WH chief of staff: We didn’t call the Libyans during the Benghazi attack but we did convene some deputies

McDonough, who was deputy national-security adviser at the time, said “I don’t remember it that way,” and explained that, as outlined in a letter the administration sent to Congress this week, “Secretary of State Clinton called the Libyans . . . on behalf of the president” (which, of course, doesn’t contradict what Schieffer had outlined). He said “we carried out a very robust reaction to that situation at the direction of the president.” When Schieffer pushed him on the president’s role in the situation, he said that “throughout the night, not only [were we] briefing him,” the administration also convened “the deputies committee of the National Security Council” and called the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. In sum, McDonough said, “we did everything we could that night, which was borne out by the Accountability Review Board.”