Dodged political damage weeks before presidential election.
Almost immediately following the Benghazi attack, the Obama administration possessed information indicating some Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood participation in the assault, yet the Obama administration kept this critical piece of information from the public, reveals a new book, “The Real Benghazi Story,” by New York Times bestselling author Aaron Klein.
The attack took place less than two months before the November 2012 presidential election. Klein notes Obama could have found himself in a political quandary if it were determined the Muslim Brotherhood had been involved in the Benghazi attack in any way.
After the U.S. president called for the resignation of Egypt’s long-time secular leader, Hosni Mubarak, Obama helped to support the election of the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi and then proceeded to open ties to Morsi’s group.
The possible involvement of Egypt could be central to understanding the motivation of some of the attackers. The attack could be linked to Morsi’s campaign to free the so-called blind sheik, Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. for conspiracy in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Rahman’s release was a central foreign policy issue for Morsi.
In July 2013, several major Arabic newspapers ran with a story, first reported by the Kuwaiti paper Al Rai, quoting a Libyan intelligence report on the Benghazi attack that mentions an alleged connection to Morsi and other prominent Egyptian figures.
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