Sen. Lindsey Graham charged on Friday that survivors of the Benghazi attack have been “told to be quiet” and feel they cannot come forward to tell what happened in the Sept. 11, 2012 assault on the U.S. consulate that killed four Americans.
“The bottom line is, they feel that they can't come forth,” the South Carolina Republican told
Fox News. “They've been told to be quiet.
“We cannot let this administration or any other administration get away with hiding from the American people and Congress — people who were there in real time to tell the story,” Graham said.
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Graham said he remained troubled by the inaccurate or incomplete accounts from the Obama administration in the days following the attack. He is among several GOP lawmakers pressing for more information about the survivors, Fox reports.
But Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, denied on Friday that the Benghazi survivors were being pressured by the Obama administration.
“I'm sure that the White House is not preventing anyone from speaking,” Carney said on Friday at a news briefing.
According to Fox, a congressional source said investigators believe 37 people were in Benghazi on behalf of the State Department and CIA on Sept. 11. With the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others, at least 33 people were evacuated.
A State Department official told Fox that three diplomatic security agents and one contractor who was injured in the assault were among those evacuated.
A diplomatic security source told Fox the State Department diplomatic security agent who was in the most serious condition had suffered a severe head injury during the second wave of attacks.
The agent has been described as the likely State Department employee visited at Walter Reed Medical Center by Secretary of State John Kerry in January, Fox reports.
While not denying the details, the State Department official offered no comment to Fox on the nature of the workers' injuries or whether the agent was visited by Kerry or Hillary Clinton before she left office.
Leading Republicans in the Senate and House have been calling on the State Department to identify the injured and make them available to congressional investigators. So far, they say their calls have gone unanswered, Fox reports.
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