WASHINGTON, -- Judicial Watch announced today it has obtained new documents from the Department of State containing the telephone transcripts from the evening of September 11, 2012, in which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informs then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi "had nothing to do with the film." The documents include previously unreleased telephone transcripts with world leaders about the Benghazi attack.
Clinton's admission to Kandil was first produced to the Select Committee on Benghazi on October 13, 2015 and publicized on the day of Mrs. Clinton's testimony, October 22, but court filings in Judicial Watch litigation show that the record was only produced after two federal court judges ordered the State Department to produce more Benghazi-related records to Judicial Watch. Similarly, Judicial Watch litigation also forced the release of the September 11, 2012 email in which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed her daughter by email that the attack had been staged by an "Al Qaeda-like group," rather than as the result of "inflammatory material posted on the Internet," as Mrs. Clinton had claimed in her official public statement one hour earlier.
The State Department previously told a federal court that the Kandil document wasn't responsive to Judicial Watch's request and resulting lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)) seeking:
Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.
But the State Department then produced this information last month to Judicial Watch. The records, the State Department told the Court, were found among thousands of new Clinton State Department records supposedly only discovered in December, 2015 - again, two months after the key Kandil document was first produced to the Benghazi Committee.
Under court order, the State Department released 11 documents responsive to the Judicial Watch request with large blocks of information redacted. The documents also include phone conservations between Clinton and other foreign dignitaries and heads of state during the period of the deadly terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate.
At 10:08 p.m. on September 11, Mrs. Clinton issued an official State Department press statement, approved by the White House, placing the blame for the attack on an Internet video:
Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.
