Former New York Mayor and 2008 presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani told The Daily Caller that President Barack Obama “owes” Americans an explanation for its statements in the weeks following the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Reuters reported Tuesday night on emails showing the White House was told hours after the attack that a terrorist group was responsible.
“Well, my reaction to it is that all of this nonsense we’ve been getting from the White House is even more inexplicable,” Giuliani told TheDC on Wednesday after speaking at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. (RELATED: Emails show White House was told two hours after Benghazi attack that Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility)
“Why they [the Obama administration] would try to paint the picture of this having been caused by some kind of protest of the Muhammad movie, go on with that for two weeks, three weeks, have the UN ambassador tell us it was a spontaneous attack? There’s a real question here.”
“Really what I want the answer to is, did the president know about the two prior attacks on that consulate?” Giuliani said. “That consulate was attacked in April and June of 2012. If the president knew about two prior Islamic extremist terrorist attacks on that consulate, how could he possibly have engaged in the fiction that it was anything else but just one thing: a deliberate terrorist attack? And why has the White House consistently given false messages about this over and over again?”
TheDC asked Giuliani if he thinks the Romney campaign should put more pressure on President Obama for answers.
“I don’t know if the Romney campaign has to do that,” he explained. “I think that people need to know the answer to that. I mean, this is the something the president owes to the American people — an honest, straightforward answer.”
“Why was his administration presenting a false picture of this for anywhere from two to three weeks?”