CIA director: Benghazi rescuers required to sign non-disclosure agreements because contracts being updated

CIA director John Brennan told a congressional hearing Tuesday that security operators involved in Benghazi rescue efforts were required to re-sign non-disclosure agreements because the documents were being updated.

Brennan was pressed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R.-Calif., of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence about the 2012 Benghazi attack and why the security operators who were involved in rescue efforts that night were asked to re-sign their non-disclosure agreements.

“There were a number of contractors whose contracts were being updated, amended,” Brennan said.“And any time there is an amendment to a contract, there's the requirement for a non-disclosure agreement to be re-signed, which is the case there.

“It was not (inaudible) specifically with any effort to discourage any individual from coming forward to this Congress.

In fact, I actively, explicitly encouraged them to cooperate with this committee and with the Congress.”

Brennan was then asked if he was in Libya in October 2012, one month after the Benghazi attack, to which he first answered “no” until his staff reminded him that he did travel to Libya at that time in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Consulate that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

At the end of Nunes’questioning, Brennan said, with no explanation how he forgot he was in Libya after the Benghazi attack, “I was in Libya in October of 2012. I just checked with my staff,”