Statement by Senators McCain, Graham and Ayotte on Former Acting CIA Director Mike Morell's Testimony on Benghazi Attack

Statement

U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) released the following statement on former acting CIA Director Mike Morell's Congressional testimony on the Benghazi terrorist attack today:

"Mr. Morell's testimony today only highlights the many questions that still to this day remain unanswered about the terrorist attack that killed four American public servants in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. What is most troubling is that the CIA Chief of Station in Libya repeatedly informed Washington that no demonstration ever occurred in Benghazi on the day of the attack, and that his views were consistently disregarded and overruled by CIA officials in Washington, including Mr. Morell.

"The Chief of Station was the agency's senior leader on the ground during the terrorist attack in Benghazi, so it is unfathomable why his views were not taken more seriously. It is also suspicious how a multi-day process to produce talking points about the attack -- a process, we now know, the White House was intimately involved in -- led to a public message about the attack that contradicted what U.S. personnel in Libya, including the CIA Chief of Station, were reporting. Finally, it is difficult to view as credible Mr. Morell's claims today that there was no political influence on the intelligence analysis and talking points about the Benghazi attack when Mr. Morell now admits that in previous testimony he omitted the key role he himself played in editing the talking points.

"In fact, when the three of us met with Mr. Morell and then-Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice in December 2012, Mr. Morell said that the FBI changed the talking points. He communicated to us later that day through his staff that he had misspoken and that it was actually the CIA that had changed the talking points. Mr. Morell claimed today that he had corrected the record on this score. In fact, correcting the record would have meant acknowledging the communications he had with the White House about the talking points and the role he himself played in changing them. This looks an awful lot like misleading the Congress.

"The bottom line is this: The fact that Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists murdered four Americans in Libya on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks was completely at odds with the political narrative that the Obama Administration was selling at the height of a presidential election -- the message that Al-Qaeda was "decimated.' This was the narrative that the Administration continued trying to sell to the American people for weeks after the Benghazi attack, despite clear evidence to the contrary and over the stated disagreements of our own personnel on the ground, including the CIA's Chief of Station. This looks like deception and a cover up, and it requires a willing suspension of disbelief to think the White House and its allies were not actively involved."

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