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Rubio, Risch demand information on Benghazi suspect
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and James Risch (R-Idaho) and demanded Wednesday that the White House turn over any evidence that U.S. officials have about a suspect in last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya.
The two senators cited discrepancies in the testimony of Obama administration officials about Ali Ani al-Harzi.
Hillary Clinton testified last month that Tunisia released suspect al-Harzi because “there was not an ability for evidence to be presented yet that was capable of being presented in an open court.”
But President Obama's counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, said during his confirmation hearing to be CIA director that the administration had nothing on al-Harzi at all.
“The Tunisians did not have a basis in their law to hold him,” Brennan said last week. “We didn't have anything on him, either, because if we did, we would have made a point to the Tunisians to turn him over to us, but we didn't have that.”
Four Americans, including Amb. Chris Stevens, died in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya. Republicans have grown increasingly critical of the failure by the FBI and foreign governments to charge anyone more than five months after the attack, with Rubio suggesting during Brennan's hearing that al-Harzi's release shows U.S. cooperation with countries like Tunisia isn't working.
"Well, we have someone who was a suspect in the potential attack on — in the attack on Benghazi. They didn't give us access to him and we don't have any information from him," Rubio said at the hearing. "That doesn't sound like a good system of working with our foreign partners."
"No," Brennan responded, "it shows that the Tunisians are working with their rule of law, as well, just the way we do."
