Scandal: David Petraeus' admission that he knew almost immediately that Benghazi was a terrorist attack raises anew our question: Was he coerced into telling lawmakers Sept. 14 that it was caused by a video?
The tangled web that is Benghazi-gate got more tangled Friday when, according to Rep. Peter King, David Petraeus testified in a closed-door hearing that his agency determined immediately after the Sept. 11 Libya attack that "al-Qaida involvement" was suspected — but that the line was taken out in the final version circulated to and by administration officials.
"No one knows yet exactly who came up with the final version of the talking points," King told reporters after the House hearing on Friday. "His testimony today was that from the start, he had told us that this was a terrorist attack," he said.
King, a New York Republican, said he told Petraeus he had a "different recollection," referring to his Sept. 14 briefing to members of Congress that the attack on our Benghazi consulate was a "flash mob" gone wild in response to an Internet video.
"The original talking points were much more specific about al-Qaida involvement. And yet the final ones just said indications of extremists," King said, adding that a CIA analyst specifically told lawmakers that the al-Qaida affiliates line "was taken out." By whom and for what reason remain open questions.
This begs the question, which we raised in an earlier editorial, of whether Petraeus' Sept. 14 briefing was influenced by an administration that had knowledge of his affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
If he knew almost immediately it was terrorism, as his CIA station chief reported in the first 24 hours, why did he reportedly parrot the administration's false narrative three days later?
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