Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the Democrats’ pushback to House Republicans’ special committee on Benghazi proves that the administration is “scared to death” about what could emerge.
“The president of the United States, while an ongoing tragedy is taking place, our consulate being under attack, you would think that, like the video that we saw of the strike on Osama bin Laden, that we would see many pictures of the president attentive. All we know is that he was briefed by Panetta and Dempsey and they left, and there was no further communication,” McCain told Fox.
“Could I say, first of all, I think it’s important that the Democrats join in this? When Joe Lieberman and I said we ought to have a 9/11 Commission, the Bush administration didn’t want it. When Abu Ghraib happened, I condemned it. Waterboarding, I condemned it. Those were all under the Bush administration,” he added.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested Sunday that his colleagues should boycott this “colossal waste of time.”
“If there is nothing to it, as they are saying there is nothing to it, they should want this committee because then they will prove themselves right. Then they would be able to say, hey, see, I told you there is nothing wrong with it,” McCain continued. “They are scared to death. I have never seen anything like, after 19 months, the emails concerning their priorities and the president’s spokesperson saying that it had nothing to do with Benghazi. Now, that has reached a new point.”
The senator said that he’s known White House press secretary Jay Carney for a long time, and back in his media days he was “a pretty straightforward journalist.”
“He has destroyed his own reputation by that statement that what clearly was the talking points, which had nothing to do but Benghazi, saying it had nothing to do with Benghazi. That, to me, is an all-time low for a presidential spokesperson,” McCain said.
“By the way, I would love to see Harry Reid say, yeah, we will make this bicameral Select Committee. I think it rises to that level. Obviously, that won’t happen. And so it’s really too bad,” he added. “And if Democrats refuse to take part in this commission, this committee, and more information comes out, they are the ones that will have egg on their faces because the American people will rightly conclude that they weren’t interested in why four brave Americans were murdered.”
On MSNBC, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) called the select committee “a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a travesty of a mockery of two travesties of a sham.”
“It’s absurd. This is ludicrous,” Cohen said. “A congressional committee did not find Osama bin Laden. Barack Obama found Osama bin Laden. George Bush didn’t find him. Barack Obama did. And the CIA, the State Department, the Defense Department under Barack Obama are going to find the people that were responsible for Benghazi, not a select committee.”
“This is simply an assault on Hillary Clinton, and they will use it and use it and use it. And that’s all it is.”
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