Secretary of State John Kerry said little new information has emerged after multiple hearings in Washington on the Obama administration’s response to last September’s attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.
Kerry, who joined NBC News’s Andrea Mitchell in a Google+ Hangout Friday, responded to accusations from congressional Republicans that the administration was attempting to “cover-up” its response to the attacks that left four Americans dead.
“What I’ve seen thus far, I have to tell you—after the all the hearings that I took part in as part of the foreign relations committee, all of the briefings I took part in, many of which were classified, I really haven’t learned anything new,” Kerry said.
“What we know is that four very courageous Americans, all of whom were out there on the front lines trying to affect our relationship with another country and help people to be able to be free, and enjoy what we enjoy—they lost their lives. It was a terrible event. It was a terrorist attack. We all understand that. And we know people behaved courageously.”
Kerry added, “It’s a tragedy, but I hate to see it turned into a pure, prolonged political process that really doesn’t tell us anything new about the facts.”
Click here to watch Secretary Kerry’s Google+ Hangout moderated by Andrea Mitchell in its entirety
Erin Delmore