Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) challenged the GOP’s implications that the Obama administration or the FBI sat on the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal until after the election, describing such claims underhanded and unsubstantiated.

During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday with retiring lawmakers Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Frank pushed back against Hutchison’s claims that “top level officials,” including the President, may have known about the scandal before Election Day. He pressed her to define her accusations and identify whose integrity she was impugning:

HUTCHISON: I’m very worried about this. I’m very worried. I want to know a whole lot more about what these first emails really were and did it really trigger an FBI investigation of the CIA director and a low level and it wasn’t raised to a higher level? I mean, if anybody is investigating the director of the CIA, the President of the United States should know immediately, and I feel like a, we don’t know enough, and, b, I have great concerns about a lot of this. [...]

FRANK: Are you suggesting there was some coverup, that the FBI are playing games? I think we ought to be explicit about this. I’m troubled by the implication of your statement and are you suggesting that something wasn’t legitimate here? Because that would trouble me.

HUTCHISON: I’m suggesting that I have great concerns about the legitimacy of…

FRANK: Excuse me, “great concerns” is kind of a weasel word….

HUTCHISON: …It appears the President didn’t know until two months later? ….

FRANK: It seems to me frankly you’re kind of hinting at something bad, and I don’t see what that could be.

HUTCHISON: I’m hinting at something out of control and not with the proper authority.

FRANK: Do you distrust the FBI? Is [FBI Director Robert] Mueller lying? Who are you accusing of not having done the right thing?

HUTCHISON: I’ve always had great respect for him and great respect for General Petraeus.

Watch it:

There is no evidence to suggest that the public timeline of the Petraeus scandal is improper. Attorney General Eric Holder defended his department’s handling of the investigation last week, noting that standard protocol prohibits DOJ from sharing information about pending investigations with members of Congress or the president, so long as they do not undermine national security. The rule, which has been in place since 1993, is designed to prevent politics from contaminating the process.

Justice Department officials had known about the investigation since the summer, but were told that the matter did not affect national security. Petraeus’s boss, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr, was notified about the affair on Election Day, after the FBI concluded its review. That night, Clapper advised Petraeus to resign.

The Republicans’ new focus of attack in the faux “Benghazi-gate” scandal is Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper, claiming that he lied about the source of changes to talking points on the Benghazi attack given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

Yesterday, a DNI spokesperson debunked accusations made by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other Republicans that the White House changed Rice’s Benghazi talking points, saying that it was the intelligence community that made the “substantive” changes to the talking points. Moreover, former CIA head David Petraeus and other top intelligence officials have said there was no politicization of the process and that the talking points were not altered to minimize the role of extremists but to reflect the best intelligence at the time.

McCain appeared to accept the new information but wondered why Clapper and other DNI officials did not provide this information during closed door hearings last week. And now that all their earlier attacks on Rice have fell apart, Republicans and conservative media figures are directing their attacks at Clapper, a George W. Bush appointee:

– BILL O’REILLY: Now it’s James Clapper, President Obama’s national security guy who is saying, “Oh, it’s me. I sent Rice out there and I took out all the al Qaeda stuff.” I’m not buying it. None of this adds up. … All right so there’s a lot of lying going on here.

– CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I’m not buying it because the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said that a week ago in classified testimony that same Clapper said that they had no idea who changed the talking points and now a week later he seems to say he did? That’s kind of strange. I mean I’ve seen amnesia in my day in my clinical days and that one is pretty quick, one week.

– TUCKER CARLSON: I hate to think that the director of National Intelligence lied, is a liar. But I’m not sure I see an alternate explanation. Apparently, he’s contradicting what he testified to just last week. Is there another explanation for this?”

– FOX NEWS’ STEVE DOOCY: They did say it is out of the [DNI] office. It’s not him per se, so we’re supposed to believe that a Clapper aide changed what Petraeus had said? That’s very, very curious.

– REP. TREY GOWDY (R-SC): This is the head of our national intelligence and he changed his mind within the course of 24 hours. So how are you possibly going to have any confidence in what he says?

And while Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) didn’t call Clapper a liar, he told Fox News’ Stuart Varney that he now might be involved in the alleged cover up:

GINGREY: Now have you got someone who basically can trump the CIA, especially if the president says to him — I am not suggesting that he did, but he could have — look, James, we need to kind of clean this up a little bit.. We are doing really well. We’re right about time for the election and we are doing very well on national security and this could blow our cover.

Watch the video compilation of the attacks against Clapper:

The right wing has spent months trying to bring down the Obama administration in politicization the attacks in Benghazi that left four Americans dead and after all of their conspiracy theories and baseless attacks have been debunked, the rabbit hole appears to have led to Clapper and who knows where it will end.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has admitted that the CIA and intelligence community approved U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s talking points before she made her much-derided Sept. 16 appearance on several Sunday news shows to discuss the attacks in Benghazi. King, one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration’s response to the attack, came to his conclusion following testimony from former CIA Director David Petraeus.

