Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that a report on the Benghazi attack released late last week is “full of crap.”
The GOP-led report found no failures in intelligence of the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and also found that any misinformation released after the attack was incorrect on accident, not in a deliberate attempt to mislead people.
But Mr. Graham, South Carolina Republican, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the report is inaccurate and that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that released the report accepted a “bunch of garbage.”
“I’m saying the House Intelligence Committee is doing a lousy job policing their own,” he said.
He said the select committee, led by Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, will get to the bottom of what really happened in the attack that killed four Americans.
“This report puts all the blame on the State Department and absolves the intelligence agencies,” Mr. Graham said. “At the end of the day, everybody is pointing fingers at everyone else. That’s why you need a select committee.”
Rep. Adam Schiff, California Democrat, said he hopes the report from the House committee will allow the select committee to work on solutions to ensure a similar attack never takes place instead of searching for conspiracies in the past.
“Calling it crap doesn’t change the fact that it was an exhaustive, objective review,” he said. “I think we’ve had the final say on many of these conspiracy theories.”
He said the report has completely exonerated the administration from any wrongdoing or intentional misleading.
“At a certain point you have to be willing to accept the answer that there was no conspiracy if you can’t produce evidence of one,” he said.
• Jacqueline Klimas can be reached at jklimas@washingtontimes.com.
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