Fox News baselessly accused former U.N. Ambassador and potential National Security Adviser Susan Rice of willfully lying about the Benghazi attacks during her September 2012 Sunday news show appearances, despite it being widely reported that Rice used talking points approved by the intelligence community.

In fall 2012, Fox News claimed that Rice lied in her appearances on Sunday news shows because she asserted that the September attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya was related to an anti-Islam video released days before the attacks. Her assertion was based on talking points prepared after the attack by the intelligence community, who at the time believed the Benghazi attacks were inspired by protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo which were linked to the video. Fox News ignored that evidence to smear Rice and claim that her Sunday show appearances disqualified her from being Obama's Secretary of State nominee -- a nomination that Obama had reportedly considered prior to now-Secretary of State John Kerry's nomination and successful confirmation.

Fox News has revived these attacks following a May 15 Foreign Policy The Cable blog post that reported Susan Rice “has become heir apparent to National Security Advisor Tom Donilon”:

“It's definitely happening,” a source who recently spoke with Rice told The Cable. “She is sure she is coming and so too her husband and closest friends.”

“Susan is a very likely candidate to replace him whenever he would choose to leave,” agreed Dennis Ross, a former special assistant to President Obama and counselor at the Washington Institute. “She is close to the president, has the credentials, and has a breadth of experience.”

On the May 20 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade once again attacked Rice over her Sunday show appearances. Kilmeade claimed that none of the recently released emails that document the creation of Rice's Sunday show talking points mentioned that an anti-Islam video may have catalyzed the attack, and that therefore Rice made purposefully misleading claims. He also suggested that then-CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus questioned the veracity of the talking points based on changes made following “the State Department's urgings”:

KILMEADE: Yeah the CIA signed off on them, Mike Morell, but you know what? The CIA's director at the time, David Petraeus, essentially said this after he got these back and seen how they changed with the State Department's urgings and possibly the White House's input. He said, why even bother? Should we even bother releasing this? That's how different they were from the facts as they knew them.  

An on-screen graphic also claimed that Rice used “false talking points”:

In fact, every version of the CIA talking points, including the version ultimately used by Rice, stated that the attacks were “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo,” which had been triggered by the video. Indeed, the email that Kilmeade referenced reveals Petraeus had reservations about the talking points because he thought they didn't do enough to connect the Benghazi attacks to the demonstrations in Cairo and the anti-Islam video. Petraeus ultimately testified before Congress in November 2012 that the intelligence community signed off on the final draft of the talking points.