When Anderson Cooper first mentioned that Ambassador Chris Stevens was afraid for his security, he said this:

“A source familiar with Ambassador Stevens’ thinking says that in the months before his death, he talked about being worried about what he called the never-ending security threats specifically in Benghazi. This source telling us that the ambassador specifically mentioned the rise in Islamic extremism, the growing Al Qaeda presence in Libya, and said he was on an Al Qaeda hit list.”

Turns out the source was actually a diary or private journal of Ambassador Stevens’, which CNN reporters found in the “largely unsecured” American consulate in Libya. CNN says they handed the diary over to the family, but not before reading it and taking note of its contents.

The State Department is condemning CNN and calling their use of information from the diary “indefensible”. CNN and Anderson Cooper fired back, explaining that the existence of the journal would have been kept a secret, but that a source at The Huffington Post confronted the network about the journal as the source of Cooper’s statement that the Ambassador had been afraid.

What do you think should have happened with Ambassador Chris Stevens’ journal? Should CNN have never alluded to the information in the first place?

Who is responsible for the leaking of the information regarding the Ambassador’s journal?

What, if any, consequences should be leveled against CNN for this disclosure? Does the Huffington Post hold any responsibility here?

For more, visit The Washington Post for a thorough explanation of the situation.