Krauthammer’s Take: Broadwell’s ‘Prison’ Disclosure Would Explain Petraeus Testimony Blaming YouTube Video

On Fox News’ Special Report last night, Charles Krauthammer attempted to suss out what the Petraeus scandal, taking increasingly bizarre turns by the hour, tells us about the 9/11 attack on our Benghazi consulate. 

Krauthammer tied Paula Broadwell’s contention, in an October 26th speech at the University of Denver, that the CIA was holding Libyan militia members at the Benghazi compound to what Petraeus told the House Intelligence Committee about the Libya attack:

Yet a congressional source told Fox News that CIA Director David Petraeus, during a briefing with members of the House Intelligence Committee three days after the attack, also espoused the view that Benghazi was an out-of-control demonstration prompted by the YouTube video. According to the source, this was “shocking” to some members who were present and saw the same intelligence pointing toward a terrorist attack. 

Krauthammer argued that Broadwell’s “prison” disclosure may account for Petraeus’s bizarre explanation for the Benghazi attack: 

…how do you explain the testimony that Petraeus gave, when it contradicted the testimony that the CIA station chief in Libya had told them, when it contradicted what Panetta had briefed, and what everybody at the time was saying. Now, the Broadwell disclosure that we just saw is important not because people are now getting all upset about it, because it might have disclosed secret information, but because it might tell us what might have been a motive for the CIA to disguise, to lie about, or to cover up what was happening in Benghazi.

If they were holding prisoners, either the administration or the White House knew about it in contradiction of the executive order Obama had done when he came into office, or the CIA and the people in Libya were holding it from the administration, in which case it’s a breach of something and it could be serious.  But it gives you one of the many motives why Petraeus’ testimony was so at odds at what everybody at the time was saying and knew. And the fact that Petraeus resigns with a week to go before he is supposed to testify, will not be there as many people on the Hill have already said, we have got to have him there, including Dianne Feinstein, I’m sure, being a Democrat and, therefore, being obviously nonpartisan about this they’re going to want to know where did this testimony come from.

That’s the link between the two scandals.  And personally, I’m not interested in the private lives of high officials, but I am interested in what happened in Benghazi and why the story out of the CIA was so bizarre.