Chaffetz backs Graham's demand for public testimony from eyewitnesses to Benghazi attacks

close

Video

Calls for new congressional testimony on Benghazi attack

Rep. Jason Chaffetz weighs in

Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz on Monday supported the demand for eyewitness accounts on the Benghazi terrorist attacks.

“The military should come clean and release the after-action report,” Chaffetz, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Fox News. “Anybody who ever served in the military knows there are those documents.”

The comments by Chaffetz -- among the most outspoken on how the Obama administration has release information about the fatal attacks -- follow South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham repeating Sunday that he plans to block all of Obama’s nominees for executive branch positions until Congress is allowed to hear testimony from those on the ground during the attacks.

“I shouldn’t have to do this – to make these threats,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Graham says there are still too many unanswered questions about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

While there have been a number of Capitol Hill hearings on the deadly attack in Benghazi, Graham is among a group of lawmakers who say they aren’t satisfied with the information provided and want more.

“I don’t think it’s over the top to find out what happened to four dead Americans,” he said. “I don't think it’s over the top to talk to survivors. The State Department interviewed these survivors.”

Along with Ambassador Stevens, Foreign Service officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed in the attack.

Graham has been asking for the FBI’s transcripts of interviews with State Department and CIA survivors who were evacuated to Germany after the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate.

In an Oct. 28 letter Graham, the State Department’s Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs, Julia Frifield, referred to "significant risks" and "serious concerns about having the survivors of the attack submit to additional interviews."

Graham and other Republicans believe the transcripts will show the survivors told the FBI it was a terrorist attack and made no mention of a video or anti-U.S. demonstration at the consulate.

“So I’m going to block every appointment in the United States Senate until the survivors are being made available to Congress,” he said.

Graham also called on fellow lawmakers in Washington for help.

“The only way this will work is if my GOP colleagues get behind me and Democrats too and support my request to find out exactly what happened,” he said.