Posted on 05/07/2014 4:47:09 AM PDT by maggief
Senate Republicans want to broaden the new Benghazi special committee to include members of the upper chamber.
Their call for a bipartisan, bicameral panel similar to the 9/11 Commission puts pressure on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is resisting the idea.
Republican lawmakers on Tuesday spoke out after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) outlined her conditions for establishing a select committee in the lower chamber to probe Benghazi. She said Democrats would participate only if the panel were “equally divided” between Democrats and Republicans. A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) immediately rejected Pelosi’s demand, but Senate Republicans said they would agree to an evenly divided special committee that included senators as well as House members.
“It would make sense if it were bicameral,” said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), a senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence panels.
“I would like to see that, with the ability to get information out of the State Department. That’s where the fault lies all the way to the top,” he told The Hill.
A bicameral special committee is necessary, according to Chambliss, because it would allow investigators to subpoena members of the State Department. He complained the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which he is the ranking Republican, lacked that power when it probed the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic annex in Benghazi.
“We were frustrated in our investigation by the lack of ability to subpoena witnesses and, particularly, subpoena documents from the State Department,” he said. “The State Department was not complicit in our investigation. They stonewalled us time and time again.”
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), another senior Republican on Armed Services, said he would support setting up a bipartisan, bicameral special committee.
“Absolutely,” he said. “So there’s equal representation.”
McCain said it would be important to create such a panel because “the Senate has its responsibilities as well as the House.”
The Arizona senator noted that he and former Sen. Joe Lieberman, a centrist Democrat turned Independent from Connecticut, called for the creation of the 9/11 Commission more than a decade ago.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another member of the Armed Services panel who has been outspoken about Benghazi, endorsed the idea.
“I’d like to see a bicameral committee, simply because Congress as a whole is affected by Benghazi. Both bodies I think have been manipulated by the White House,” he said.
Graham said the 9/11 Commission could serve as a model.
Both Graham and McCain voiced doubts that Reid would agree to such a proposal.
“It’s clear to me that both leaders of the Democratic Party do not have the same zeal to find out what happened at Benghazi as Republicans did with 9/11,” Graham said.
Graham noted that then-President George W. Bush initially opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission but relented after McCain and Lieberman gave bipartisan backing to the idea.
Soon after the GOP comments, Reid dismissed the prospect of senators participating in a special investigation of the attack, which he argues have been reviewed ad nauseam.
“No, we’re not going to do any select special committee over here on Benghazi,” he told reporters.
House Republicans are poised to vote later this week to create the committee, and the motion has the backing to pass. Speculation has swirled about whether the Democrats would boycott the process, as they did a similar 2005 investigation into the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, which they deemed a partisan whitewash.
Pelosi on Tuesday didn’t go that far, though a boycott is clearly still an option on the table. The minority leader amplified the Democrats’ criticism that the select committee on Benghazi is unnecessary in light of numerous other probes into the tragedy. But she also suggested the Democrats would participate if the process is open and evenly bipartisan.
“If this review is to be fair, it must be truly bipartisan,” Pelosi said in a statement. “The panel should be equally divided between Democrats and Republicans as is done on the House Ethics Committee. It should require that witnesses are called and interviewed, subpoenas are issued, and information is shared on a bipartisan basis.
“Only then,” she added, “could it be fair.”
It’s unclear if Pelosi’s 50/50 stipulation is a mandatory condition of the Democrats’ participation on the panel. If it is, then the committee might consist only of Republicans.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who will head the special panel, suggested Tuesday that the Republicans, who control the House, will hold more seats on the panel.
“We’re the majority right now,” Gowdy said, according to reports. “We’re the majority for a reason.”
At press time, House Republicans announced that the panel would consist of seven GOP members and five Democrats.
Pelosi’s openness to participating in the probe is hardly an endorsement of the special investigation. Democrats have characterized the new probe as a politically motivated stunt to embarrass both the Obama administration and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Pelosi’s move reveals that Democrats are wary of giving up a presence on the panel, which would allow Republican investigators to take shots at the White House without rebuttal.
Boehner’s office on Tuesday accused Pelosi of a double standard because, as Speaker in 2007, she created a special committee on global warming that consisted of nine Democrats and six Republicans.
House Democrats fired back, noting that the climate change panel was launched at the outset of the 110th Congress, just as the Democrats were taking back power, to complement standing committees. It was not, the Democrats emphasized, a special panel created to investigate the White House response to a specific incident.
Russell Berman contributed.
John McCain to host Hillary Clinton in Sedona, Ariz.
BY PHILIP RUCKER
April 24
EXCERPT
In a statement released Thursday, McCain called Clinton “my friend” and praised her public service career.
“From her years of service as first lady, in the U.S. Senate and the State Department, one would be hard-pressed to find a leader with Secretary Clinton’s informed perspective on the many challenges facing America across the globe,” McCain said.
According to a news release, Clinton is scheduled to “participate in a conversation” with McCain. This year’s forum will focus on “Crisis in the Middle East: Values, Strategy and Options,” and will include a session on Russia and Ukraine and on combating human trafficking.
