ABC's Jonathan Karl, Carrying Water For Darrell Issa and Right Wing Smear Machine

UPDATE MAY 10, 2013 MORE ON

A Right-Wing Mole at ABC News

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1. EXCLUSIVE - BENGHAZI TALKING POINTS UNDERWENT 12 REVISIONS: 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's JONATHAN KARL has learned. 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. 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.http://abcn.ws/ZTqV1C READ the full Benghazi talking point revisions with an hour-by-hour timeline: http://abcn.ws/11XEZoF
2. WHITE HOUSE FLASHBACK: The fresh revelations that emerge from Jonathan Karl's reporting would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points last 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."
3. PILING ON HILLARY: This morning the Karl Rove-backed super PAC, American Crossroads, is out with a new video that an adviser to the group says highlights the "massive contradictions between the statements of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama Administration on the Benghazi attack." The American Crossroads spot asks: "Why did she blame a video? And was she part of a cover-up? … Americans deserve the truth." WATCH: http://bit.ly/16ktVb8 It comes on the heels of another video released yesterday by America Rising, a new Republican PAC, which spliced some of Clinton's January congressional testimony on Benghazi with the testimony from Capitol Hill this week.WATCH: http://bit.ly/11pggyK
4. THIS WEEK ON 'THIS WEEK': As debates rage over Benghazi, Syria, and immigration, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., speak exclusively to ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent MARTHA RADDATZ, Sunday on "This Week." And the "This Week" powerhouse roundtable takes on all the week's politics, with ABC News' George Will, Donna Brazile, Matthew Dowd, and Jonathan Karl, plus former Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, author of the new book, "Fighting for Common Ground." Plus, in a special Mother's Day Sunday Spotlight, Raddatz speaks with moms on Capitol Hill - Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., and soon-to-be mother Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash. Tune in Sunday:http://abcnews.go.com/thisweek (h/t ABC's IMTIYAZ DELAWALA)