H Res. 36
113 HRES 36 IH: Establishing a select committee to investigate and report on the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Introduced January 18, 2013Read the Official Bill Text
The Benghazi select committee has earned the support of 169 Republicans, 49 of whom have signed onto the effort following the release of a congressional report that accused senior Obama administration officials of negligence.
If we don’t find out what led up to, occurred during and happened afterwards –and the role played by the President and his senior subordinates throughout – there will certainly be more lies and may be more American deaths.
Despite several hearings held by assorted congressional committees, we are today no closer than before to knowing the answers to myriad questions that require urgent and authoritative answers. Among them are the following:
- What role
did the Obama administration’s assiduous cultivation of relations with
Islamists play in the creation of the State Department’s so-called
“special mission facility” in Benghazi? What was the true purpose of
that facility and who was assigned to staff it, with what roles?
- Where are
those people now and why have they not been made available to date to
congressional investigators of the Benghazigate affair? How many of
them were injured in the Benghazi attack and what is their current
status?
- What caused
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens to consider it necessary to be at
that facility, which he had formally complained was dangerously
insecure, especially on September 11th, a day that al Qaeda has long sought to make open-season on Americans?
- Specifically, what was the urgency of Chris Stevens’ last official act – an evening meeting with the Turkish consul general?
- Were the
special mission facility and the nearby CIA “annex,” Amb. Stevens or any
other personnel that were stationed in or operating from Benghazi
involved in a covert operation to collect small arms, surface-to-air
missiles and/or other weapons? Were any of those weapons being secretly
made available – directly or indirectly – to the Syrian “opposition,” a
group known to include al Qaeda elements?
- If weapons
secured in Libya for this purpose were transferred to the so-called
Syrian rebels, was there a presidential finding authorizing such
activities? In that case, had any congressional leaders been duly
notified?
- The public
record suggests that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were
inexplicably disengaged from the time they learned of the attack until
their joint appearance the next morning in the Rose Garden. Where were
they and what were they doing during that period?
- What orders
were given and by whom with respect to the organization and execution
of a rescue operation or other assistance to the Americans under
attack? If no such orders were issued, was there direction given to do
nothing and on what authority?
- Precisely
who was involved in the so-called “Deputies Committee” efforts to rework
the CIA talking points that were used to brief lawmakers and the public
a false narrative that an offensive video, rather than an act of
terroristic jihad, was the catalyst for the attack? In particular, what
role did John Brennan play in that disinformation?
- Why did the
President insist for as long as two weeks after the episode that the
video was involved, prompting him to declare – among other troubling
statements – at the UN on September 25th that, “The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam”?
- Is such presidential guidance why the Obama administration appears to have followed through on the stated intention of Secretary Clinton to prosecute and jail the maker of that video – with ominous implications for freedom of expression in America?
Unfortunately, even now – eight months after the murderous attack in Benghazi, these and many other aspects of this scandal that are so redolent of the Obama administration’s penchant for putting politics before public safety still cry out for proper investigation.
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