The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released 16 pages of redacted emails on Thursday, a Christmas Eve document dump related to the Benghazi attack in 2012 that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
The document dump, in compliance with a Freedom of Information Act request, included information and press clips emailed between various intelligence officials and senior operations officers. Some of the information that had been designated as “Top Secret” now has been declassified, but large chunks still remained blacked out.
The emails discuss the following: the terror attack on the U.S. compound in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty; assessment of the threat prior to the attack and “our assessment post-attack”; Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri; Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP; the Ansar al-Sharia group; the Muslim Brotherhood unrest in Egypt; the kidnapping of Jordan’s ambassador in Libya; car bombs in Benghazi; and more.
They also include press clippings from The Washington Post, CNN, the Beirut Daily Star Online and Cairo Ahram Online.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state during the Benghazi attack, has been the focus of congressional scrutiny regarding her own emails that she kept on a private server.
She appeared for 11 hours before the House Select Committee on Benghazi in October.
To download a PDF of the DNI emails, click here.
“The government also released a document Thursday showing that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence signed off on a proposal to revoke the passport of Anwar al-Awlaki, a former top al Qaeda operative, more than half a year before he was killed in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen,” The Washington Examiner reported on Christmas Eve.
• Maria Stainer can be reached at mstainer@washingtontimes.com.
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