Nightly News   |  November 19, 2012

White House denies hiding Benghazi attack origins

Intelligence officials say they knew it was terrorist attack from the beginning, and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was given unclassified talking points that were deliberately vague. But Republican critics say that helped mislead the public. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.

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>>> the benghazi investigation after a weekend of sharp criticism and pressure from republicans, a lot of it took place on yesterday's "meet the press." our chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell .

>> reporter: good evening, brian, white house and intelligence officials are denying charges that there was an attempt to whitewash the origins of the benghazi attack to protect the president politically. today, white house officials say they knew it was a terrorist attack from the beginning. there was never a question in their mind, but to them that didn't rule out that it could have been spontaneous or planned long in advance. and they still get conflict information on who the suspects were. so they say the intelligence committee , not the white house , wrote unclassified talking points for susan rice that were deliberately vague to avoid the compromising legal issues. that led to charges that politics were involved, something the spy agencies tonight say is just not true.

>> andrea mitchell , who will remain on this story for us,