Boehner to Appoint Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi Terrorist Attack
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced Friday that the House will vote on whether to appoint a bi-partisan select committee to expand the investigation into the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans on Sept. 11, 2012.
In an interview with The Christian Post late Thursday, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, the organization that filed a lawsuit against the government to obtain documents about the administration's actions during the Benghazi terrorist attack, suggested that, in order to "elevate this issue in a way that gets an aggressive investigation going and provides the answers to all of the outstanding questions," Boehner would have to appoint a select committee out of the House.
Fitton believes that Americans have always been concerned about the terrorist attack in Benghazi, and noted that it's a nonpartisan issue.
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"Americans were murdered and an ambassador was killed in an attack, and the information is that the president and all of his people lied about what went on and dropped the ball, in terms of coming to the rescue, and tried to cover it all up because of an election," he asserted.
Brigadier General Robert Lovell (Ret.), who was the Africa Command intelligence deputy on duty when the Benghazi attack took place, testified Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing in the Obama administration's response, and said the he never received a call from the State Department to help Ambassador Chris Stevens and the Americans who were under attack at the U.S. Consulate.
Gen. Lovell also said that he and others in the intelligence community knew that the Benghazi terrorist attack on the anniversary of 9/11 was not a protest in reaction to an anti-Islamic video posted on YouTube by an American filmmaker.
In an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier Thursday, former White House spokesman Tommy Veitor refuted Gen. Lovell's testimony and said that he and others who testified are wrong. "With all due respect, that's just not accurate," he said, asserting that no one knew if the attack was a skilled military operation or if the attackers were motivated by the video.
In a Friday statement Boehner said he decided to name a special panel to investigate the terrorist attack, in light of the emails that were released this week.
"Americans learned this week that the Obama Administration is so intent on obstructing the truth about Benghazi that it is even willing to defy subpoenas issued by the standing committees of the People's House," Boehner said in a statement.
He continued, "These revelations compel the House to take every possible action to ensure the American people have the truth about the terrorist attack on our consulate that killed four of our countrymen," he added.
"In light of these new developments, the House will vote to establish a new select committee to investigate the attack, provide the necessary accountability, and ensure justice is finally served," Boehner said.
According to Fitton, the Benghazi issue isn't going to go away anytime soon.
"The story is going to get worse for the president, [and more] than he can possibly imagine. This is an explosion this week and the reverberations are going to continue for months," he said.
