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Graham: Until WH Gives Benghazi Account, I'll Put Holds on Hagel, Brennan Noms

February 10, 2013

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Sunday he will put a hold on the nominations of John Brennan and Chuck Hagel unless the White House provides an account of their actions on the day of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me just make sure, because you're about to make some news here, I think. You are saying that you are going to block the nominations--you're going to block them from coming to a vote until you get an answer on this--

GRAHAM: Yes.

SCHIEFFER: Now, John McCain has already said he doesn't think the Republicans ought to filibuster this.

GRAHAM: I'm not--

SCHIEFFER: What will you do? You're just going to put a hold on them--

GRAHAM: I'm not filibustering this--

SCHIEFFER: What has to happen? What would they have to do then to bring this to a vote?

GRAHAM: I want to know who changed the talking points. Who took the references to al Qaeda out of the talking points given to Susan Rice? We still don't know. Richard Burr and Saxby Chambliss have found emails discussing changing the talking points. I think her story, after what we found out in this hearing, was incredibly misleading. I want to know what our president did. What did he do as Commander in Chief? Did he ever pick the phone and call anybody? I think this is stuff that the country needs to know.

Earlier in the interview, Schieffer and Graham recapped the major takeaways from Thursday's hearing with outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey: