GOP Rep Reveals Why He Believes Benghazi Attack & US Syria Policy Likely “Intimately Related Issues”

A top congressional appropriator suggested on Monday evening that the State Department and CIA might have been stockpiling weapons for Syrian opposition fighters when they came under attack by jihadists in Benghazi, Libya.

“I firmly believe that whatever the State Department and CIA were doing in Benghazi had a direct connection to U.S. policy in Syria—a policy that to date has not been fully revealed to the American people or Congress,” Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) said on Monday evening during a discussion focusing on “unanswered questions” surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans.

“Were these rebels being armed with weapons collected in Benghazi?” Wolf asked, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “Again, there is reason to believe this may be the case and a clear explanation is warranted.”

Congress cannot “make an informed decision” about Syria before the circumstances surrounding the Benghazi attack are “more fully understood,” said Wolf, who sent a pair of letters to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday to reveal whether weapons in Benghazi could have reached Syrian rebels and “jihadist fighters.”

A public hearing would help “determine what was going on at the CIA annex in Benghazi and what role it played in the collection and disbursement of weapons collected in Libya, specifically with the focus of trying to understand how the annex may have supported CIA efforts to arm and train Syrian rebels,” Wolf explained.

Read more from this story HERE.