David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times continues to claim that, notwithstanding the reporting of his own newspaper, claims of an al Qaeda connection to the Benghazi attack are “bogus” or, alternatively, “tenuous” (which is it, David?). How does Kirkpatrick square his claim with the Times’ reporting? By mischaracterizing that reporting. He told Anderson Cooper:
I think that the reporting in our paper [of involvement by Muhammad Jamal’s terrorist group which is linked to al Qaeda] was citing some congressional officials saying they thought this Jamal group might have been involved. And the congressional officials in turn were citing a report in the Wall Street Journal and that report seems to me to the best of my knowledge to have come from Egyptian intelligence. And at the end of the day, what it asserts is just that this character Jamal may have run a training camp someplace and people who had been at that training camp may have been involved in the attack.
However, as Tom Joscelyn points out in the Weekly Standard, the Times cited U.S. officials, not congressional officials. Here is what the Times reported:
Three Congressional investigations and a State Department inquiry are now examining the attack, which American officials said included participants from Ansar al-Shariah, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Muhammad Jamal network, a militant group in Egypt.
(Emphasis added).
This passage cannot be read as attributing the al Qaeda connection to congressional investigators. Kirkpatrick’s claim to the contrary isn’t just bogus, it’s dishonest.
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