Security Full White House Benghazi Email Undermines GOP’s Cover-Up Claims 
 
 CNN has obtained the full email from a White House official on the Benghazi talking points, which undermines claims that the administration acted deliberately to change the intelligence community’s assessment. 
 
 Much of the controversy surrounding the Obama administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya has focused on a set of unclassified talking points provided to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. Rice delivered those points five days after the attack, appearing on all five major Sunday news shows. Rice subsequently came under attack for not mentioning Al Qaeda and referencing an anti-Islamic video as the impetus for the attacks, becoming the symbol of the White House’s supposed goal of misleading the American public about what happened. 
 
 In recent days, the talking points have come back to the forefront of conservative outrage, as several outlets have released the full edits made to the document, along with the original version the CIA drafted. Alongside those edits were emails that these outlets claimed showed the White House engaging in a flurry of activity that would help President Obama gain reelection. One such email from Deputy National Security Director Ben Rhodes allegedly showed the White House insisting that State Department requests that references to terrorism and Al Qaeda be “scrubbed” from the draft be discussed more fully. 
 
 CNN’s Jake Tapper, however, obtained the full text of the email Rhodes sent to the email thread of officials across the government providing their input on the document. Viewed in full, the document shows a distinct lack of intent to maliciously change the narrative compared to paraphrased versions: 
 
 All – Sorry to be late to this discussion. We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation. There is a ton of wrong information getting out into the public domain from Congress and people who are not particularly informed. Insofar as we have firmed up assessments that don’t compromise intel or the investigation, we need to have the capability to correct the record, as there are significant policy and messaging ramifications that would flow from a hardened mis-impression. We can take this up tomorrow morning at deputies. 
 
 Previously, the Weekly Standard and ABC News had reported that Rhodes intervened on behalf of the State Department, urging that the talking points be changed to scrub al-Qaeda references at Nuland’s request. The Standard paraphrased the email as Rhodes “respond[ing] to the group, explaining that [State Department spokeswoman Victoria] Nuland had raised valid concerns and advising that the issues would be resolved at a meeting of the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee the following morning.” Likewise, ABC paraphrased the email’s content as saying “[w]e must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.” 
 
 The elevation of the talking points to infamy has seemingly instead helped to undercut the Republican case that a cover-up occurred. In actuality, the only thing to be revealed during this latest round of investigation seems to be a turf war between the CIA and State Department to avoid further blame for the attack, one that played out in the editing process of the talking points. In the end, contrary to Republican claims, the intelligence community did have the last say in what went into the talking points, including that the attacks “were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo,” and immediately preceded by a demonstration. ||||| When it became clear last fall that the CIA's now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story. 
 
 ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack. 
 
 AFP/Getty Images 
 
 Related: Read the Full Benghazi Talking Point Revisions 
 
 White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack. 
 
 That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November. 
 
 "Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC's best assessments of what they thought had happened," Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. "The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word 'consulate' to 'diplomatic facility' because 'consulate' was inaccurate." 
 
 Summaries of White House and State Department emails - some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard - show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points. 
 
 State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points: 
 
 "The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks." 
 
 In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it "could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned …" 
 
 The paragraph was entirely deleted. 
 
 Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA's first drafts said the attack appeared to have been "spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo" but the CIA version went on to say, "That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack." The draft went on to specifically name the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia. 
 
 Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because "we don't want to prejudice the investigation." 
 
 In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, "The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions." 
 
 After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland's concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough. 
 
 "These changes don't resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership," Nuland wrote. 
 
 In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. - three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows - Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department's concerns needed to be addressed. 
 
 "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting." 
 
 Related: Diplomat Says Requests For Benghazi Rescue Were Rejected 
 
 After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points - deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack. 
 
 White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said none of this contradicts what he said about the talking points because ultimately all versions were actually written and signed-off by the CIA. 
 
 "The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points," Carney said. "The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn't the substance here." 
 
 UPDATE: A source familiar with the White House emails on the Benghazi talking point revisions say that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was raising two concerns about the CIA's first version of talking points, which were going to be sent to Congress: 1) The talking points went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her state department briefings; and, 2) she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department's expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored. 
 
 In one email, Nuland asked, why are we suggest Congress "start making assertions to the media [about the al Qaeda connection] that we ourselves are not making because we don't want to prejudice the investigation?" 
 
 One other point: The significant edits - deleting references to al Qaeda and the CIA's warnings - came after a White House meeting on the Saturday before Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday shows. Nuland, a 30-year foreign service veteran who has served under Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State, was not at that meeting and played no direct role in preparing Rice for her interviews. ||||| Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Marines at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland last September carry caskets of the remains of the four Americans killed in Benghazi, Libya. 
 
 WASHINGTON—More than 100 pages of emails released by the White House on Wednesday depict a protracted, frustrating and often tense debate about what should be contained in public "talking points" about last year's deadly assault in Benghazi, Libya. 
 
