Benghazi is a political lightning rod for Republicans. McKeon disses Issa over witness

Republican Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon is slamming the testimony of a key Benghazi witness before the committee of Republican Oversight Chair Darrell Issa.

It’s a rare rebuke of Issa from a member of his own party and exposes a rift, even if small, over conservatives’ prosecution of Benghazi, the alleged cover-up of which they believe is a winning issue for them in the 2014 elections.


McKeon (R-Calif.) called Brig. Gen. Robert Lovell an unreliable witness and criticized Lovell’s assertion that the State Department was not quick to deploy troops to respond to the 2012 terrorist attack in Libya. Lovell testified Thursday before Issa’s (R-Calif.) oversight panel.

( Also on POLITICO: John Boehner calls on John Kerry to testify on Benghazi)

“BG Lovell did not serve in a capacity that gave him reliable insight into operational options available to commanders during the attack, nor did he offer specific courses of action not taken,” McKeon said.

McKeon added, “The Armed Services Committee has interviewed more than a dozen witnesses in the operational chain of command that night, yielding thousands of pages of transcripts, e-mails, and other documents. We have no evidence that Department of State officials delayed the decision to deploy what few resources DoD had available to respond.”

Benghazi is a political lightning rod for Republicans, who hope that bringing attention to it will energize their base before the 2014 midterms.

( Also on POLITICO: Eric Cantor: White House ‘misled’ on Benghazi)

But Democrats and even some Republicans have tired of the ongoing Benghazi focus by Issa and conservative critics of President Barack Obama.

“We had been working closely with the Armed Services Committee to interview military officials, so it’s inexplicable that Chairman Issa cut Chairman McKeon out of the loop with this witness. With his press release today, it looks like Chairman McKeon has had enough of Chairman Issa’s political antics and his approach of lobbing unsubstantiated allegations without any facts to back them up,” said a Democratic Oversight staffer.

Sitting before the Oversight panel, Lovell predicted that if the State Department had swiftly reacted to news that Islamic gunmen has seized the consulate at Benghazi, it is possible the Navy Seals killed in the attack could have been saved.

( Also on POLITICO: Nancy Pelosi: GOP Benghazi talk is ‘diversion’)

“There are accounts of time, space and capability discussions of the question, could we have gotten there in time to make a difference. Well, the discussion is not in the ‘could or could not’…the point is we should have tried,” said Lovell. “What we did know quite early on what this was a hostile action.”

The Oversight Committee defended Lovell’s testimony.

“General Lovell’s important testimony underscores why Americans, and specifically Benghazi victims’ families, have been unsatisfied with closed door and incomplete evaluations of the military response. The Oversight Committee intends to continue its investigation into interagency communication failures that contributed to the attack’s tragic outcome” said an Oversight Committee spokesman in a statement.

At the time of the Benghazi attack, Lovell was a deputy director of Defense for intelligence at Africa Command, but said on Thursday he was not in the chain of command that had responsibility for the quickly-unfolding events in Libya.

Republicans in Congress slammed the White House on Thursday over newly released emails showing Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes helped craft talking points to discuss the “goals” for when then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice would appear on the Sunday shows.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) called on Congress to appoint a special committee to investigate what happened in Benghazi and the role the White House played in drafting Rice’s remarks. Speaker John Boehner called on Secretary of State John Kerry to testify before Congress about the previously undisclosed emails.