One of you, Senator McCain, has gone so far as to make the outrageous claim that this event was “worse than Watergate”—despite the fact that there is no evidence that any crime was committed, no evidence of any cover-up, and no evidence that the administration has characterized the incident in any way that has not been consistent with the Intelligence Community’s contemporaneous assessments.Harry Reid, rejecting McCain’s request to form a Senate committee to investigate the attack on Benghazi last September. McCain had made the request in part because, per internal Senate rules, he’s term-limited out of his seat as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the formation of a new committee would allow him another perch from which to delve into the Benghazi matter. Reid derided McCain’s request as an attempt to use the Senate as “a venue for baseless partisan attacks,” and excoriated the senator for skipping a classified briefing on the incident in order to hold a press conference. source
In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo…As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists.Director of National Intelligence James Clapper re: the attack on the US consulate in Libya. Shortly after the incident, Obama’s UN ambassador Susan Rice said that the violence was “initially a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired hours before in Cairo.” In his statement, released yesterday, Clapper claims that the intelligence community’s “understanding of the event continues to evolve,” and while the official story is now that the attack was planned, “it remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attack, and if extremist group leaders directed their members to participate.” source
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