out there, particularly in congress. This is a response to the fact that we need to correct the record. They wanted to use this for political purposes and frame their nature of the debate. Victoria nuland finally says this does not resolve all my issues. Or those of my building leadership. Who is the leadership she is talking about . The seventh floor, who on the seventh floor . Then we go to the email from general petraeus. You quoted him at the very end. I had never known anyone who was a leader of any department who was more controlling than general petraeus. And yet he says that she seems so passive. This is not what vicechairman ruppersberger was hoping to get. Why was general petraeus so passive and sitting back the way he was. It goes back anything i saw in his testimony before our committee. Then you accompanied susan rice to see senator ayotte and senator mccain. The question about the fbi. The fbi changed the talking points, that had to be changed. After you leave the government, you go to a firm, beacon global. One of its principals is a person in the leadership of the state department, one of those Victoria Nuland was worried about. Then you go to cbs news, ben rhodes brother is director of cbs news. You can smile and say this is a conspiracy. Isolated, i might agree with you. But the totality is why people have questions. You can answer whatever you want. At what time were you told that general petraeus was under investigation . Were you aware of the day the talking points were being prepared . I do not remember the timing of my awareness of that investigation. Thats pretty significant. The director of the cia, you are number two, he is under investigation for criminal charges. It would seem to me that you should have been told about that immediately by the white house or someone in the administration in the event you had to take over at a moments notice. And how did that influence his decision on the talking points . I did not know anything about what was going on with general petraeus until the day before he resigned. No one told you anything. Nobody in the white house said anything to you. No. You had no knowledge. No, sir. When you accompanied susan rice to senator mccain and senator ayotte and senator graham, is a customer is it customary for cia agents to accompany i was asked to go is it customary . It was an ad hoc thing. She was not a president ial nominee, she had not been nominated yet. That is why she was meeting with the senate. She was trying to explain what she said on the sunday shows. I was asked to go with her who asked you . The white house, denis mcdonough. I was asked to explain the consistency between the talking points about the attack evolving from a protest. I was asked to talk about the consistency between the talking points unclassified analysis, that is why i was asked to go and that is what i did. The main question you are asked about the fbi, you got wrong. Information you volunteer, you got wrong. Yes. Two months after the talking points you go up there with susan rice to brief the senators and the key facts you were wrong. I was asked a question, who took al qaeda out of the talking points . I got it wrong and said the fbi when 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. I got it mixed up. I corrected the record as soon as i found out, within several they call the fbi and the fbi protested vigorously. Nobody from the fbi called me. They called nobody at the cia, i just checked this. They called nobody at the cia. I corrected the record long before i knew the fbi was upset. I did not know the fbi was upset until a couple months ago. Why didnt you check . If you had two months to prepare, how come within four hours you decided what happened was, i was asked a question, i made a mistake, i got in the car to go back to langley, my head of Congressional Affairs, who was with me in the meeting said michael, i think you got that wrong. I said lets go find out and if i did lets correct the record. We got back to headquarters and had a meeting where i find out that i was indeed wrong. I told my head of Congressional Affairs to correct the record. Within two or three hours he had done so. Not within 24, as some people had said. I did not wait until i heard that the fbi was upset before i corrected the record. I corrected the record as soon as i found out. How many people in this town do that . I am just saying we have to believe a lot of circumstances and totality to believe you. I find that difficult to do. I yelled back. I yield back. Mr. Morell, can you speculate how do you feel about the reasons why we have not been able to bring the perpetrators to justice . That is a good question. It has been eight months since i left my job as Deputy Director. I have no idea what the status of the investigation is, i have no idea what the status of cia support to that investigation is. I cannot speculate on where things stand, that is a question for the fbi. Well, to my colleagues on the other side who think this is some kind of a witchhunt, the reason we are pressing is because we do not have retribution. We have an ambassador and american heroes who were killed. They were brutally murdered. We are getting bureaucratic whatever you want to call it about why nobody can take responsibility. We talked to the fbi and they have one version, i know this is not the cias job. That is the reason it is not going away. I want to see them brought to justice, i want retribution. I would pull the switch if i could. This is outrageous, that is why the American People are upset and this committee is not going to let it go. That is why most of the American People i get this . More i get this question more and more. Who said this, that. We have people running around who killed americans who are sipping mai tais and we cannot do anything about it. I do not think we should let it go. Especially for the memory of those heroes and for everyone else in the cia. Excuse me, mr. Morell, you have been there for so many years and seen brave men and women put their lives in harms way time and time again. Is this the message we want to send to people on the front lines . All this time can go by and the u. S. Cannot bring these thugs to justice . I agree with you 100 . There is nobody who wants to bring these guys