 The emails reveal a tussle within the administration about what it could confidently say about the attacks while an investigation into the assault was ongoing. 
 
 Senior administration officials said the emails—which the White House released to try to quell a partisan controversy—encompassed a two-day discussion among several agencies as officials wrote and rewrote the talking points on the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. 
 
 Republicans have charged that the White House had political motives—less than two months before the presidential election—for changing the talking points to remove references to terrorist involvement in the assault. 
 
 Administration officials on Wednesday described the emails, written by officials ranging from unnamed career employees to then-Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus, as a mundane set of documents. 
 
 Talking Points Map See key milestones in the changes to the Benghazi talking points. View Graphics 
 
 Officials from across the national-security establishment made suggestions aimed at protecting their own interests and turf, as the talking points were edited to remove a mention of al Qaeda and to delete sentences referring to previous warnings about extremist threats in Benghazi. 
 
 As the discussion proceeded, frustrations appeared to emerge. 
 
 "Sir -- We've tried to work the draft talking points for [the House Intelligence Committee] through the coordination process but have run into major problems," a CIA employee wrote in an e-mail explaining that the talking points wouldn't be completed that day. 
 
 While many of the emails already had leaked before Wednesday, the release of the complete set paints a fuller picture of an administration struggling with how much to disclose about an assault that remains a focus of partisan division. 
 
 Republicans have made clear they still have unanswered questions, including how an independent review board conducted its investigation of the attacks last year. 
 
 By the end of the administration's interagency process last September, the final version of talking points was comprised of three paragraphs—a document that clearly didn't satisfy everyone. 
 
 After revisions were made, Mr. Petraeus wrote in an e-mail that he would "just as soon not use this then," adding that the talking points wouldn't satisfy Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D., Md.), who was among those who had requested them. 
 
 The analyst who drafted the initial version of the talking points wrote at the end of the process that lawmakers "won't like them. : )" —using the happy- face emoticon. 
 
 From start to finish, the document included the now-disproved assertion that the attacks in Benghazi were spurred by a protest over an anti-Muslim video that had originated in the U.S.. 
 
 Senior administration officials said Wednesday that the talking points were consistent with classified intelligence available at the time. They disputed Republicans' suggestions of political interference, noting that the first draft of the talking points assembled by the CIA included a reference to demonstrations. 
 
 The e-mails confirm objections by then State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland to a line about prior CIA warnings in Benghazi. Senior intelligence officials disclosed Wednesday that Michael Morell, then CIA deputy director, agreed with Ms. Nuland. He eventually took over the editing process, deleting mentions of past threats. 
 
 The White House release of the emails came a week after public interest in last year's terror assault unexpectedly rebounded with congressional testimony by three State Department employees, which reopened lingering questions about the attacks. 
 
 Republicans in recent days had demanded the release of the e-mails. Administration lawyers for months had rebuffed calls to hand over the emails on the grounds the exchanges were part of internal administration deliberations, but allowed some lawmakers to see them earlier this year. 
 
 Administration officials also have complained that congressional Republicans in recent days had been leaking selective excerpts from the emails to buttress their argument that the talking points were manipulated for political purposes. 
 
 The talking points were meant to provide a first public account of the attacks on U.S. posts in Benghazi, which claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. 
 
 The very first set of talking points said "extremists with ties to al Qaeda" took part in the attacks. The final product made no reference to al Qaeda, but to extremists. 
 
 United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice used the talking points as the basis of the administration's explanation of what happened in the assault in a series of television interviews Sept. 16, 2012, five days after the attacks. 
 
 Republicans have said the talking points show the administration misled the public about the role of al Qaeda. Democrats charge the GOP with trying to damage the standing of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a 2016 Democratic presidential prospect. 
 
 One of the White House officials involved in the talking-points debate, former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor, issued a statement Wednesday defending the way the administration handled the matter. 
 
 "Some people have understandably asked how we were so wrong about there being a protest," Mr. Vietor said in the statement. "I don't know. When I was in government, I asked some intelligence officials how it happened. They told me that there were many different strands of information indicating there was a protest, both open source and intelligence based." 
 
 He added, "In fact, a number of news outlets reported there were protests." 
 
 Write to Colleen McCain Nelson at colleen.nelson@wsj.com and Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared May 16, 2013, on page A4 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Benghazi Emails Released.
– If you can't get enough of the Benghazi story, the White House has some reading for you: This afternoon, it released 100 pages of emails and other internal notes that show how its "talking points" evolved after the attack, reports the Washington Post. You can dig in here, as the Washington press corps is surely doing. Snippets of the emails among the White House, State Department, CIA, and FBI had leaked already, leading critics to charge that the State Department was trying to tone down the link to terrorism so it wouldn't look bad. Others disputed that assertion, and the White House apparently hopes the full release will at least ease the controversy, says the Wall Street Journal.