Major Garret breaks Village omerta

SCOTT PELLEY: also at his news conference today the president called for tighter security for u.s. diplomatic facilities. to prevent an attack like the one in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. of course, Benghazi has become a political controversy. republicans claim that the administration watered down the facts in talking points that were given to U.N. ambassador Susan Rice for television appearances while Mr. Obama was running for reelection. republicans on capitol hill claim that they had found proof of this in white house e-mails that they leaked to reporters last week. well, it turns out some of the quotes in those e-mails were wrong. Major Garrett is at the white house for us tonight. Major?

MAJOR GARRETT: Scott, Republicans have claimed that the state department under Hillary Clinton was trying to protect itself from criticism. The white house released the real e-mails late yesterday and here’s what we found when we compared them to the quotes that had been provided by republicans. One e-mail was written by deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes. On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote. But it turns out, in the actual e-mail Rhodes did not mention the State Department. republicans also provided what they said was a quote from an e-mail written by state department spokesman Victoria Newland. The Republican version notes Newland discussing: the actual e-mail says: the C.I.A. agreed with the concerns raised by the state department and revised the talking points to make them less specific than the C.I.A’s original version, eliminating references to al Qaeda and affiliates and earlier security warnings. There is no evidence, Scott, the White House orchestrated these changes.