to justice more than me, you know why. I know that and i appreciate it. The problem we have got is that we cannot get anyone in the great United States of america. This government, with all the resources we have to bear, we get all kinds of stories about why this cannot happen. If it was a month later or two months later we might say ok, there might be some reasons why. This is a long time. This is a long time. I think we send a message to anyone else who wants to pull this kind of a stock that maybe the u. S. Is not so serious about all this. I do not blame this on you. For anyone wondering why this is going on, this is why it is going on and should never be let go until we get to the bottom of it. No apology necessary. Mr. Nunez. Thank you. Mr. Morell, just to followup. The reason the perpetrators have not been brought to justice is because they are not labeled al qaeda by the u. S. Government will stop is that right . I dont know that. But the cia did consider them to be al qaeda, didnt they . What we said and what the analysts still believe is that the attackers that night, some of them were affiliated with al qaeda. Thank you. I will switch topics. You participated in a Deputies Committee on september 12. You do not mention it, but you also participated in a deputies call on the 13th. In both of these, you discussed the benghazi attacks. Correct. On theber the world 13th. I do not remember that for sure. In our investigation, the first evidence that we have of this mysterious intel product that you brought up on the 13th. I do not remember saying that there was briefing the deputies that there was a protest at the deputies meeting on the 13. I would not be surprised at all that i did so. Why do i the way i understand, maybe this will spur your recollection. You got an update on the call from the chief of station and d mr. Mcdonough led the call. Mr. Mcdonough turn to you and you talked about this new stream of this new product . I do not remember, but i would not be surprised if i breach of 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. Did you, did the deputy National Security adviser, denis mcdonough, now the white house chief of staff, did he know about that product before you mentioned it . Which product, the 13th . He would have read that that morning. Had you conspired beforehand . No, conspired to do what . Talks about that the protest led to the attack. This was the cias considered dutchman at the time. I thought it was all the community that had signed out on the product. I think one of the problems here is the charge, the Diplomatic Security officials and all the cia station personnel in benghazi have all reported that the assault began as a preplanned attack, not a protest. In other words, the project the product you are using on the 13th was contradicted by every person on the ground in libya. I did not know that at the time. Did not know that until saturday whatwhen the chief happened in the Deputies Committee on the 12th and 13th . It was no discussion of a protest. On the 13th, any discussion based on theen classified product that was produced that morning. Ever involved in any discussions with tripoli on the 12th and 13th . They were on screen on the 12th and i believe on screen on the third team. They did not say this was not a protest. This committee, the chairman actually went out as he said in his Opening Statement last we had a significant intelligence product where the chairman was able to go out and say this was an attack. On the 12th, i believe. You are telling me you are wrong calls with tripoli with the deputies to midi, sometimes twice a day, and you dont know until the 14th or 15th that everybody on the ground believes was a preplanned attack question mark we believed from the getgo that this was an attack. We believed from the getgo this was a terrorist attack. Leave then did not or now that there was significant replanning. I understand, but the problem is youve got all of these conflicting stories. The stories that you talk to senators and that they were changed by the fbi. For thatresponsibility there are other contradictions about whether or not the white house was involved or not. False, but could be i read your testimony and you have an excuse for everything. Have anof that, you excuse for everything, but when the chairman asks you about when in sat next to jim clapper november of 2012, you dont have an excuse, you only have an apology. Of whyve an explanation i did not say anything in response to the question who took al qaeda out of the talking points because i did not know at the time he did that. Apology you sat in front of our committee in november 2012 and had you would not have to had to be here today if youd just said which he knew at the time. I dont believe that at all, sir. I would be here anyway. The only thing i would have been able to say at the time was mr. Chairman, i do not know who removed al qaeda from the talking points. What i can tell you is that i played a role in those talking points and that was the only thing i could have said will stop i yield back. Mr. Chair, thank you. 11, we know theres a fair amount of activity going on at the compound that day. Chris stevens was active that day and the ambassador had come to visit at the compound that day. We know from eyewitness ,estimony on the ground contemporaneous in time that the turkish ambassador all through the day, there was no sightings, of any gathering from any protesters around the compound around benghazi. There was closedcircuit television, there was the february 17 brigade. There were people all there were people offering security. No one at any time prior to the attack gave any indication there was a protest going on at the compound. The rso himself said there was nothing going on. The chief of station of tripoli said he had no indication of any protests going on. The political officers had no indication of anything going on. No one, anyone involved in this situation, no one had any indication of a protest going on. And yet, the Obama Administration allowed its spokesman, for the first time and 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, we now know are aberrations and never existed we now know they are apparitions and never existed. This is a big issue. We have emailed in front