There's a there, there in Benghazi 'sideshow,' Mr. President
Sen. Lindsey Graham responds to Pres. Obama's allegations of political motives in ongoing Benghazi scandal
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," May 13, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: OK, brace yourself! Stunning testimony from Benghazi whistle-blowers. Are we about to hear even more testimony from more whistle-blowers? House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers says yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE ROGERS, R-MICH.: I do think we're going to see more whistle-blowers. I know certainly my committee has been contacted. I think other committees has, as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAN SUSTEREN: And tonight, some Republican senators calling for a joint select committee to further investigate Benghazi. Senator Lindsey Graham is one of those. He joins us.
Senator, before we get to a joint committee, joint select committee, I'm curious, did you see the president's press conference today in which he was asked about Benghazi, and were you satisfied with his answers?
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: It was disgusting! I can't believe...
VAN SUSTEREN: I guess you didn't like them, then.
GRAHAM: Well, no. I mean, spin me once, shame on you. Spin me twice, shame on me.
Does the President of the United States really believe that the American people are going to imbibe the story he told today, that he called Benghazi a terrorist attack from the get-go? His administration for weeks after the attack tried to convince the American people there was no al Qaeda involvement, this was a spontaneous riot caused by a hateful video generated in the United States and there was no pre-planned terrorist attack.
We're not stupid in America and we're going to keep pushing.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why do you think they -- I mean, you've got the 12 revisions that were -- another news organization -- ABC hit them with. That's the first thing. Then you have what he said today is that he called it terrorism, when we -- you know, we've all got the record. On September 12th, what he said to Steve Kroft six days later, Letterman, two days after that, uncomfortable, and then we have...
GRAHAM: Goes on and on.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... one more -- four days later to "The View," the next day he spoke before the U.N. I mean, we've got the whole -- why does he keep saying that?
GRAHAM: Because it worked. Seven weeks before the election, he was able to basically intimidate the Romney campaign. The mainstream media -- thank God for Fox and CBS and a few other outlets -- basically have allowed eight months to go by where he gets away with this stuff.
VAN SUSTEREN: But now he's got The New York Times who's talking about. Maureen Dowd skewered him a little bit...
(CROSSTALK)
GRAHAM: Why? Because people like us have been pushing...
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, OK, so -- all right...
GRAHAM: ... and Greg Hicks came forward.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, well, those (INAUDIBLE) all those news organizations can take their bow for whatever they did do or didn't do. But now we're at a point where...
GRAHAM: Because of the whistle-blowers.
VAN SUSTEREN: OK. All right. We're now at that point. So why is the -- what I don't get is why the president is still taking the position today.
GRAHAM: He believes that he can keep denying the obvious and it will work. Well, it's caught up with him. The fact of the matter is, this administration manipulated the evidence that was abundant about a terrorist attack. If you put in one column all the evidence of a pre-planned terrorist attack involving al Qaeda, and the evidence that says this was a spontaneous event caused by a video, it's not even close.
There's really no evidence to suggest what Susan Rice said, and the president himself said it for two weeks. This is seven weeks before an election. They did not want to destroy the narrative that bin Laden's dead, we're all safer.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right. Well, now we are eight months later. We've got the 12 -- we've got ABC with the -- with the e-mails...
GRAHAM: Yes.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... saying 12 revisions. We've got the other record. And now you want -- you've been asking for a joint...
GRAHAM: A select committee.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... a select committee. You've been asking for it. Do you have any sense that the leadership, which is -- you have a Democratic majority in your house, in the Senate. Do you have any indication Senator Harry Reid will go along with that?
GRAHAM: Well, no. Harry Reid's not -- it's been so disappointing to see my Democratic colleagues who were all about getting to the bottom of Bush's failures. You know, when Abu Ghraib came up, I said, This is not few MPs. This is a system failure. When people said in the Bush administration Iraq's just a few dead enders, things are going well -- well, they weren't. We didn't have the right strategy.
Benghazi's a failed foreign policy strategy. I wish and pray and hope that one Democrat would take what happened in Benghazi as seriously as the IRS. John Thune deserves a lot of credit. He was on this before anybody else about the IRS targeting conservative groups. Now we're going to have a hearing and everybody's outraged.
What about four people killed by al Qaeda-backed terrorists eight months ago, and our government lied about what happened to them? What about the death trap that was created called Benghazi consulate? What about the seven-and-a-half hours they were being attacked and nobody could come to their aid? Where's the outrage there?
The American people deserve answers, and our president has been misleading. He's been manipulating the evidence. And people under him have done the country a great service. Those in harm's way feel very let down.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, do you...
GRAHAM: And we're not going to stop.
VAN SUSTEREN: Congressman Mike Rogers says that he has other whistle-blowers.
GRAHAM: Yes, so do I.
VAN SUSTEREN: You have other whistle-blowers?
GRAHAM: Absolutely.
VAN SUSTEREN: What do those whistleblowers say that's different from what we've heard from Gregory Hicks?
GRAHAM: Well, they're going to -- I'll let them speak for themselves, but I'm tired of whistle-blowers. It's eight months since the attack, and not one survivor has been allowed to come forward on their own without fear of losing their job.
It is now time for the Congress to tell this administration we have an independent duty, not the accountability review board appointed by Secretary Clinton -- the Congress has an independent duty. We should call every survivor before the Congress, protecting their identity, if necessary, to get to the bottom of this!
I can't believe after eight months, the American people have not heard from one survivor other than a whistle-blower!
VAN SUSTEREN: Senator, thank you, sir.
GRAHAM: Thank you.
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