Congressman Stephen Lynch is a Democrat who represents the 8th Congressional District of Massachusetts.
Today on Fox News Sunday, he said the Obama administration’s Benghazi talking points were a “victory of hope over reality.” The comments occurred during a debate with Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah.
Partial transcript:
Chris Wallace: I want to talk to you about a controversy, a continuing controversy, about the talking points that came out afterwards that led, some people say, to a lot of disinformation. These were the talking points the administration put out after the attack. Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard reports that the first draft by the CIA on September 14th said this: “The crowd almost certainly was a mix of individuals from across many sectors of Libyan society. That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.” This was the first draft of talking points from the CIA on September 14th. But after objections from State and after the White House had a meeting, you can see the talking points — and it’s a little hard to see there on the screen — there were lots of lines drawn though them. They were heavily edited. And all mention of the Islamic extremists were taken out. Congressman Lynch, weren’t the talking points the administration put out in advance of Susan Rice’s appearance on those five Sunday shows, weren’t those talking points scrubbed?
Rep. Stephen Lynch: They certainly weren’t accurate. I don’t know what the process was there. But absolutely. They were false. They were wrong. There were no protests outside the Benghazi compound there. This was a deliberate and strategic attack on the consulate there. So any statement that this was sort of like the you know the other protests in Cairo and other embassies, this was not that type [of attack].
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