McCain, along with Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), has been a consistent critic of Clinton’s handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, when four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, were killed.
(snip)
Last month, McCain appeared on stage with Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative University conference in Tempe, Ariz., hamming it up like old buddies. And this week, Cindy McCain appeared at an event in Phoenix with business and community leaders and to promote Too Small to Fail, the early childhood education initiative that Hillary Clinton is helping lead. McCain sits on the group’s leadership council.
Hey linda, exactly what is democratic about the Democrat party?
Fool!
” This is the Obama foreign policy after two years of the Arab Spring — making common cause with strongmen and hiring gunmen to do the bidding of the powers.”
THANKS.
I do remember listening to that. I was thinking that there was a more recent show on this. I expect one will be forthcoming.
Good Maggie. When that arms smuggling get out, as I believe it will in the hearings, a Rat or two may start abandoning ship.
The WH knows it’s coming. At the Press Briefing on Monday, Carney used the term “conspiracy theory” at least nine times.
Considering which senate Republicans are pushing for the bicamaral panel then I suspect their true goal is to sabotage it.
It's not inconceivable that Linda and Crazy John were in on the arms transfers from the get go. In fact, it's highly likely. They want in so they can play the national security card.
Yep, if McCain and Graham are for it then it is a bad idea.
NEXT we’ll have haggling over the shape of the table to be used by witnesses! Most here will remember the reference.
We’ve heard from McCain and Graham. Can Ayotte be far behind?
“We’ve heard from McCain and Graham. Can Ayotte be far behind?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=3153124%2C28
“And the latest revelation from the White House really tells us that we need this select committee,” Ms. Ayotte, New Hampshire Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Why is it that we’re just receiving this email, that really shows where the idea from the video came, because that video was not in the talking points, and yet that is what Ambassador Rice pushed on your show and every Sunday show?”
“It’s a lie that the video caused the protests,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “20 months later, they’re hiding things.”
Ms. Ayotte, along with Mr. Graham and GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has also called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, to take similar action and work with Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, to make the investigation a joint effort between the House and the Senate.
(snip)
“And the latest revelation from the White House really tells us that we need this select committee,” Ms. Ayotte, New Hampshire Republican, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Why is it that we’re just receiving this email, that really shows where the idea from the video came, because that video was not in the talking points, and yet that is what Ambassador Rice pushed on your show and every Sunday show?”
Horse droppings! The 9-11 Commission was a joke. One of the prime players was a commission member!!! And does anyone remember Sandy Burglar, using prep work for his testimony as the ruse to destroy incriminating documents?
WHY ARE THE SENATE “REPUBLICANS” TRYING TO SABOTAGE THE INVESTIGATION?
I could maybe agree to a couple of Senators on the committee, but ONLY if the Senators were Cruz, Jeff Sessions and Mike Lee and maybe 1 Dim (not Reid, Schummer or their ilk). McCain & Graham - - no way should they be on it. They need to just go away.
Rats and Rino’s come together again, I suspect the select committee is doomed to failure.
Just my opinion based on observation, since the establishment of the one party system.
Ditto.
FLASHBACK:
In an interview with radio host Laura Ingraham in January 2013, Boehner was asked about reported weapons transfers raised by Sen. Rand Paul during questioning of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Benghazi. The speaker responded: “I’m somewhat familiar with the chatter about this and the fact that these arms were moving towards Turkey, but most of what I know about this came from a classified source, and really can’t elaborate on it.”
Fox News asked the speaker’s office to clarify his comments to Ingraham, in light of the Benghazi relatives’ letter, specifically whether Boehner was briefed on the covert operations in Libya, and if those briefings covered weapons transfers.
Boehner’s spokesman emphasized that no one has been more dedicated to laying out the facts about Benghazi, adding: “The Speaker does not ever discuss classified information in public. In this case, he simply said he was aware of the rumors that were circulating publicly.”
During her January testimony on Benghazi, Paul pressed Clinton on the weapons issue, referring to reports that weapons from Libya were moving to the Syrian opposition via Turkey. “Is the U. S. involved with any procuring of weapons, transfer of weapons, buying, selling, anyhow transferring weapons to Turkey out of Libya?”
“To Turkey?” Clinton asked. “I will have to take that question for the record. Nobody has ever raised that with me.”
“It’s been in news reports that ships have been leaving from Libya and that may have weapons,” Paul continued.
“And what I’d like to know is the annex that was close by, were they involved with procuring, buying, selling, obtaining weapons, and were any of these weapons being transferred to other countries, any countries, Turkey included?”
Clinton replied: “Well, senator, you’ll have to direct that question to the agency [CIA] that ran the annex. I will see what information is available.”
“You’re saying you don’t know?” asked Paul.
“I do not know,” Clinton said. “I don’t have any information on that.”
All of the GOP and DEM leadership knew about it.
It’s possible that Trey is being set up to fail so that he cannot challenge Boehner after the elections.
I hear Boehner won his Primary. That must be one, stupid district.
Mmm mmm mmmm
Could ya just hear Paul’s questions after Gowdys on the committee. Particularly questions to Hill-— well we can dream-—
Those two media hogs would be a disaster.
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