Rep. Chaffetz: Administration covering up on Benghazi terror attack

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) charged Friday that the administration was covering up what happened during last year’s deadly terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya.

Chaffetz, a senior member of the House Oversight Committee, said that the White House and the State Department were making it difficult for his committee to conduct interviews and obtain documents for their investigation.

“We still have major questions that haven’t been answered. We have terrorists that have not been captured or killed. We have four dead Americans,” Chaffetz said on Fox News.

“We have more questions than ever and we have an administration that will not live up to the president’s promise of openness and transparency. That is not happening and it leads me to the conclusion that this is indeed a cover-up.”

{mosads}House Oversight recently lifted a subpoena for Thomas Pickering after the retired ambassador agreed to sit for a transcribed interview behind closed doors. Pickering was a key figure in the State Department’s own probe into last September’s attack.

Chaffetz said Friday that the committee still had yet to hear from what he estimated as the more than two dozen Americans who were in Benghazi when the attack happened. Greg Hicks, a senior U.S. diplomat who was in Tripoli during the attack, recently appeared before House Oversight in closely watched testimony.

The Utah Republican also said there were thousands of emails, transcripts and other documents that the administration won’t hand over, impeding the committee’s investigation.

“We do things differently in the United States of America. We are open and transparent,” Chaffetz said. “We are self-critical in order to learn from those mistakes and make sure that they never ever happen again. 

“And so, I hope the motivation is not more sinister, but it’s often the lack of candor at the beginning that leads to the problems down the road and that’s where were at today.”