According to the GOP, the White House needs to release all emails pertaining to the former ambassador Susan Rice's crafting of the message regarding the deadly Benghazi attack, including those that were redacted supposedly for national security purposes. member and Representative Jason Chaffetz of the House committee investigating the attack had made the demand one day after the White House has released an email which indicated that White House aide Ben Rhodes wanted to put the blame on the Benghazi, Libya base of the US Consolate for the 2012 assault.
Telling USA Today, Chaffetz said that much of the content of the emails the White House has turned over was blocked out. "There were other e-mails that went to Susan Rice. We got them with heavy redactions. The White House needs to come clean on what they said," he said.
In response to the claims made by Chaffetz, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Wednesday that Rhodes' email was misconstrued and that the former Washington aide had referred to the general situation occurring in the Muslim world.
USA Today pointed out that the release of the emails, along with the redacted form of Rhodes' email were released to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform based on a request for communications about the Benghazi attack.
The emails reportedly came to light after a watchdog group had sued for the release of the emails at issue under a Freedom of Information Request.
In her television appearances, Rice had consistently denied that the attack in the US Consulate base in Libya was a terrorist plot, and had blamed the attack on a protest that apparently was non-existent. The attack resulted in the deaths of US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three State Department employees. The White House later had acknowledged the attack as planned and not preceded by a protest.
