The Obama administration official who misled the American public on national television about the Benghazi attacks is out with a new op-ed lecturing President Trump about contorting “the facts.”
Writing at The Washington Post, Susan Rice, the national security advisor under Obama, chastised Trump for his claims in recent weeks that the Obama administration wiretapped his offices during the presidential campaign.
Susan Rice: When the White House twists the truth, we are all less safe. Why veracity matters to our security. https://t.co/eqkReeBIsG
— Susan Rice (@AmbassadorRice) March 22, 2017
Rice writes:
The foundation of the United States’ unrivaled global leadership rests only in part on our military might, the strength of our economy and the power of our ideals. It is also grounded in the perception that the United States is steady, rational and fact-based. To lead effectively, the United States must maintain respect and trust. So, when a White House deliberately dissembles and serially contorts the facts, its actions pose a serious risk to America’s global leadership, among friends and adversaries alike.
While Trump has made false and inaccurate statements about being wiretapped by both the Obama administration and British intelligence services, Rice is perhaps the least-qualified Obama official to call out the Republican.
Rice is perhaps best known for her appearances on five Sunday talk shows on the morning of Sept. 16, 2012, five days after Muslim terrorists killed four Americans in attacks on U.S. compounds in Benghazi.
In the now-infamous interviews, Rice, who then served as ambassador to the UN, said that the attacks were spontaneous and not pre-planned. She also asserted that the catalyst for the attacks was a YouTube video criticizing the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.
“Based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present, is in fact it began spontaneously in Benghazi, as a reaction to what had transpired hours earlier in Cairo, where of course as you know there was a violent protest outside of our embassy, sparked by this hateful video,” she said in one of the interviews.
“We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or pre-planned,” added Rice.
It emerged in the months and years after the attacks that the Obama administration, including the Hillary Clinton State Department, knew soon after the attacks that they were pre-planned and that the video played no role in the onslaught.