Cruz: Senate Should Be Part of Benghazi Investigation

Helle Dale /

Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom

Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, yesterday requested the re-introduction of Senate Resolution 255 to establish a Congressional Joint Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi scandal.

Cruz’s move comes after House of Representatives voted Friday to establish a select committee to investigate the terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Christopher Stevens, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya. The resources gained by establishing a House-Senate joint committee certainly would benefit the investigation.

But there is little chance that will happen. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, blocked Crux’s resolution, calling it a “political trick” and a “purely political witch-hunt without merit.” This was a replay of the resolution’s original fate when Cruz introduced it on Sept. 12, 2013.  This partisan rancor unfortunately can be counted on to increase as the Benghazi investigation proceeds.

The questions asked by Cruz are exactly what the American people want answered:

  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 Sept. 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 W. Bush did his pre-Sept. 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 Sept. 11, of all days?

  4. Did President Obama sleep the night of Sept. 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 of      State Hillary 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-Qaida”?

  7. Why did  the FBI release pictures of militants taken the day of the attack 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 Administrative Review Board      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 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 Judicial Watch but withheld by the White      House on the grounds that it would put a “chill” on internal  deliberations?

Someone has to answer these questions before the Benghazi scandal can be laid to rest. It ought to be weighing on every U.S. lawmaker to see justice done and accountability upheld for the four Americans brutally attacked and killed.

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