of us, cables and a front of us that do not lie. That is not a conspiracy. The emails and the cables are very clear about what we knew and when we knew it. We know that while the attack was going on, there was already from the state department at 4 05 p. M. , and alert put out from the state department. Of the compound was under attack. The second was at 6 08 p. M. That ansar alsharia, and Al Qaeda Linked terrorist Group Operating in libya, claimed credit for the account. We also know that a cable sent out on the 12th reported the participation of islamic militants and make clear that u. S. Facilities in benghazi had come under attack. Even your first draft from the cia that was just repeat it internally, 11 15 a. M. , the cia and the u. S. Government knew that islamist extremists with towels to al qaeda with ties to al qaeda participated in the attack. What changed is that the talking points, prepared by your office, when they intersected with the white house those organizations within the white house included senior state Department Officials, senior National Security officials. All of those that you talked to about all of these the only change that happened was senior white house officials. We know from the emails, particularly from Victoria Nuland, from the date stamp time at 9 24 p. M. , ms. Nuland wrote that the problem remained. Her superiors were unhappy. They did not resolve all my issues or those of my leadership. Ben rhodes from the National Security Foreign Policy further advised the group. The issues will be res olved the following morning at the white house. At the white house, saturday, before ms. Rice went on the sunday shows. They were resolved in the favor of the white house. What is really odd here is that the false narrative that was given on sunday morning somehow strangely added out with the view of the white house six weeks before the president ial elections that al qaeda was nearly defeated and the global war on terror was over. Everyone on the committee knows that wasnt true. Al qaeda was not defeated. Everyone on both sides of the aisle knows that the global war on terror was not over. That was the narrative of the white house in the runup to the election. How weird that that was ultimately reflected in the talking points against all knowledge from people on the ground and knowledge this committee have. That is why we are upset. The American People, from my perspective, were intentionally misled by this administration as to what happened in benghazi. Can i respond . I would make two points. Number one, the narrative that the attack default 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. That is point number one. Point number two, let me give you the facts of what the state department changed and those talking points and what the white house changed. The white house changed three things the first thing the white house changed was to add cairo in front of the word embassy for the sake of clarity. The second thing was to rearrange a couple sentences, purely stylistic. The third thing the white house changed was to change the word consulate to diplomatic post for accuracy. Those were the only changes the white house made. The changes the state department made, just two. They also wanted to change the word consulate to diplomatic post for the same reason. The second change was to remove the entire bullet on ansar alsharia. Because state said it was premature to single out a specific group. The cia agreed because the only unclassified evidence we had at the time was ansar alsharias Public Statement, which they then retracted. The state department and the white house made five changes only. All of them, in my view, insignificant. Mr. Morell, they do not have to change because you made the changes for them. The changes i that is the point, that is why you are in front of this committee. You made substantive changes for the white house. Whether it was on behalf, we do not know. But we know you are the one who made those changes. If you look at the record, what you will see is the changes i made were fully consistent with what our analysts believe that the time. Period. The analysts that were part of the bureaucracy, not the individuals on the ground with eyewitness testimony. Through as early as september 12 has sent you a cable that it was not a protest but an attack. Those were intentionally ignored. Do you believe we should have accepted the chief of stations of you without question that it was a protest . I believe that the totality of the information was off he skated was obfuscated and that there was an intentional misleading of the public. If you believe we should accept his version of what happened, you also have to accept his view that it could be the video that motivated the individuals to attack that night. We spoke with him yesterday behind closed doors. He was adamant from the very beginning that this was not a spontaneous protest will stop we heard from him directly yesterday that at no time did he believe it was based upon the video. It is not just him, it is the rso, the chief of base, those who came from the annex, the political officers. All of them agreed to take that versus some press report in one signal. The weight and balance are not even equal. The evidence overwhelmingly pointed to an attack that was al qaeda or the hottest related or jihadist related. It was not just one sig more than one . There was also reported from the cia station that there was a protest, as well as the department of defense. There was a human piece and multiple intelligence nieces. Thank you, mr. Chair and thank you for being here. Thank you for your service to our nation and i want to thank all of those who work at the cia, those faceless individuals who work hard to make sure our nation is protected to stop like everyone who has said today, one of the most important things is to try to make sure this doesnt happen again. Thisld point out that hobley wont happen again if all the indicators were given their due attention. The hundreds of reports put out that clearly detail the deteriorating position in benghazi in the two prior attacks and assassination attacks on the British Ambassador. Light of the fact that multiple requests were made for increased material and personnel to increase their security