Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Saturday that he had recently talked with “a couple” of survivors of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four Americans — “and their stories are chilling.”
“They’re scared to death to come forward without some institutional support,” the South Carolina Republican told former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on his Fox News program.
Graham said he planned to “hold up the business of the Senate until we get these survivors on record.”
The senator has long contended that the Obama administration is withholding the names of the Benghazi survivors, many of whom are still recovering at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, and has ordered them to not appear before Congress.
White House spokesman Jay Carney denied the accusations earlier this week.
Graham has pressed the administration for full congressional access to the survivors of the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
“Remember, this administration leaked every detail about the bin Laden raid,” Graham told Huckabee, referring to the May 2011 assault that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
“They told us about the Pakistani doctor [Shakil Afridi] who helped who’s now in jail. They told us about SEAL Team 6.
“They’re refusing to give us the identities of the survivors and to allow them to come to Congress to be interviewed,” he said.
Graham said he planned to write Secretary of State John Kerry asking him to release the names of the survivors and to urge House Republicans to subpoena them to testify on Capitol Hill.
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