Obama denounces Benghazi cover-up charges as ‘political circus’

President Barack Obama gestures during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Monday, …
President Barack Obama on Monday furiously dismissed as a "political circus" Republican charges that his administration had misled Americans about the Benghazi, Libya. Obama said the suggestion dishonors the memory of the four U.S. citizens killed last September.

"There’s no there there,” Obama said during a joint question-and-answer session with British Prime Minister David Cameraon at the White House. "And the fact that this keeps on getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations."

The president’s angry words came after news reports surfaced Friday that the White House had overseen a process that repeatedly watered down Administration talking points on the attack, removing references to possible involvement by al-Qaida and to prior warnings about threats in Benghazi. Republicans have charged that the White House was worried about the potential political fallout from the spectacular terrorist attack in Obama's re-election campaign. The White House has repeatedly denied that it deliberately misled the public.

"The whole issue of talking points frankly throughout this process has been a sideshow," Obama said.

The talking points, which portrayed the attack as evolving from a demonstration of anger at an Internet video that mocked Islam, "pretty much matched the assessments that I was receiving at that time in my presidential daily briefing," he added, referring to his top-secret morning intelligence review with the CIA.

While protests against the video in Egypt led to an assault on the American embassy in Cairo, officials in Libya never reported a demonstration outside the compound in Benghazi before the assault that claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Obama aides have said that the decision to scrub references in the talking points to al-Qaida and another extremist group, Ansar al-Sharia, reflected the intelligence community's uncertainty about the role they played.

"Immediately after this event happened, we were not clear who exactly had carried it out, how it had occurred, what the motivations were," Obama said. "It happened at the same time as we had seen attacks on US embassies in Cairo as a consequence of this film. And nobody understood exactly what was taking place during the course of those first few days."

The president also pointed to his first public remarks on the attack, in the Rose Garden on Sept. 12, 2012, when he lumped the events in Benghazi in with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist strikes as "acts of terror."

But he and other senior officials declined in subsequent days to label the attack the work of terrorists. And U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice linked the Benghazi assault to the Internet video when she appeared on morning news shows the first Sunday after the attack.

"I’ve just got to say, here’s what we know: Americans died in Benghazi," Obama said. "What we also know is clearly they were not in a position where they were adequately protected.

"The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism and what I pledged to the American people was we would find out what happened we would make sure that it did not happen again and we would make sure that we held accountable those who had perpetrated this terrible crime. And that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to do," he said.

Obama praised the work of envoys like Stevens and diplomats and other personnel serving overseas today, and declared: "We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus."

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McCain calls for select committee to investigate Benghazi ‘cover-up’

McCain (ABC News)

Sen. John McCain continued his criticism of the White House's handling of the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, calling for a select committee to investigate what he called the Obama administration's "cover-up."

"Now, what you’ve got to look at this in the context of the times there," McCain told Martha Raddatz in an interview that aired on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "We are in the midst of a presidential campaign. The narrative by the Obama campaign is that bin Laden is dead, that al Qaeda is on the run, not to worry about anything, and her comes this attack on Benghazi. And there are so many questions that are unanswered. We need a select committee."

"The president didn’t call it an act of terror," the Arizona Republican continued. "In fact, two weeks later, before the U.N., he was talking about hateful videos and spontaneous demonstrations. What he did say the day after was he condemned acts of terrorism, but then that night ... and throughout the next two weeks, he kept saying that it was caused by a spontaneous demonstration sparked by a hateful video. He kept saying that over and over again and condemning that."

McCain repeated his assertion that the administration is guilty of a "cover-up."

"I’d call it a cover-up," he said. "I would call it a cover-up to the extent that there was willful removal of information, which was obvious."

[Related: McCain claims ‘massive cover-up’ on Benghazi]

Last week, fellow Republican Sen. James Inhofe suggested President Obama could be impeached for his role in the case.

"Of all the great cover-ups in history—we’re talking about the Pentagon Papers, the Iran-Contra, Watergate and all the rest of them—this is going to go down as the most serious, most egregious cover-up in American history," Inhofe said.

In the interview that aired Sunday, McCain did not invoke the "i-word."

"With all due respect, I think this is a serious issue," he said. "I will even give the president the benefit of the doubt on some of these things. [But] we need a select committee."

McCain said he'd like to see former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who testified before Congress on Benghazi before leaving her post—testify again. Emails, uncovered last week, suggested the White House's talking points on Benghazi underwent 12 revisions.

"She had to have been in the in the loop some way, but we don’t know for sure," McCain said. "What I do know is that her response before the Foreign Relations Committee—'Who cares?' Remember when she said, 'Well, who cares how this happened?' in a rather emotional way? A lot of people care, I say with respect to the secretary of state."

Clinton, though, is not McCain's only target.

"We need a select committee that interviews everybody," McCain said. "I don’t know what level of 'scandal' this rises to, but I know it rises to the level where it requires a full and complete ventilation of these facts. Now, here we are, nine months later, and we’re still uncovering information which frankly contradicts the original line that the administration took. And so, we need the select committee and I hope we’ll get it. And the American people deserve it."

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McCain calls for select committee to investigate Benghazi ‘cover-up’

McCain (ABC News)

Sen. John McCain continued his criticism of the White House's handling of the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, calling for a select committee to investigate what he called the Obama administration's "cover-up."

"Now, what you’ve got to look at this in the context of the times there," McCain told Martha Raddatz in an interview that aired on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "We are in the midst of a presidential campaign. The narrative by the Obama campaign is that bin Laden is dead, that al Qaeda is on the run, not to worry about anything, and her comes this attack on Benghazi. And there are so many questions that are unanswered. We need a select committee."

"The president didn’t call it an act of terror," the Arizona Republican continued. "In fact, two weeks later, before the U.N., he was talking about hateful videos and spontaneous demonstrations. What he did say the day after was he condemned acts of terrorism, but then that night ... and throughout the next two weeks, he kept saying that it was caused by a spontaneous demonstration sparked by a hateful video. He kept saying that over and over again and condemning that."

McCain repeated his assertion that the administration is guilty of a "cover-up."

"I’d call it a cover-up," he said. "I would call it a cover-up to the extent that there was willful removal of information, which was obvious."

[Related: McCain claims ‘massive cover-up’ on Benghazi]

Last week, fellow Republican Sen. James Inhofe suggested President Obama could be impeached for his role in the case.

"Of all the great cover-ups in history—we’re talking about the Pentagon Papers, the Iran-Contra, Watergate and all the rest of them—this is going to go down as the most serious, most egregious cover-up in American history," Inhofe said.

In the interview that aired Sunday, McCain did not invoke the "i-word."

"With all due respect, I think this is a serious issue," he said. "I will even give the president the benefit of the doubt on some of these things. [But] we need a select committee."

McCain said he'd like to see former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who testified before Congress on Benghazi before leaving her post—testify again. Emails, uncovered last week, suggested the White House's talking points on Benghazi underwent 12 revisions.

"She had to have been in the in the loop some way, but we don’t know for sure," McCain said. "What I do know is that her response before the Foreign Relations Committee—'Who cares?' Remember when she said, 'Well, who cares how this happened?' in a rather emotional way? A lot of people care, I say with respect to the secretary of state."

Clinton, though, is not McCain's only target.

"We need a select committee that interviews everybody," McCain said. "I don’t know what level of 'scandal' this rises to, but I know it rises to the level where it requires a full and complete ventilation of these facts. Now, here we are, nine months later, and we’re still uncovering information which frankly contradicts the original line that the administration took. And so, we need the select committee and I hope we’ll get it. And the American people deserve it."

View the original article here