posture. The request for additional personnel and security personnel were granted. Perhaps something you may want to bring back if you can in your conversations is very simple. Perhaps in the futures, we will know who made what change and when and whether this is being politically driven, why was the cia Public Affairs and Congressional Affairs officers so intimately involved in the drafting of these talking points without having subject matter . Xperts doesnt just that in and of itself seems like its being done more for my Public Relations perspective. It was not inappropriate. After all, it was a committee of congress that asked for them and they were going to be made public. Not inappropriate for them to have been involved. What did not go right was the substantive a expert in the editing session conducted by those two offices. Wasnt there a subject Matter Expert loop then knowing the requests of the committee to give some type of informed review on what happened . I dont know the answer to that. At the point when that happened, i was not even aware this committee had made the request. Some of my colleagues have already referenced the email that was time stamped that does result in that but the more concerning email was the ones uses damped that leads perhaps down a path to some of these changes were concerned be concerned inning changed by political thought rather than substantive thought. Penultimate point could be abused by members, members of commerce for not paying attention to agency warnings. Why do we want to see that either concerned . This doesnt seem to be talking about was it an attack . Was it an assault . But trying to make sure the department of state was being protected based on what was going to be provided this was talkinglace before the points came to you in the final see but in the totality, we the state department trying to backtrack or cover themselves from not paying attention to warnings. The followon email was from david adams, the last bullet was spoke and we i will work with this in the morning and thats when a final email came about does it address all the concerns. The information does not necessarily report to the best possible information. Not aware of any of those emails. I made the decision earlier, emailslier than those were written. I made the decision to take the warning language out and the directors chief of staff was standing there when i told him the warning language has to go. The stateong before department ever wrote those emails. Lex understanding that happened in a parallel pathway. Lets not parallel. But you did not know they requested it. Had not been edited when this email came out. They were still making that same request. But i made the decision to take the warning language out long before i ever edited did the department of state know you are going to take it out . Probably not. Lex which brings me back to the email being concerned about the perception more than subsequent information. Them, for us to have said in unclassified talking points that we warned and warned and warned and not give them the opportunity to say heres what we did in response to those warnings i felt was appropriate. The fact is they did nothing in response. That is for another discussion. But i didnt know that at the time and i thought the only plenty of time to have that discussion and there has been plenty of time to have that discussion. Thereve been suggestions from the other side that will this is political and i guess i would remind everybody there is the an investigation across capital that has been going on that continues to this day but i think its appropriate to try to get to the facts of this incredibly important matter. Public perception about the cia role when it comes to information on this committee. Comeis an agency weve all to rely upon American People need to be able to rely upon it also. Go to theis interagency process at all . We ask the cia for informational the time, every day. We are always asking for information. Why did this why is ben rhodes, a political appointee involved at all . Thats a good question. First of all, it was very important we coordinated the talking points with the rest of the Intelligence Community because this was an Intelligence Community judgment i mentioned earlier. Somethinggive you without coordinating with those people, thats number one. Itber two, we had to provide to the fbi and department of justice because they had just and itan investigation was very important that we not say anything in an unclassified fashion that could put that at risk. Number three, we thought it important to share her talking points with the state department that had just lost officers. We were giving talking points to a Congressional Committee to talk about a very important National Security issue and it was important to let the white house know when youre going to do that. Thats why we went to the interagency process. Every single change that gets made makes this plain vanilla rather than getting to the heart of what is really going on. It happens at a time when you have not acted in a role, more like a Public Affairs officer than an intelligence officer. When you see all of that put together, there is a legitimate line of inquiry about putting not from theoints state department, not from the white house, but from the Central Intelligence agency. Lex National Security staff was the organization at the white house that coordinated on these talking points. It was not a political entity. You said this committee was not intentionally misled. You also use the word liberally. Do you think we were inadvertently misled . In looking back at some of the things we could have done better, theres no doubt in people toat we lead think about this in not exactly the right way. I would 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 they gave the impression the protesters became the attackers. We never taught that and we could have written that sentence better. I did not speak up when director clapper was asked a question, who took out al qaeda. I should have said something and i didnt. I did not lie and did not mislead, but i could have done better. At the long answer to a yes or no question. Were we misled . Like snow. I have a different view. That until now i know these were