History' Holds Off-The-Record Benghazi Briefing

• Michael Miller
• On May 10, 2013
• http://mikesright.wordpress.com/

The White House announced to reporters today that it would brief them on the latest developments in the Benghazi controversy: off-the-record – and right before the regularly scheduled press briefing.

Following the closed-door briefing, White House press secretary Jay Carney did not comment during his regular briefing whether the meeting had taken place. This, from the administration that Barack Obama promised would be “the most transparent in history.”

The Administration has a history of taking reporters “to the woodshed” that it feels have been overly aggressive or unfair with the president or unduly critical of his policies. Was this one of those times – or was it a desperate attempt at damage control? I suspect the latter. From Politico: The White House held an off-the-record briefing with reporters on Friday afternoon to discuss recent revelations about the Benghazi investigation, sources familiar with the meeting tell POLITICO.

The meeting began around 12:45 p.m. and postponed the daily, on-the-record White House press briefing to 1:45 p.m. White House press secretary Jay Carney did not respond to a request for confirmation of the meeting.
The off-the-record session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.
Emails obtained by ABC News show that State Dept. spokesperson Victoria Nuland requested that the CIA scrub references to an Al Qaeda-linked group, which, Nuland told White House officials, “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings.”
Try as it might, we’ve reached a stage where the Obama Administration is not going to be able to put the Benghazi toothpaste back in the tube. Not a minute too soon.
UPDATE: The White House is now characterizing this meeting as “deep background.” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: “Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can’t be quoted.”