Reid calls GOP attacks on Rice 'outrageous'

By Ramsey Cox - 11/27/12 07:13 PM ET

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Republican attacks on United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice are “outrageous and utterly unmoored from facts and reality.”

Rice didn't convince Republican senators that she wasn't to blame for providing misleading information about the September attack in Benghazi, Libya, during meetings on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

After the Libyan attack, where four Americans were killed, Rice incorrectly said the violence was part of a protest at the consulate. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) said they were not satisfied with the ambassador's answers to their questions Tuesday.

Reid said GOP’s attention to Rice’s mistake is driven by partisanship.

“The personal attacks against Ambassador Rice by certain Republican senators have been outrageous and utterly unmoored from facts and reality,” Reid said in a statement Tuesday evening. “I am shocked that senators would continue these attacks even when the evidence — including disclosures from the intelligence community about the information she presented — have made it clear that the allegations against Ambassador Rice are baseless, and that she has done absolutely nothing wrong.”

Reid said committees should be allowed to do their work and look into the Sept. 11 attack without “such blatant partisanship in oversight of our nation’s intelligence community.”