Al Qaeda Affiliated participants and i know for cicely why the attack and kill americans. I think you have worked hard against that for many reasons and we dont know the motivations about al qaeda when they kill americans is disingenuous. Focusing on the micro of a morgan of an organization in not getting to the behavior that lies behind what happened. Isnot everybody who is there associated with al qaeda. This is a mix of groups and a mix of people, some of whom were affiliated with al qaeda. I, like you, know why the al qaeda guys were there. I dont know why they decided to do the attack when they did. I dont know what motivated the training and we wont know that until we talk to them. Mr. Rooney . Thank you, mr. Chairman. I would like to change directions based on the other things you have said. I think weve gone over these talking point and quite frankly, we have always pages of what the emails were back and forth. I dont think you are a liar or a dishonest person. I think there were some mistakes you said youve made. There were some clearly political things owing on in these emails. It is what it is. You might say the people who work for the National Security apparatus are not political people. We all know that they are. They just are. At kratzhey beat them or a republican administration, it is the truth ibo consider how is this going to look in november just as the president and secretary clinton said they surge in iraqhe for political reasons. Aside from that, one of the youve madeaid is mistakes in this whole process you said you were in him on on that day. More you add our embassy or where were you if you could say at that point . The evening of the 11th, i was at dinner with our liaison partners. When you talk about how you relied on your analyst to give you whatever information you could garner about benghazi thisiately after, say event happened while you were there and there is a station chief there. Youou were seeing it, would call washington and ask an chieft back and a station is there . It seems to me and equal if not greater weight would be on there. Is thethe process works people on the ground collect information, they send that information to washington, the analysts take that information, which is not the totality of information because analysts are getting information from all sorts of places, not just from people on the ground. The analysts look at the totality of the information and come to a judgment and that is the cias official position. Let me Say Something else. Station are encouraged if they have a different view to write their own analysis and disseminated to policymakers. About the talked military that showed up the next day. Were two military to gors that volunteered with our officers to benghazi and those two individuals are absolute euros. The route when those mortars hit and they successfully removed the injures. Nd the dead they have been decorated and rightly so. Grateful they volunteered to go to benghazi because if they not, more people would have died. Can i ask you a question that is a little outside of your what can americans expect in the future and how can we try to avoid it . Thats what all of us want to get to. What the people assigned to those laces can expect when they go there. If this would happen again weve heard time and time again that there was not enough time for there to be a military or special forces response because of the distance that responders were from benghazi that day in a very hot spot. Time ambassador stevens died, which is shortly after midnight and the amount of time and hours that went on before your to military guys showed up we were told there was not enough time for a military response to get their. But the one question i continued to have and we need to know Going Forward so we can keep our agencies and embassy safe, how do they know at the time ambassador stevens was killed how did they know is going to and so there would be a military response there . Dawn but we had no idea. What if it went on for eight or 10 or 12 more hours . My problem is i dont feel like the administration was ever going to send a response to benghazi and put boots on the ground in another middle eastern country. Because it might have political or otherwise will stop to say theyre is not enough time, how did they know it was going to end . About the tell you decisionmaking processes at the department of defense because im totally unaware of those. What i can tell you is there were three attacks that might. There was the attack on the diplomatic facility and benghazi. Officers showed up at the diplomatic facility and rescued the state Department Officers and took them back to the state department annex, there is a Second Attack and it occurred immediately upon the return to our base. Sot lasted half an hour or things were quiet for a number of hours. The guys that did the first attack on the annex had another go at it, so there was a time when it appeared it was over. Answerstand that doesnt your question completely, but i offer that context will stop for the safety of people like nos in the future, knowing one is coming from the United States of america is very disconcerting to me. Can i just have one more . What can we do Going Forward to minimize the chance of this happening again . We will never be able to guarantee it wont happen again. Do to makewe need to sure it doesnt happen again is make sure it improves our intelligence. Where there is real risk, we need to have battlefield awareness and in the days leading up to the attack in benghazi, we were able to install a special system that would have gave us better intelligence. We need better intelligence and the securitysure posture of these facilities is as good as it can possibly be and we need to make sure the military is always postured away where it can respond if necessary. Mr. Thornberry . To the reasons you were discussing with mr. Rooney on why this is important theres another area i want to ask you about we have heard for about the involvement of the National Security Council Staff in day to day running of military operations, intelligence operations around the world. Secretary gates talks about this very well and expresses his anger at the micromanagement coming from the same staffords same staffers and talks