As a man suspected of involvement in the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi is being held in Libya, wounded Benghazi survivors of the attacks are still under wraps and once again U.S. Senators are applying pressure to hear from them.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says that he “had contact” with some of these Benghazi survivors and they have been “told to be quiet.” In an interview on Fox News, Lindsey called their story “chilling” and “the bottom line is they feel that they can’t come forth, they’ve been told to be quiet.”
“The best evidence of what happened in Benghazi is not a bunch of politicians in Washington trying to cover their political ass,” Graham said. “This is the people who lived through the debacle, and I’m going to do all I can to get them before the Congress and American people.”
“We cannot let this administration or any other administration get away with hiding from the American people and Congress, people who were there in real time to tell the story,” he continued.
The White House countered Graham. When asked about Benghazi survivors, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, “I’m sure that the White House is not preventing anyone from speaking.” Sure about that are you Jay? Maybe as sure as you were that the White House stopped tours due to sequestration?
Graham thinks the administration is “trying to cover it up.”
The South Carolina senator said that we need “to hear from people who were on the ground, their desperate situation. They need to understand from people who were there for months how bad it was getting and how frustrated they were that nobody would listen to them and provide aid when they were requested. This is a story of an administration deaf and blind to the reality of what people were living with every day in Libya.”
He said the Benghazi survivors should be allowed to “tell their story without fear.” He also made the accusation that the Obama administration was “hiding from the American people and Congress the primary source of truth in Benghazi – people who lived through it.”
Reports indicate that as many as 30 Americans, including State Department and CIA officers and government contractors, were wounded in the attack and at least seven were treated at Walter Reed Hospital.
In a letter dated March 1, Representatives Frank Wolf (R–VA) and Jim Gerlach (R–PA) demanded names and contact information for each survivor, some State Department employees, and some CIA contractors to make it possible to contact them. Wolfe’s argument is that the Benghazi survivors should not just be questioned but also publicly acknowledged for their bravery that night in September. “We should be honoring them,” Wolf said. “We should be thanking them.”
“That’s why this story continues to perpetuate itself,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the chairman of the House Oversight subcommittee on National Security. “And it will not end, because the State Department’s not allowing us to put a nice, tight ribbon on it.”
The Hill reports,
Democrats say Republicans are simply looking for any avenue to score political points.
“Benghazi is over and done with,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a senior member on the Intelligence Committee, told The Hill. “As far as [Republicans] are concerned … this has always been a political issue and that is the way they will continue to [pursue] it.”
Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) put the blame squarely on the administration’s shoulders.
“This all could have been resolved a long time ago,” he said, if the White House had fully disclosed all the pertinent details about its response to the terrorist attack.
There are still questions that need to be answered, and thus far no one has been held accountable. Not one person has had justice brought upon their heads. Not one person has lost their job. These Benghazi survivors need to be brought forward and testify before Congress, not in secret, but openly on national television and then once the truth is known, bring justice upon those who are responsible.
The American people can protest until they are blue in the face, as much attention will be paid to them as was given to the cries for help from those in Benghazi, so get over it.
And Lindsey Graham, what a woos !!!!!! You just have to look at that wimpy face and thank God that he is not in charge of a ship you might be sailing on one day.
Can you imagine going into battle with a creature such as that at your side?
You know he wouldn’t be there, he’d be in hiding.
A Republican my butt.
Excellent! Accurate and funny as hell!
ROTFLMAO!
What did they do when Nixon refused to cooperate with congress and hand over the tapes ?If I remember he eventually resigned in disgrace.
Every day I wonder which face of Lindsay Graham I will see next? I read here that this man wants truth but in the next article I hear he wants to get rid on constitutional rights and gun control.
Lindsay you cannot have both. First start with the truth and learn all of it. Your chances of reelection are failing because you are waffling. So now I must wonder what benefit you will receive by taking this tac?
Americans suffer from an acute case of ADD. Initially, the facts about Benghazi were kept secret because if know, it would have severely damaged Obama’s re-election prospects. In addition to damaging Obama, maintaining the secrecy gave Hillary Clinton almost enough time to exit the State Department without being directly involved and responsible for the scadal. In order to buy more time, Hillary suffered a mild stroke caused by a blood clot in her Benghazi. Long story short: Benghazi was not a diplomatic mission. It was a CIA nest which had funneled weapons to al Qaeda and the Libyan rebels to overthrow Muammar Gadhafi and subsequently to send weapons through Turkey to the opposition forces in Syria to overthrow President Bashir Assad. Consider that the US supplied Osama bin Laden with weapons and all other forms of support to counter the 10 year Russian occupation of Afghanistan which eventually bankrupt the Russia empire. History repeats itself. Consider also that the UN Small Arms Treaty is purposed to stop the US from supplying arms to rebel forces in other countries except that Obama is supporting the treaty to attack second ammendment rights.