Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) on Monday issued a statement dismissing President Barack Obama’s insistence that he attributed the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya to terrorism.
Speaking in the Rose Garden the day following the Sept. 11, 2012 attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi, Obama made reference to “acts of terror” — a “generic reference,” as the three Republican senators put it. McCain, Graham and Ayotte cited subsequent interviews that Obama gave in which he stopped short of describing the attack as terrorism. The three senators also called for the creation of a Joint Select Committee ” to resolve these contradictions and answer the many other unanswered questions about this tragedy.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) on Monday also pushed back Obama’s characterization of the attack, arguing during an appearance on Fox News that “an act of terror is different than a terrorist attack.”
“During a press conference this afternoon, President Obama claimed that, ‘The day after [Benghazi] happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.’ This statement contradicts his comments over the course of two weeks after the attack in which the President repeatedly and specifically refused, in the heat of his re-election campaign, to label Benghazi a terrorist attack, despite the fact that there was compelling evidence that it was an al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist attack.
“To be clear, on September 12th in the Rose Garden, President Obama made a generic reference to ‘acts of terror.’ But that same day he was specifically asked by Steve Kroft of CBS’ ‘60 Minutes’ if he believed Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and the President refused to say so, stating, ‘it’s too early to know exactly how this came about, what group was involved.’ Six days later on ‘The Late Show with David Letterman,’ the President was asked what happened in Benghazi and responded by blaming the attack on an ‘extremely offensive video.’ Two days after that on Univision, the President said ‘we’re still doing an investigation,’ and blamed it in part on ‘the natural protests that arose because of the outrage over the video.’ Four days later on ‘The View,’ Joy Behar asked specifically if it was an act of terrorism, and the President again said ‘we’re still doing an investigation.’ The next day, in remarks to the United Nations in New York a full two weeks after the attack, President Obama still made no reference to Benghazi as an act of terrorism but blamed recent violence on ‘a crude and disgusting video [that] sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.’
“In light of recent revelations and whistleblower testimony last week before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, it is very clear that we need a Joint Select Committee to resolve these contradictions and answer the many other unanswered questions about this tragedy. The Administration is spinning the American people and stonewalling Congress. This is unacceptable. The American people and the loved ones of those killed in Benghazi deserve to know the truth.”
