Democrats Block Benghazi Investigation

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today requested unanimous consent to pass S. Res. 255, which would establish a Joint Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks. He originally introduced this legislation on September 12, 2013, which currently has 25 Senate co-sponsors.

“Twenty months after the Benghazi attack, we have four dead Americans and no dead terrorists,” Sen. Cruz said. “It is chilling to think our President had better things to do than personally attend to an ongoing terrorist attack on our people. It is chilling to imagine we could have mounted a rescue attempt of our people but did not even bother to try. It is chilling to think our Secretary of State would not insist on giving an interview for the ARB report. It is chilling to think we have an administration that is reluctant to utter the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ let alone fight against it. The clock is ticking.  Memories are fading. It is beyond time to get the full resources of both houses of Congress behind this investigation.”

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-NJ, blocked Sen. Cruz’s request, stating the investigation was a “political trick” and a “purely political witch-hunt without merit.” He admitted he had no idea whether President Obama was awake or asleep or of his involvement in Benghazi, saying “I think the question is, did he even get told by those who had information such an attack was going on? I don't know.  The bottom line is, would that have saved anybody? I don’t know either.”

“The Democratic Senator from New Jersey, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, just told this body that he has no idea if President Obama was even told four Americans were under terrorist attack, he doesn’t know what, if anything, the President could have done to save them,” Sen. Cruz added. “I suggest that’s exactly the reason we need this committee. If the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee two years later cannot answer that question, it makes it abundantly clear that the response of the administration, and sadly the response of Senate Democrats, has been partisan stonewalling rather than trying to get to the truth.”

Sen. Cruz concluded, “The American people care a great deal what the President knew about national security, if he wasn’t engaged, if he didn’t know, if he didn’t work to stop it. That is an inquiry worthy of this body.”
 
Sen. Cruz called for answers to the following ten questions:

1. Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi in the summer of 2012?
2. Did President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings in the run-up to September 11, 2012 support the assertion that there was no credible threat of a coordinated terrorist attack on Benghazi during this time?  And if so, why does the White House not declassify and release the briefings, as President George Bush did his pre-September 11, 2001 briefings?
3. Why did we not anticipate the need to have military assets at the ready in the region on the anniversary of September 11, of all days?
4. Did President Obama sleep the night of September 11, 2012? Did Secretary Clinton?  When was President Obama told about the murder of our ambassador?
5. If the secretary of defense thought there was “no question” this was a coordinated terrorist attack, why did Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary Clinton, and President Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a “spontaneous demonstration” about an internet video?
6. Why did former deputy CIA director Mike Morell edit the intelligence community talking points to delete the references to “Islamic extremists” and “al-Quaeda”?
7. Why did the FBI release pictures of militants taken the day of the attack only eight months after the fact? Why not immediately, as proved so effective after the Boston bombing?
8. Why was Secretary Clinton not interviewed for the ARB report?  And if all relevant questions were answered in the ARB report, why did the State Department’s own inspector-general office open a probe into the methods of that very report?
9. Why have none of the terrorists who attacked in Benghazi been captured or killed?
10. What additional evidence that the White House engaged in a political campaign to blame the Benghazi attack on the internet video is contained in the additional emails requested by JudicialWatch but withheld by the White House on the grounds that it would put a “chill” on internal deliberations?

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