At Hearing on Libya Attack That Killed Envoy, Partisan Rift
Hearing Focuses on Attack That Killed Ambassador
House Republicans on Wednesday accused the State Department of shortchanging security at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as the first Congressional hearing into the attack there last month quickly took on a partisan tone.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, left, and Rep. Darrell Issa at the first hearing held by a Congressional committee investigating the attacks that led to the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Democratic members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee suggested that a vast majority of the security requests had been met.
With less than a month before Election Day, the hearing had highly charged political overtones. Republicans have charged that the Obama administration has played down the significance of the attack and what they say are the policies that allowed it. Democrats have responded that Republicans are trying to politicize the episode.
In his opening statement, the committee chairman, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, said that “on a bipartisan basis,” the committee would try to reassure Americans serving overseas that they were protected. He also praised Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for cooperating with the committee.
But the committee’s ranking Democrat, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, challenged that assertion. In his statement, he said Republicans had withheld documents and had not made witnesses available for interviews. He also called on the House to restore what he said was “hundreds of millions of dollars” it had cut from embassy security financing in recent years.