On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) stated that a witness that “the CIA did not want us talking to” told the Benghazi committee that during the attack he “worked the phone trying to find someone to come save them” before finding a group “comprised of former military officials under Gaddafi. And they came, and not only did they evacuate our guys, Andrea, they saved other lives.”

Gowdy said, “There were two air assets that ultimately evacuated our folks. One was a Libyan plane, and the other was a private aircraft that our folks in Tripoli just showed the ingenuity in finding. Neither one of those were US planes.”

He added, “We were led to believe that it was friendly Libyan militias that helped defend the annex during the night and came to our rescue after Ty and Glen were killed. That is not what the witnesses told us. One in particular, and I hasten to add, the CIA did not want us talking to this witness, they made it very difficult for us to talk to this witness, but we found him. And what this witness told us, is he worked the phone trying to find someone to come save them. And he wound up calling a group that none of the other committees identified, none of the other committees knew about it, and it was comprised of former military officials under Gaddafi. And they came, and not only did they evacuate our guys, Andrea, they saved other lives. We had people, not just the four killed, there were people severely wounded. So time was of the essence. I just found it, ironic is not the right word, but I don’t know what the right word would be, that we invest all of this time and money in Libya, $20 million in August, and we wind up having to call loyalists to the guy we deposed to come save our folks at the very end.”

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