about secretary clintons view and others have written. You served as Deputy Director of the cia. Did you express such frustrations as secretary gates, clinton and others . As you know, the Central Intelligence agency conducts extremely sensitive operations discussedi routinely those operations with mr. Brennan and mr. Met anna. I would get asked a lot of questions, just as i get asked a lot of questions here. I never felt i was being micromanaged their, nor have i felt i was being micromanaged there. Did you have knowledge of National Security councils duffers directly calling chief of station around the world and being down into the daytoday involvement . That did not happen to my knowledge. The interaction between the National Security staff and Central Intelligence agency was from mr. Clusively mcdonough and mr. Brennan to me. I guess what im wondering is is that because of your level . We have all these emails show a variety of people that were involved in these talking points and other things. Where im going is the like that shines on the daytoday operations, what does that tell us about not only how this administration works but bigger institutional dangers . Let me back up for just a second. . Yes. 33 years would you say the cia is more independent today than it was when you entered or left . Micromanaged, political pressure, the influence of the bosses at 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, interaction with the white house. I was 21 years old. So its a question of my time working with the Bush Administration and with the Obama Administration. Honestly, sir, 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 as long as you and remember air and contra and the difficulties of when operations are run out of the white house. This is an even beyond, or to convey the candid relates to the topics we are having here. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Just to clear up a couple of things. Your testimony about things were quiet for three hours is in direct conflict with things we thatheard from the grs were at the annex on the ground during that time. President ere with bush in florida and you immediately came out with a conclusion that this was osama im not asking you to your thought process but what gave you the ability to know that . There weret the time only two countries capable of doing Something Like what happened on 9 11 iran and iraqi. I thought it would have everything to you everything to lose and nothing to gain. There was one other organization in the world who had decade cape billeting and that was al qaeda. Thats why i came to that conclusion. Between february 12 and the attack, we have a truck Summit League 4000 pages of Intelligence Reporting that came out of the cia. Im sure you are aware of all that. Absolutely. You are aware of the attack on the British Ambassador, the red cross, the two or three bombings at the facility. The 11th, thember 11th anniversary of 911. Was it, in your thought process than of having seen or been aware of these 4000 pages of thelligence, especially july 12 assessment put out about al qaeda becoming stronger in libya . Did you not go through that. Process and come up with immediately in your mind that who was capable of doing that, who would want to do that on the 9 11 anniversary . Your knowledge of all the Intelligence Reports. The cia sent out a cable to all stations and bases in the days before the anniversary saying pay attention. Great time for these guys to hit us and please share it with your liaison share it with the rsos. That warning did go out and thats something we always paid attention to was the anniversary of 911. Absolutely. Your thought process never said it could be al qaeda . S, themy thought ross analyst said from the getgo al qaeda was involved from the getgo. Out i did not take it out. Some people alleged i took it out from the talking points. The group of officers from our affairsf congressional it was anot know mirror when i looked at the talking points. Taking it out was the right thing to do. Let me explain why. Anyoney way we knew involved with that was from classified sources. Leave it in, the director would have had to keep in mind that classification and i dont think thats what the committee was asking for. I know the committee was not asking us to declassify everything. The classified was that it was al qaeda . Im confused here. The only way we knew some of the people involved in the attack were associated with al qaeda was from classified sources. Sourceses classified tell you was a demonstration . There were classified sources who told us but i dont know if it was the classified sources or not. Lex if you look at the whole picture, i think the majority of people look at when those talking points were edited, it edited in favor of the administrations philosophy of how they wanted to be portrayed in libya. That mr. Brennan is the advisor and now hes the chief of staff, its hard to kind of get to a lot of information about what they were looking at for National Security advisor. Thank you for your 33 years of service, sir. How does the term al qaeda, disclose number one, also if youd take apart islamic extremist i took out the word islamic in front of extremist. I took it out for two reasons will stop most importantly, i we wereout because dealing with protests and demonstrations across the muslim world. Do last thing i wanted to was do anything to further inflame those passions. Thats why it took the word islamic out. It was a risk judgment. The second reason i took it out is what other kind of extremist are there in libya . I just want for clarification of the record, in the memo you have in front of you, youd through a sentence there are indications of islamic extremists and that line goes through all of that. Youll see in the talking points that thats back in the talking points. How does mentioning al qaeda disclose classified source customer i was told the only way we knew that was from classified sources. Unclassifiedhing that some of these were associated with al qaeda. That confuses me. Of all the conversations weve had talking about these event around the world, im just not following that logic. I wish it was in there. We wouldnt even be talking about it. Im just trying to understand the logic. Of an