Former CIA Director David Petraeus told lawmakers at a closed-door briefing Friday the agency believed the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Libya was a terrorist attack from the beginning.
Petraeus also indicated the talking points used by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice in several cable television appearances after the attack were different from the ones prepared by the CIA, Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) told reporters.
The suggestion from Petraeus is that someone inside the administration shifted the talking points.
“The original talking points prepared by the CIA were different from the ones that were finally put out,” King, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told reporters after Petraeus testified before the House Intelligence Committee Friday.
“General Petraeus’s testimony today was that — from the start — this was a terrorist attack, there were terrorists involved from the start,” King said.
Petraeus is testifying before both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees just a week after his shocking resignation over an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.
Republicans have hammered Rice over her comments about the attack and have suggested the administration played up the idea a demonstration was behind the attack for political purposes.
Petraeus himself appeared to indicate at earlier testimony to the Senate Intelligence panel in September — just days after the attack — that intelligence suggested it resulted from a protest. The former director has not made public comments about the attack, but senators interviewed after that closed-door hearing said they did not hear it was a terrorist attack.
For more on Petraeus's testimony, click here.
