Former CIA Operative on Benghazi and Video: Obama, Clinton, Rice ‘Lied – There’s No Question’

(CNSNews.com) – Former CIA operative Clare Lopez, the vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy (CSP) said that President Barack Obama, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice lied about the cause of the radical Islamist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012 that killed four Americans.

The Obama administration spun a false narrative about an anti-Muslim video as inspiring the terrorist attack, said Lopez.

“Yes, absolutely they lied,” she said at a press conference on Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “There’s no question.”

At the press conference, called to release a report by the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi of which Lopez is a member, CNSNews.com asked her and other members of the panel:

“The video’s been discussed a lot, which was the video they said caused this whole uprising. Is anyone saying that Hillary Clinton, Ambassador Susan Rice or the White House lied about that directly?”

“Yes, absolutely they lied,” Lopez said. “There’s no question.”

“We know – again from Judicial Watch documents obtained through the FOIA process – that the administration, including the president and the Secretary of State Clinton, were actively involved that very night (Sept. 11, 2012) while the attack was still going on, in concocting a false narrative to deflect the story from the truth and to defend at all cost, even the cost of American lives, the reelection campaign of the president.”

Lopez said Obama officials discussed which video to blame the attack on but had already decided on the narrative that a video would be cited as the cause of the attack.

“They were not even decided on which video they were going to blame,” Lopez said. “They only knew that they were going to blame a video. I don’t know if you know about this, but there was another video out there created by a minister named Pastor John. And this was another obscure video on the Internet and there was discussion in the White House that night about which video – that one or the Innocence of Muslims – would be blamed for the attack on our mission in Benghazi."

“They settled on Innocence of Muslims,” Lopez said. “But to show you, that the narrative had already been decided, that it was going to be blamed on a YouTube video.”

The Citizens Commission on Benghazi report was produced by Accuracy In Media, which seated the commission, and includes as members Lt. Col. Dennis B. Haney, USAF (retired), Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, U.S. Navy (retired), Lt. General Thomas McInerney, USAF (Retired), Lt. Col. Allen West, U.S. Army (retired), and Kevin Shipp, former CIA officer and anti-terrorism expert.

Some of the key findings of the report – which was scheduled for release before the House Select Committee on Benghazi released reports by Republicans and Democrats this week – that are based on research, interviews, FOIA requests and confirmed sources, include:

• How the Obama Administration and State Department turned against Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and materially aided known al-Qaeda-linked militias that would soon coalesce into ISIS.

• Advance warnings about an impending attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi that were ignored by Obama and Clinton.

• U.S. Military assets were readily available for immediate deployment shortly after the attack began but were held back from attempting a rescue effort.

The attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. At a nearby compound, Islamists attacked and killed CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty.

The next day, Sept. 12, and for weeks thereafter, the White House and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blamed an anti-Muslim YouTube video as the inspiration for the attacks.