al the hallmarks qaeda attack. I dont think i was asked opposing classified sources. I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I want to go back to the intelligence product you referenced on the 13th. Who were the analysts that came project on a product question were so cia only . Cia, the analyst from the office of terrorism and analysis crafted the peace and coordinated across the Intelligence Community. So you are telling me it is dia approved . I dont know which ones. It was coordinated in the Intelligence Community and he would tell you it is the Intelligence Community view . I know who the boss was who focusre analysts on extremist groups in north africa and i believe it was those analysts who worked on products. When you look into this, just paraphrasing here you said there were more data oink that showed there was a protest. I think you used data points. Statement,ritten there were a handful, a dozen or so both press reports and Intelligence Reports saying there was a protest and most ofe just verify the dozen you mentioned were pressure ports. This isonly a few important. Timeeporting we had at the , there were more reports that protestre was not a ended. Not true. I believe thats true. Its not true. Congressman, at the time the analyst 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. Thats what i was told by the analyst. You may not have known about it, but all the eyewitnesses on the ground, there was emailed, 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 to meet with all of these analyst and let them explain this. Im sure they would welcome it. Sounds like somebodys getting thrown under the bus. When one of the survivors who is going to retire and leave the cia, you know what they told me . They said they are leaving because they dont want to be left to die there. That upsets me and i think it should upset you. Thats the way they feel. If that the way they feel, it upsets me. Lex heres another problem. As it relates to the personnel. Has the rightnel to make a complaint with the oig. There were oig reports filed related to these pinata complaints, werent there . I am not aware. You are not aware there were complaints filed to the oig . I dont remember. Im not aware of specifics or when they happen. Going to ask these questions for the record, but did you ask david but late not to and that an investigation . No. A jabber talk to David Buckley about such an investigation . He may have reefed the director at some time, but i cannot recall. Id are member. Did you ever talk to David Petraeus about this investigation . There that i remember . Are four murdered americans. Ownuld think when the cias personnel filed complaints, the oig should follow up and do an investigation. I believe so too. Why didnt they . I dont know. You will have to ask david. I yield back, the chairman. Thank you. Just wanted to clarify to make sure i understood what you said. Whether it was the information from the people on the ground, the station chief we have information a cable sent by the station chief in libya reported eyewitnesses confirm the precipitation of islamic militants and made clear u. S. For till u. S. Facilities in benghazis had come under attack. That was sent by the station chief. Baseow the chief of the for the political officers, the chief,icers, the tripoli i thought i just heard you say the information taken from eyewitnesses on the ground was not given to your analyst. That they looked at the press reports, the intelligence product what you have to understand is that the information did not come all at one time. Came at pieces cap came in pieces over time. When the analyst wrote their piece on the 12, it was published on the 13th. The information they had said there was a protest. They had no information that said there was no protest. There may have been people on the ground who knew there was no protest but they had not yet been interviewed in those interviews had not yet been disseminated. In fact, they were not ,isseminated for some time until after the analyst change their judgment about a contest. There is a flow of information here thats really important to keep in mind as you think about how the analysts are trying to do their job here. It seems the proof text is very interesting. The analysts that are surveying islamic news sources, and islamic news sources can put out a propaganda narrative, if you will him a whatever your Analyst Report will be what the propaganda news sources say. What we heard behind closed groundrom people on the report andan outlier this was in fact a protest. Everything else he got, the guy on the ground, is that this was an attack, and islamic inspired attack. If youreaying is analysts are only looking and narrowing their focus to such an extent that they are only going to see what propagandists want noneto see, none of us of us should be too surprised its only for the product. It seems 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 right. This wasnt just any immediate todays afterward. The president 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. As a matter of fact, the filmmaker went to jail for a year and he was the only skate goat while the thugs and criminals in benghazi are still wondering the streets will stop hes the only one whos ever gone to jail. No wonder the American People are absolutely upset about this. How interesting that at the u. N. , the number one agenda item of the organization of islamic cooperatives among their number one objective was to criminalize any speech in any country that somehow an the prophet mohammed. Why is it the false narrative our president and secretary of forward wasue to go parallel to the agenda of the oic . I dont get that. It has nothing to do with the facts on the ground reported by the eyewitnesses on the ground. It seems to me what you rely on from your analyst did not take into account the truth and thats what gives us problems will stop i just want to clear something up here. Really important. Theres an implication what you are saying that the analysts were aware of the eyewitness accounts when they did their analysis, wrote it on the 12 and disseminated it on the 13th. They were not aware of the eyewitness accounts and i want to clear that up. Enqueue, the strattera. Im going back to this