After leaving the closed-door hearing, King spoke with reporters for several minutes about Petraeus’ statements. Rice’s television appearances were among the topics discussed, leading King to indicate that while Petraeus did not personally write Rice’s talking points, the CIA did approve them:

Q: Did he say why it was taken out of the talking points that [the attack] was Al Qaeda affiliated?

KING: He didn’t know.

Q: He didn’t know? What do you mean he didn’t know?

KING: They were not involved — it was done, the process was completed and they said, “Ok go with those talking points.” Again it’s interagency — I got the impression that 7, 8, 9 different agencies.

Q: Did he give you the impression that he was upset it was taken out?

KING: No.

Q: You said the CIA said “OK” to the revised report –

KING: No, well, they said in that, after it goes through the process, they OK’d it to go. Yeah, they said “Okay for it to go.”

Watch King’s statements here:

Rice has been hit by Republicans for weeks for indicating that the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi stemmed from a spontaneous protest related to an anti-Islamic video. However, as Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) has pointed out, the talking points used by Rice were the same unclassified points given to both the administration and Congress by the intelligence community.

Contrary to the current GOP narrative, Petraeus’ testimony made clear that various intelligence sources at of the time of his initial briefing to Congress indicated that a protest arising in response to a similar one in Cairo was the impetus for the attack in Libya. While those initial assessments were later disproved, the Wall Street Journal has previously reported that this change in thinking began too late to alter Rice’s talking points.

Today’s comments by King towards the intelligence community’s assessments also mark a sharp departure from his previous accusations that Rice should have known sooner that the intelligence that was presented to her was incorrect. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have both also recently said that Rice should “have known better” than to make the statements she did during her interviews.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) thinks that the FBI may have been gathering information on former CIA Director David Petraeus to blackmail him so that he would testify favorably to the Obama administration’s position on the attack on Benghazi in September. “Hypothetically, of course,” as Gohmert put it.

Appearing on WMAL radio this morning, the outspoken Texas Congressman, known for his Tea Party-leanings, made clear that he wasn’t actually accusing the Obama White House of directing the FBI to investigate Petraeus for political reasons relating to his upcoming Benghazi testimony. Nor was he actually saying that the FBI was engaging in activities reminiscent of original FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to “blackmail” other government officials.

Instead, as Gohmert repeatedly made clear, he was only hypothetically spinning a story oddly similar to other conspiracy theories surrounding Petraeus’ resignation:

GOHMERT: Say, hypothetically, they had information on the CIA Director and the CIA Director may have, hypothetically, said he didn’t give an order for people to stand down and not help those who were in need and crying for help. And that made the President look bad. And perhaps somebody knew information about him who said, “You’re going to up to the Hill to testify or to brief them. You’re not going to say what you had released originally, you’re going to say this is all about a video.” Hypothetically of course, if you knew he had an affair that had not been public, you might, hypothetically, say “Hey Mr. CIA Director, you’re gonna go up there and you’re going to follow the line from the White House, otherwise we’re going to disclose your affair.”

Listen to Gohmert here:

Petraeus himself has given an interview to CNN definitively saying that his resignation as Director of Central Intelligence was unrelated to the response to the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya. Independent reporting on the ground has also sapped credence from the GOP accusations that the assault had nothing to do with an anti-Islamic video. The New York Times reported in October that the attackers “did tell bystanders that they were attacking the compound because they were angry about the video.”

The truth will soon be known, as Petraeus will now in fact be testifying under oath before the House Intelligence Committee’s closed-door hearings on Friday. Indeed, as U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice said on Sept. 16, just days after the attack, “We will wait for the results of the investigation and we don’t want to jump to conclusions before then.”

CNN Headline News Anchor Kyra Phillips phoned in to the network’s morning news program on Thursday to relay a series of conversations she had with former CIA director and military commander David Petraeus since he resigned after admitting to an extramarital affair.

What began as simply a scandal of infidelity has since ballooned into a full-scale inquiry into whether or not classified documents were illegally divulged to Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’ biographer and alleged mistress.

“He has insisted to me that he has never passed classified information to Paula Broadwell, and as long as I have known him he has never waivered on classified information ever,” Phillips told anchor Robin Meade. Phillips says she has known Petraus for years.

Phillips said Petraus also spoke about the timing of his resignation, dismissing the right-wing conspiracy theory that his departure is somehow related to a cover up over September’s deadly attack in Libya:

“He has said this has nothing to do with Benghazi, and he wants to testify, he will testify. He has maintained to me all along that this was a personal failing…He has made it very clear that [his resignation] was about an extramarital affair and not over classified information or Benghazi.”

Petraeus is scheduled to appear before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Friday to answer questions about the timeline of events in Benghazi and what the CIA did and did not request from the State Department.

