On 'Fox News Sunday', Congressman Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee denounced today’s report in the New York Times arguing that there is no evidence of Al Qaeda involvement in the 2012 Benghazi attack.
Rogers: “There was some level of preplanning, we know that." “There was aspiration to conduct an attack by al Qaeda and their affiliates in Libya, we know that. The individuals on the ground talked about a planned tactical improvement on the compound. All of that would directly contradict what the New York Times says was an exhaustive investigation. That tells me they didn’t talk to the people on the ground who were doing the fighting and shooting and intelligence gathering. When you put that volume of information, I think it proves that story is just not accurate.”
Wallace asked if Rogers thought the report was a politically-motivated attempt to “clear the deck” for Hillary Clinton.
Rogers: “I find the timing odd.  I don’t want to speculate on why they might do it.”

(Full transcript of Chris Wallace's interview with Congressmen Rogers and Schiff)
Joining me now are two key members of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff of California, and here in D.C., committee chair, Mike Rogers of Michigan.
Congressmen, welcome back to FOX NEWS SUNDAY.
ROGERS: Thanks, Mr. Wallace.
SCHIFF: Thanks so much.
WALLACE: Before we get to the NSA, "The New York Times" has an extensive investigation this morning into the Benghazi attack on its front page. It reports, quote, "No evidence that al Qaeda or other international terrorist groups had any role in the assault." It goes on, "And contrary to claims by some members of Congress, it was fueled in large part by anger at, yes, an American made video denigrating Islam."
Congressman Rogers, I think it's fair to say that "The Times" report directly contradicts what you've been saying.
ROGERS: Yes, I don't know it was an exhaustive investigation. We have gone through some 4,000 different classified cables leading up to the event, talk to people on the ground during the event, done the postmortem on the event through the committee investigation.
WALLACE: What did they get wrong?
ROGERS: That al Qaeda was not involved. There was some level of preplanning, we know that. There was aspiration to conduct an attack by al Qaeda and their affiliates in Libya. We know that.
The individuals on the ground talked about a planned tactical movement on the compound even -- this is the compound before they went to the annex. All of that would directly contradict what the "New York Times" definitively says was an exhaustive investigation, tells me they didn't talk to the people on the ground who were doing the fighting, the shooting and the intelligence gathering.
When you put that volume of information, I think it proves that story is just not accurate.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you one specific thing. There was one group that everybody says was involved, Ansar al-Sharia. They say it's really an independent radical Islamic group, but it doesn't have links to al Qaeda.
ROGERS: I dispute that, and I think the intelligence to a large volume disputes that al-Sharia.
Now, did they have differences of opinion with al Qaeda core? Yes. Do they have affiliations with al Qaeda core? Definitely.
WALLACE: Do you think there is a political motivation to this "Times" report? Some people have suggested, well, this is trying to clear the deck for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
ROGERS: Yes. I don't know, but I found it was interesting that there's this rollout of stories, including Susan Rice, would go on TV and have a direct discussion, when we still have ongoing investigation in the House Intelligence Committee.
WALLACE: But, again, do you think that's a different tactic?
ROGERS: I find the timing odd. I don't want to speculate on why they might do it. But I can tell you that the information that's being presented in a way that we've heard before and through the investigation have been able to determine is not accurate in its portrayal.
WALLACE: Congressman Schiff, does "The Times" report in your opinion exonerate the Obama administration from the president, to Susan Rice, to Hillary Clinton?
SCHIFF: Well, I don't think "The New York Times" report is designed to exonerate the security lapses within the State Department that left our people vulnerable. I do think it adds some valuable insights. I agree with Mike that, however, the intelligence indicates that al Qaeda was involved, but there were also plenty of people and militias that were unaffiliated with al Qaeda that were involved.
I think the intelligence paints a portrait that some came to murder, some people came to destroy property, some merely came to loot, and some came in part motivated by those videos. So it is a complex picture. There was some planning, as Mike points out, but it was not extensive. I don't think it's either accurate to characterize this as a long-term preplanned core al Qaeda operation or something completely unaffiliated.
And I think, Chris, where the New York Times report both adds value and also is deficient is they didn't have the same access to people who were not aware that they were being listened to. They were heavily reliant, obviously, on people that they interviewed who had a reason to provide the story that they did.
Sometimes, though, the intelligence which has the advantage of hearing what people say when they don't know they are being listened to, that could be misleading as well when people make claims, they boast of things that they were not involved in for various purposes.
So I think it adds some insights, but I don't think it's complete. And I don't think either paradigm is really accurate here.
WALLACE: All right.
Let's move to the NSA, because leaker Edward Snowden has been on something of a big public relations offensive this past week. He gave an interview to the Washington Post in which he said this, "for me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission is already accomplished. I already won. And he had a Christmas message, yes, a Christmas message for the people of Britain."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EDWARD SNOWDEN, NSA LEAKER: Together, we can find a better balance, end mass surveillance, and remind the government that if it really wants to know how we feel, asking is always cheaper than spying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Congressman Schiff, are you moved by the Edward Snowden Christmas message? And has he performed a public service as he seems to think?
SCHIFF: I'm not moved by the message at all. And I think there is a real irony here that he is giving this message from one of the foremost Big Brother states in the world where he is living without any privacy because there is no right or expectation of privacy in Russia whatsoever. So I'm not moved by this at all.
