The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee holds a hearing about last year's deadly assault on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Wednesday. Left to right are witnesses Mark Thompson, the State Department's acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism, Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, and Eric Nordstrom, the State Department's former regional security officer in Libya. — AP
WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Wednesday renewed charges that the Obama administration is covering up information about last year's deadly assault in Benghazi, Libya, drawing an angry rebuke from Democrats who accused the Republicans of politicizing the issue at a jam-packed hearing. Three State Department witnesses, including the former deputy chief in Libya, testified before the panel. The hearing is the latest in a long-running and bitter dispute between the Democratic administration and congressional Republicans who have challenged the White House's actions before and after the Benghazi attack. The target of much of the Republican wrath is former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, who stepped down after four grueling years with very high approval ratings. In her last appearance before Congress in January, a defiant Clinton took responsibility for the department's missteps leading up to the assault, while rejecting suggestions the administration had tried to mislead the country about the attack. Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the purpose of the hearing with three department witnesses was to get answers. Rep. Elijah Cummings, the panel's top Democrat, said he wasn't questioning the motives of the witnesses. “I am questioning the motives of those who want to use them for political purposes,” he said. The witnesses were Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism; Gregory Hicks, the former deputy of mission in Libya; and Eric Nordstrom, a former regional security officer in Libya who testified before the panel in October. On Sept. 11, 2012, two separate attacks hours apart on the US facility in Benghazi killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. An independent panel led by former top diplomat Thomas Pickering and retired Gen. Mike Mullen concluded that management and leadership failures at the State Department led to “grossly” inadequate security at the mission. The panel's report singled out the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security and the Bureau of Near East Affairs. In her January appearance Clinton insisted that requests for more security at the diplomatic mission in Benghazi didn't reach her desk. “I did not see these requests,” she said. “They did not come to me. I did not approve them. I did not deny them.” Yet Republicans are pressing ahead, holding hearings and issuing an interim report that criticized her. “It looks pretty clear that there was some catastrophic decision-making that in some way contributed to the death of those four Americans,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “And that part I think is what the investigation will unfold.” The Pentagon provided Congress with a timeline of the actions of security personnel and other senior officials around the attack last November, but Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that it was insufficient. The Oversight committee under Issa's tutelage is looking to its witnesses to “put forward information about Benghazi that the Obama administration has tried to suppress,” said Frederick Hill, a spokesman for the panel. Democrats see it differently. “It's politics,” said Rep. Peter Welch, as Democrat and a member of the panel. — AP
