On January 6, 2014, an incendiary letter was hand-delivered to House Speaker John Boehner. It called on him to stop being a hinderance to the establishment of an Independent Select Committee to investigate what happened in the attacks in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012. The attacks resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Foreign Information Officer, Sean Smith and Security Officers, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
The letter was written in December 2013 as a result of a series of meetings lead by Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton. It was drafted in response to the frustration that many Americans feel over the Speaker’s lack of true leadership when it comes to the Benghazi attack.
The eloquent and powerful letter was written by a Judicial Watch staff member Chris Farrell. It has attracted many signers — from family members Charles Woods, Pat Smith and myself to Colonel Allen West and other conservative leaders.
[pullquote]
As a family member of a Benghazi murder victim I have to ask myself what is preventing House Speaker John Boehner from establishing an Independent Select Committee?
What’s most puzzling is that this could be a shining moment for Speaker Boehner on this issue. To date 75% of House Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors of Congressman Frank Wolf’s bill, House Res. 36, which intends to establish a bipartisan Independent Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks.
For full disclosure about what happened on that terrible night we need a Select Committee that has subpoena power.
It’s all very ironic. For once, House Speaker Boehner has an opportunity to actually unify his own party around an important issue.
So this leads to the simple, yet broader, question about what is preventing the Speaker from leading his own party?
I feel strongly that the Speaker is trying to protect his rapidly diminishing political capital.
After all, Speaker Boehner, as was mentioned in the January 6 letter we hand delivered to him, was a member of the “Super 8” group of congressional leaders who were briefed on Intelligence and Special Operations activities in Libya.
Speaker Boehner may be facing a similar issue to the one that former Speak Nancy Pelosi side-stepped when she developed selective memory concerning “advanced interrogation techniques” regarding information she received at a briefing during her tenure as House Speaker.
The loss of political capital and potential embarrassment are not good enough reasons to prevent efforts to form a Select Committee to investigate Benghazi from moving forward.
The piecemeal manner in which information has been obtained and disseminated by the five Benghazi Committees, all supervised by House Speaker John Boehner, has not worked. We have no answers to the most important questions. In fact, these committees are a blatant insult to the family members of Stevens, Smith, Woods and Doherty and to all concerned American citizens.
The time for Mr. Boehner to act is now.
The wound that is Benghazi needs to be healed.
If the Speaker can manage to establish a Joint Select Committee for Deficit Reduction he can surely investigate why the murder of four Americans serving their country is still being covered up.
Leave a Reply