The Benghazi scandal could be the final “hinge point” that brings down the Obama administration, former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton said.

“This could be the hinge point,” he said to Newsmax. “It’s that serious for them.”

Mr. Bolton is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

His comments came as Congress is readying to hear testimony from several witnesses about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Witness Greg Hicks already has stated publicly that the administration was aware that the attack was terrorist in nature, and not related to protests of a YouTube film about Muslims, as originally stated.

Mr. Bolton said these witnesses’ testimonies could prove explosive.

“The three witnesses who have been identified are not bystanders,” he said in the Newsmax report. “These are not people who are going to report on hearsay of what somebody in Tripoli told somebody that they heard from. These are people who are directly involved in different capacities before, during and after the attack.”

Committee staffers have hinted that the witnesses’ statements are going to prove “devastating,” especially for then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And “you’ve already seen some Democratic members of Congress … beginning to run from this,” Mr. Bolton said in the Newsmax report.

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