GOP-led Benghazi report purposely buried in news cycle, Democrat says

A GOP-led investigation that debunked theories about the 2012 Benghazi attack was purposely released on the Friday before Thanksgiving to evade exposure, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday. 

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Schiff questioned the decision behind the timing of the release of the House Intelligence Committee’s report. 

“Why is this report being released on the Friday before Thanksgiving?” Schiff asked.

Schiff said if a panel spends two years compiling an important report, it wouldn’t make much sense to conceal it.

{mosads}“You want to trumpet it to the high heavens, you don’t want to bury it on the Friday before Thanksgiving,” he said.

The House Intelligence panel released the report Friday evening, and it found there was no intelligence failure surrounding the attack, no delay in the rescue of U.S. personnel and no political cover-up by Obama administration officials.

Schiff, a member of the committee, said he wouldn’t be surprised if Republicans employed a similar tactic when the House Select Committee on Benghazi releases its own report on the attack. 

“If the select committee comes up with a similar conclusion, it’ll release a similar report on Christmas Eve,” he said. 

Schiff rejected Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) earlier claims that the report is “full of crap” and a “bunch of garbage.”

Republicans and Democrats on the Intelligence Committee supported the report’s findings, Schiff said, adding that it exonerates the Obama administration.

Schiff said talk about Benghazi was motivated in part by GOP opposition to the former secretary of State possibly running for president.

“If Hillary Clinton weren’t a likely candidate for president,” he said, “I think this investigation would have been over with a long time ago.”