Newly released documents indicate that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told two stories about the 2012 terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in the days following the deadly attack.
Watchdog group Judicial Watch announced Thursday that it obtained documents from the State Department through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showing that Clinton gave different assessments of the attack to the American people and then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil.
While Clinton publicly attributed the Benghazi attack to "inflammatory material posted on the Internet" on the evening of the attack, the former secretary of state informed Kandil during a telephone conversation the following day that the attack had "nothing to do" with the anti-Islam video on which the Obama administration blamed the violence, the newly released documents show.
"We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack--not a protest," Clinton told Kandil on September 12, according to the call notes released to Judicial Watch.
The day prior, Clinton issued an official statement on the attacks, which was approved by the White House.
"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," Clinton stated.
Clinton later attributed her statements to the "fog of war."
"You know, my own assessment careened from, you know, the video had something to do with it; the video had nothing to do with it," Clinton said in an interview with Fox News in 2014.
These documents were previously obtained by the House Select Committee on Benghazi and Clinton was questioned on them during a hearing in October, the Free Beacon previously reported.