The laundry room at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. (Photo: MCT/Newscom)
Three more eyewitnesses to the Benghazi terrorist attack on September 11, 2012, will finally have the opportunity to speak to Members of Congress next week.
Without increasing insistence from the Hill, it is highly unlikely that their accounts would ever be heard. From day one, the Obama White House has been presenting misleading narratives about the events that night, and gag orders have aimed to keep survivors silent. Kudos to Senator Lindsey Graham (R–SC) and others in Congress for keeping the pressure up.
Three CIA employees who were eyewitnesses to the attack are expected to testify in a closed-door session before the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. They will add to the previously deposed firsthand accounts of the two security agents to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
The Obama Administration does not want this to happen. In a letter to Senator Graham, the State Department cited Justice Department advice that the eyewitnesses could be needed for a criminal trial, which could be jeopardized by their congressional testimony. Ironically for an Administration that failed to provide adequate security in Benghazi, concern for the eyewitnesses’ safety was also given as a reason.
Both excuses are pretty flimsy, particularly since not a single one of the Benghazi attackers has been apprehended more than a year after the event. And the State Department has not even posted a reward for any information leading to their capture.
Having finally gotten some of the eyewitnesses to come forward, Members of Congress will have to be prepared to help shield them from the potential reprisals from the Obama Administration.
The deputy chief of mission in Tripoli, Gregory Hicks, was punished for testifying before Congress by having his career sidelined at the State Department. He is currently on leave from State, having landed as a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
And a key witness in the compelling 60 Minutes segment on Benghazi that aired on October 27, Dylan Davies, a British defense contractor, who appeared under the pseudonym Morgan Jones, has found himself in a firestorm of allegations that he changed his narrative to sell his new book. Davies, meanwhile, has challenged the FBI to release his original post-Benghazi deposition to show that it was consistent with his on-air account. The FBI has refused.
Congressional oversight should not let up. As the Obama Administration has clammed up, and most of the media has been whistling past the graveyard, it is the only way the truth will come out.