Sean Hannity believes Americans now have “cold, hard evidence” of a White House cover-up of the Benghazi terrorist attack.

“The smoking gun is out,” Hannity said about a newly released document dated three days after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.

The document, obtained by Judicial Watch, is an email prepared by Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, for use by Susan Rice, then the Obama administration’s ambassador to the U.N. and now national security adviser.

“There you have it,” Hannity said on his Fox News show Wednesday. “Cold, hard evidence that a high-level White House aide instructed Ambassador Rice to blame Benghazi on a YouTube video.”

Rice’s use of talking points blaming the attack on an anti-Muslim video was widely seen as dooming her prospects of succeeding Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.

During a news briefing yesterday, reporters asked White House press secretary Jay Carney why the Rhodes email wasn’t released earlier. ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl was especially insistent, peppering Carney with a series of questions:

Why were you holding back this information? Why was this email not turned over to the Congress? Why was it not released when you released all the other emails? This is directly relevant. Why did you hold it back? Why did it take a court case for you to release this?

The Heritage Foundation’s Helle Dale said the latest disclosure is fresh evidence of “a cover-up of the awful policy choices that led to Benghazi.” Dale added, “As a consequence, Americans have lost their trust in the administration, the families of the victims continue to suffer, and none of the guilty have been punished.”

>>> WATCH: Charles Krauthammer’s Critique of Media on Benghazi

This story was produced by The Foundry’s news team. Nothing here should be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation.