House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued the following statement in response to false Obama Administration claims that an Oversight Committee release of unclassified documents showing serious diplomatic security failures in Benghazi represented the first public association of the woman with the U.S.:

“The Libyan rights activist who was highlighted by the Obama administration in news accounts as having not been, ‘publicly associated with the U.S.’ until the Oversight Committee released documents had actually been brought to the U.S. in December 2011 by the State Department and her trip is highlighted on the Internet. President Obama should be ashamed of yet another example where his administration has been caught trying to mislead the American people about what happened in Libya.”

“Obama Administration officials and their surrogates are clearly reeling from revelations about how the situation in Benghazi was mishandled and are falsely politicizing the issue in a last ditch effort to save President Obama’s reelection effort. To see such prominent officials as Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Dick Durbin, Sen. Carl Levin, Rahm Emanuel, and Obama Senior Advisor David Axelrod paraded out over to weekend to make false charges about the Oversight Committee putting Libyans in danger only shows their desperation to hide the truth. As the Committee had previously indicated, the State Department has had these documents for two weeks but never contacted the committee about making specific redactions. The Libyans noted in these documents worked in positions where their interactions with westerners would not be surprising.”