Intelligence Report you used or had your possession on september 13 called extremist capitalize on benghazi protests. That is the one that you used. You were quick to point out there was no mention of a video in that. Thats correct. Mention there were two other cia pieces produced on the 12th. Both mention the recently released inflammatory video. Were you aware of these two buttocks question mark probably. I dont know in what context those references were made. Benghaziference to protest was not related to the video. What type of road tested your analyst believe it was in reference to . What motivatedn the attackers changed over time. Was they said on the 13th you cant have it both ways. Are you going to let me answer the question . Understand you cant have it both ways. Im not trying to have it with ways. Im trying to explain the fax to you. , analyst said what motivated the attackers was what happened in cairo. The saw the guys go over fence into the Embassy Compound in cairo and wanted to do the same thing in benghazi. Later added another possible motivation which was oligurias call for revenge. Those are the two motivations the analysts talked about. Why do your analyst ignored they went along with the protest, cairo protests, that atd if we are taking you your word. Why did they ignore the other two pieces that talk about the video and dont included in the analysis . I dont know the answer to that, sir. I see our time is out. I just want to clarify for the public that i think this is important. The talking points are one of the data points in what concerns the committee as we look at all the classified materials Going Forward. Not have beenmay for a Political Campaign, which is beyond your position. But that narrative continued on afterwards and subsequent. We had seen the pulling back of certain town or terrorism leavems we believe dangerous islamic extremists on the battlefield in a way we would not do before. The very fact we have a number of individuals left on the battlefield that we know participated in a terrorist act that killed americans in benghazi. Something that would not have happened before. Our concern is trying to understand all of this and did into whattive lead was real policy today which is why you see members so frustrated about what are we doing to bring these people back and if there are those involved did notecision that believe terrorism was alive and well that poses a threat, then you can see that narrative being implemented in a way that i think is dangerous to the United States and thats why i think you see the concern of this committee and behind closed aboutin this committee, moving forward, about things that are not being done that we putsto do that i believe america in a position to be more vulnerable. That today. Ou see thank you for your candid testimony. Winky for your dirty three years. Someone told me you started when you are 11. We do appreciated and thank you for being here voluntarily. You and i are both deeply concerned about the threat to this country. I do want to say to my republican members that i respect each and everyone of you have a point of view. The reason the committee has been so bipartisan we respect the fact that somebody has another point of view. We try to come together in a way that is right to the American People. Where i am personally is that we need to continue to have investigations when there are as this oneportant the American People are looking for answers. We are still looking for the issue of whether or not the fact that we have, the fact we have before us, were politically motivated. I think that is what this is coming down to. Think the true facts maybe i am speaking as a lawyer. That is what you have done today. I think you have presented yourself well in that regard. I respect mr. Lubyanka. Labianca. What he is talking about we need to make sure money is spent finding these bad guys who help kill americans. At this point, where the we need to decide where to go from here. I have a lot of respect from mr. Pompeo, who said the investigation lasted for six years. There is more information if there is any scintilla of evidence that will come to a different factual conclusion, we will look at that. At this point, you have to prioritize. We have somebody issues out there. The cyber threat, the terrorism threat. It goes on and on. Comes to a time where do we go. Was it politically motivated or not . If there is evidence of that, we will try to deal with it. In conclusion, i have a lot of respect. Thank you for your service. Thank you, sir. Can find the statement tomorrow. Maybe even later today, for public review. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] tomorrow, the alliance in support of the afghan people. . Hat happens next live coverage begins at 2 00 eastern. Cspan, bringing Public Affairs events from washington directly to you. Putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage, as a Public Service of private industry. We are cspan, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago, and brought to you as a local service by your cable and satellite provider. Us onus on hd, like facebook, and follow us on twitter. Ohanlon, who is a senior fellow at brookings here in washington, d. C. , good morning. Talk about the voting in afghanistan. It is gone smoothly. Guest it looks good. There is a long way to go. As you are aware, you have to get 50 of the vote in afghanistan to win. There will be a runoff almost for sure. Ran. Ate candidates who chances are nobody got more than 35 or 40 . There will have to be a runoff. Whoever does not make the runoff will have to decide how they want to react to that. Do they blame fraud . Do they protest . There is a long way to go in the process. It appears to have been a very good day. Security forces protected the polling sites very well. The people show their bravery and defied the taliban. You have to celebrate the moment. Host this is an opinion piece the yuko wrote about the elections. What happened yesterday and how things will happen moving forward. You say each of the three candidates would be a plausible president or plausible firstround loser. Each would be more comfortable vane west van karzai karzai. Than karzai. He had been the king of afghanistans personal physician. The third is