You know, he has kindled an important public debate, but frankly I think it came from a mixture of motivations on his part. And I think he should have stayed in the United States and been willing to stand up for his beliefs if that's what motivated him. I think that would have demonstrated the courage of his convictions. So, I don't find his message particularly moving or appealing.
WALLACE: Congressman Rogers, in The Washington Post interview, Snowden he asks and answers the question who elected him to reveal all of these government secrets. And his answer is that he says that it was the overseers of those programs let's put up specifically what he says.
"Dianne Feinstein elected me when she asked softball questions in committee hearings," he said. "Mike Rogers elected me when he kept these programs secret." He says he is doing the job that you failed to do.
ROGERS: Yeah, well, you have to remember this is somebody who had a troubled employment history, who ran to China and Russia. He stole American classified documents, that because of their release jeopardizes our troops in the field in places like Afghanistan and has allowed nation states, Russia, China and others to have valuable insight in the way our intelligence services operate to collect information to keep America safe.
That's who the messenger is, number one.
Number two, the most recent court case, this happened just a few days ago by Judge Pauley, laid out very succinctly the oversight of the NSA program. And I think there's a big confusion about that this is Obama's program that he instituted when he was in office, this is a program that was initiated after 9/11, because we missed a big piece of information.
So both of the chairs of these committees, all of them members of these committees, are fully briefed on all of these actions. It is our job to make sure that they comport with the law. We do that. We take that very seriously.
I think all of that happened. And I think this most recent judicial ruling is important for one reason: it reinstituted faith in the institution of judicial oversight, congressional oversight and the checks and balances within the executive branch.
WALLACE: I want to talk to you about this, because you can -- depending on your opinion, you can just wait for a judicial ruling and you can find some back and forth. Because let's talk about the mass NSA collection, metadata collection, of billions of American phone records, who they called, and how long the call lasted, not the content. We want to emphasize that.
Now, in terms of rulings, in just 11 days we have one federal judge who called that practice of metadata collection almost Orwellian and likely unconstitutional. And then on Friday we had another federal judge call it lawful and the government's counterpunch to al Qaeda.
Congressman Schiff, do you agree with the congressional panel, because they came out with their 46 recommendations along with the two judges who say rather than have the government hold on these billions of records of metadata, that it would be better for a phone companies or some another private entity hold on to that information?
SCHIFF: Chris, I do. I strongly agree with that conclusion. And, you know, some have diminished the report by saying it's just the work of a bunch of professors. We have to remember, you know, Mike Morell was the acting director of the CIA. Richard Clarke, long experienced in counterterrorism, transcending administrations of both parties.
Interesting that the two judges that you mentioned both appointed by presidents of different parties, and contrary to what people might expect, the Clinton appointee upheld the program, and the bush appointee said it was unconstitutional. I actually find confidence that in those rulings in the sense that those judges didn't feel bound by the party of the presidents who appointed them...
WALLACE: Let me, if -- congressman, if I can bring in Congressman Rogers, though, on the specific issue of who should hold on to these records, because there seems to be a general agreement that they need to be held on to by somebody. The haystack -- real quickly.
SCHIFF: If I could just address that very quickly. The reason I think the program ought to be restructured is that we can get the same national security information that we need without the government obtaining millions and millions of records it doesn't need to hold. The phone companies already hold these records for a period of time. We can go to them as necessary as the task force found. We can have an exigent circumstances exception where we can get those records immediately, otherwise we can go to the FISA court in advance.
So we can both protect the country and protect the expectation of privacy. And that's the course that we ought to take. And that's how we ought to restructure the program.
WALLACE: We're running out of time, sir. So let me bring in Congressman Rogers, the interesting thing is since that recommendation came out, both the intel community and some privacy advocates say, we're not crazy about the government holding it, but we think the idea of some private entity holding it would be even worse.
ROGERS: Yeah, it opens it up to privacy concerns across the board. And so there are -- there is no such oversight.
And, again, the reason that Pauley decision was important, it went beyond -- it looked at all of the oversight issues in ruling and in the judge's opinion. Very important.
WALLACE: Another ruling that directly disagrees.
ROGERS: If you ruling, it wasn't based -- it was not a substantive ruling is why he staid his own ruling. He said this is probably going to get overturned -- why? 15 judges, 36 rulings, all of them upheld that this program is lawful and meets the Fourth Amendment test.
And then you have hundreds of appellate decisions over -- since Maryland v. Smith that uphold the underpinnings that these are business records, non-content, no names, no addresses. That, I think, is an important distinction.
So, I think the foundation of the legal argument is there. And what we have here is you're going to take away the safety of what is well overseen, locked away in a vault, very, very strict oversight on who gets access to even check a foreign number coming into the United States.
And this is what's important, after 9/11, we missed a foreign call coming into the United States. They said how do we fix that? This is the way they decided to fix it. And you have all the levels of oversight to make sure it's safe.
It goes to the private companies, you are going to have a government mandated scheme, no such oversight the way we have it at the federal government.
WALLACE: Well, this is going to be continued, as we should point out, the president on his Hawaiian vacation is studying I'm sure the court decisions, the varying court decisions as well as his independent panel's rulings -- or recommendations. And he is going to come out in January with a new set of guidelines.
Congressman Rogers, Congress Schiff, thank you both so much for joining us. And we'll stay on top of this surveillance debate. Thank you, gentleman.