BLUE ASH, Ohio – Former Sen. Fred Thompson today said he was “totally disgusted” by the Obama administration’s handling of the Libya terrorist attack, saying that U.S. officials failed to act “while our people were being systematically slaughtered” at the Benghazi consulate.
Speaking at an event sponsored by the free-market group Americans for Prosperity, the former Republican senator from Tennessee invoked his experience nearly 40 years ago as a Watergate investigator, saying that Congress must “get to the bottom of” the administration’s failures in the Sept. 11 incident that left Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead in Libya.
“This is probably the biggest cover-up in American history – and you’re talking to an expert in cover-ups,” Thompson said.
“There are three scandals here – before, during and after,” Thompson told about 40 people gathered for the AFP event at the Mariner’s Inn in the Cincinnati suburb of West Chester. Citing the numerous incidents and warnings leading up to the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on the 11th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, Thompson mockingly asked, “What was your first hint that there might be trouble in Libya?”
Thompson commented on reports that administration officials refused to approve U.S. air strikes to defend the embattled Benghazi compound because of concerns about civilian casualties.
“You’re outside our embassy while it’s being attacked? Fair game, buddy,” said Thompson, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008. With the latest news from CBS that the administration did not convene its Counterterrorism Security Group during the Libyan crisis, he said the scandal was “playing out as we speak.”
Thompson, who as an actor starred in film hits like the Hunt for Red October and on TV in Law & Order, said that the terrorists would have scattered “with just one shot” from the C-130 gunship that the U.S. had overhead during the Benghazi attack. “Apparently, we’re not even willing to defend our own ambassador.”