David Petraeus’ resignation last week set off a torrid of conspiracy theories in conservative circles, namely, that Petraeus resigned after he was blackmailed by the Obama administration into giving acceptable testimony on the Benghazi attack. Last night, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer embraced that theory and took it a step further, saying the Obama administration “lowered” a sword on Petraeus on election day.

“Was he influenced by the fact that he knew his fate was held by people in the administration at that time?” Krauthammer wonders. But moments later, he answers his own question:

KRAUTHAMMER: Of course it was being held over Petraeus’s head, and the sword was lowered on Election Day. You don’t have to be a cynic to see that as the ultimate in cynicism. As long as they needed him to give the administration line to quote Bill, everybody was silent. And as soon as the election’s over, as soon as he can be dispensed with, the sword drops and he’s destroyed. I mean, can you imagine what it’s like to be on that pressure and to think it didn’t distort or at least in some way unconsciously influence his testimony? That’s hard to believe.

Watch the clip:

A number of conservatives have been advancing similar theories. Fox News’ Eric Bolling said, “They knew it was a terrorist attack. But why would Gen. Petraeus do it? Was there something being held over his head where they said ‘Hey General, go out there and say video because otherwise we are going to blow this thing wide open.’ That’s one theory.” Chaffetz told Fox News’ Sean Hannity “It’s not a coincidence to me. He is probably the one that knows most about what happened or didn’t happen in Benghazi.”

Today’s news that Petraeus will indeed testify to a congressional committee on the Benghazi attack renders Krauthammer’s and others’ theories moot.

Right-wing televangelist Pat Robertson absolved former CIA Director David Petraeus of blame in his affair with biographer Paula Broadwell, implying that Broadwell initiated the affair and that Petraeus was powerless to resist. Speaking on The 700 Club, his show, Robertson said Petraeus’ conduct was understandable because “the man’s off in a foreign land and he’s lonely and here’s a good-looking lady throwing herself at him. He’s a man.” Watch it:

There is no evidence that Broadwell initiated the relationship and, even if she did, that doesn’t mean that he no responsibility for his decision to engage in extra-marital relations.

Robertson previously blamed women for male sexual misconduct before: when asked for advice by a viewer bothered by her husband’s flirtation with other women, Robertson said “first thing is you need to make yourself as attractive as possible and don’t hassle him about it.” The televangelist is also perplexed by the idea that women enjoy erotica and wrote in a fundraising letter that feminism “is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Former CIA Director David Petraeus’ resignation last Friday has prompted the right to speculate that Petraeus’ abrupt departure was somehow designed by the Obama administration to prevent Petraeus from testifying before Congress on Libya or that the White House held news of the affair over his head to say the attack was sparked by an anti-Islam video.

Fox News’ Eric Bolling provided an example of the logic behind this latter theory:

BOLLING: A lot of people are scratching their heads as to why Gen. Petraeus blamed the ['Innocence of Muslims'] video three days after the September 11th attacks. Two days after he blamed the video, Susan Rice went out there, and since then, subsequent to all of this, we found out that as of day one, the Obama administration, intel community, everyone knew it wasn’t the video. They knew it was a terrorist attack. But why would Gen. Petraeus do it? Was there something being held over his head where they said ‘Hey General, go out there and say video because otherwise we are going to blow this thing wide open.’ That’s one theory.

Both the House and Senate are slated to hold closed-door hearings on the intelligence failures before and during the attack in Benghazi. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) seems to buy the explanation that Petraeus was forced out before he could speak under oath. “It’s so suspicious,” he told Fox’s Sean Hannity last night, adding, “It’s not a coincidence to me. He is probably the one that knows most about what happened or didn’t happen in Benghazi.”

Fox’s Gretchen Carlson piled on this morning on Fox and Friends. “I’m wondering if he did come to testify, and that was under oath, that he would have to stick to that story, that it was the videotape?” she asked.

Watch Fox’s conspiracy-peddling here:

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has already said that there is “no link between Petraeus’ resignation and Benghazi.

And evidence so far indicates that Petraeus turned in his letter of resignation to President Obama of his own free will — on the advice of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — because of an extra-maritial affair rather than anything related to Libya.

A newly uncovered speech by Petraeus’ alleged mistress Paula Broadwell on Oct. 26 also provided ammunition to the conspiracy theorists. In her speech, Broadwell appears to reveal new information about Benghazi, casually mentioning that the CIA had detained several Libyan nationals in the annex that served as its base in the city, possibly prompting the attack that lead to the deaths of four Americans. Such a claim had yet to be reported anywhere in the news media. A CIA spokesperson roundly denied the claim, as it no longer possess detention authority under Executive Order.

Meanwhile, the right is also trotting out another theory that the White House forced Petraeus out to prevent any possible bid by the former general at the presidency in 2016. Fox News analyst Ralph Peters advanced both of theories last night talking to Bill O’Reilly, saying the White House is “lying” about the Petraeus affair because of Benghazi and Obama is trying to prevent Petraeus’ rise to the presidency.