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Top Official Thought Kidnapping Stevens Was Benghazi Aim – Email Contradicts Account in State Department Report
Christopher Stevens
Aaron Klein / WND
A just-released U.S. government email reveals a top Obama administration official was immediately concerned the Benghazi attack was a concerted effort to kidnap U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
The night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack, Eric Pelofsky, senior adviser to United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, sent an email to Rice in which he expressed concern about a possible kidnap plot. The message was contained in the 112 pages of documents released to Judicial Watch as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“Yes – I’m very worried. In particular, that he is either dead or this was a concerted effort to kidnap him,” wrote Pelofsky at 9:06 p.m. Eastern the night of the attack.
The email was sent after the initial assault at the U.S. special mission and just prior to the second assault at the nearby CIA annex, according to administration timelines.
Pelofsky wrote the email even after an email chain shows he was in receipt of information that a call was made from a cell phone belonging to Stevens at a local hospital. The caller claimed he was with the ambassador.
Moments before he sent the email about the kidnap concerns, Pelofsky wrote: “Post received a call from a person using a RSO phone that Chris was given saying that the caller was with a person matching Chris’s description at a hospital and that he was alive and well.”
RSO is a Regional Security Officer, who was part of Stevens’ security detail.
Pelofsky added: “Of course, if he were alive and well one could ask why he didn’t make the call himself.”
The caller’s description of Stevens as “alive and well” in Pelofsky’s email contradicts State’s ARB report, which claims an “Arabic speaking caller said an unresponsive male who matched the physical description of the Ambassador was at a hospital.”
Benghazi investigator won’t deny kidnap plot
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