Exclusive: No Record of Intel Briefings for Obama Week Before Embassy Attacks

by Wynton Hall

Sep 12, 2012 8:47 AM PT

According to the White House calendar, there is no public record of President Barack Obama attending his daily intelligence briefing--known as the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB)--in the week leading up to the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American members of his staff:

9/6/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-06

9/7/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-07

9/8/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-08

9/9/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-09

9/10/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-10

9/11/2012- http://www.whitehouse.gov/schedule/president/2012-09-11

The last time prior to the slayings that the White House calendar publicly confirms Mr. Obama attending his daily intelligence briefing was September 5th. (The White House did not provide an official public calendar for September 8-10.) Mr. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta at 5:00 p.m. yesterday.

According to a recent study by the Government Accountability Institute, Mr. Obama has only attended 43.8 percent of his Presidential Daily Briefs in the first 1,225 days of his Administration.

The White House responded by claiming that President Obama reads daily intelligence reports, even if he does not attend the briefings personally.



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