Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today accused the Obama administration of showcasing the President’s actions only when they reflect well on him, falsely claiming that no picture was ever released from the night of an attack on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

McCain was on Fox News this afternoon when he made the claim, railing once more against the administration’s handling of the attack’s aftermath. “What we don’t know is what he did in the intervening hours between then and when he left for Las Vegas,” McCain told host Neil Cavuto, continuing a right-wing meme that has speculated that the President went to sleep during the attack.

McCain then compared the administration’s actions in Benghazi to those during and after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden as evidence of the cover-up he has long alleged:

McCAIN: Now, we’ve got dramatic pictures of everybody watching the raid that took out bin Laden. Right? We don’t have any pictures, we don’t have depiction of what the president was doing while the lives of four brave Americans were being taken in this what is clearly a terrorist attack by an Al Qaeda affiliated organization.

Watch McCain’s statements here:

The problem with that statement, however, is that the White House did release a photo from the night of the attack in Benghazi. On the White House’s Flickr account, you can see the photo taken by White House photographer Pete Souza clearly labeled “September 11, 2012.” In the photo, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough can be seen briefing Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on the situation in the Middle East:

This isn’t even close to the first time that McCain has fumbled the facts on Benghazi to score political points against Obama. The Arizona Republican led the smear campaign against U.S. Ambassador the U.N. Susan Rice last October over the administration’s response to the attacks.

The “whistleblowers” at today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on what really happened in Benghazi, Libya last September were supposed to break the dam that would lead to President Obama’s eventual downfall, in the eyes of conservatives. Instead, these witness actually served to debunk several theories that the right-wing has pushed on Benghazi, leaving the hearing a fizzle for the GOP:

1. F-16s could have been sent to Benghazi

Part of the prevailing theory surrounding the events the night of the Benghazi attacks is that the Obama administration did not do enough militarily to respond to the crisis. Gregory Hicks — a Foreign Service Officer and the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya — claimed during his pre-hearing testimony that fighter jets could have been flown over Benghazi, preventing the second wave of the attack from occurring.

Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) questioned that statement, asking Hicks whether he disagreed with Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen Martin Dempsey’s assessment that no air assets were in range the night of the attack. Hicks didn’t disagree, saying he was “speaking from [his] perspective” and what “veteran Libyan revolutionaries” told him, rather than Pentagon assessments.

2. Hillary Clinton signed cables denying additional security to Benghazi

House Republicans came to the conclusion in their interim report on Benghazi that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lied to them about what she knew and when during her testimony this January. This includes her statement that at no time was she aware of requests for additional security at the diplomatic facility in Benghazi prior to the attack.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) used her time to take issue with this claim, asking all three witnesses about standard protocol for cables leaving the State Department. All three agreed with Maloney, that the Secretary of State’s name is placed at the bottom of all outgoing cables and telegrams from Foggy Bottom, whether the Secretary has viewed them or not, shooting down the GOP claim.

3. A Special Forces Team that could have saved lives was told to stand down

One of the most shocking reveals in the lead-up to today’s hearing was that a team of Special Forces in Tripoli were told not to deploy to Benghazi during the attack. That decision has led to an uproar on the right, including claims of dereliction of duty towards Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey for not taking actions that could have saved lives.

During questioning, Hicks confirmed that the team was ready to be deployed — not to join the fighting at the CIA annex — but “to secure the airport for the withdrawal of our personnel from Benghazi after the mortar attack.” Hicks also confirmed that it was the second such team to be readied for deployment, with the first having proceeded to Benghazi earlier. Despite the second team not deploying, the staff was all evacuated first to Tripoli, then to Germany, within 18 hours of the attack taking place.
Read more

The co-chair of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board on the Benghazi terror attacks last year said on Wednesday criticized those claiming the Obama administration’s response to the attacks has the elements of some kind of Watergate-style cover-up.

“I think the notion of a quote, cover up, has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it,” former Ambassador Thomas Pickering said on MSNBC. He also rebutted claims that the review board tried to protect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from scrutiny:

PICKERING: I saw no evidence of it. She did publicly take responsibility for what happened below her and indeed one of the things the Congress did in preparing the legislation that established the Accountability Review Board was to say we don’t want a situation where heads of agencies take responsibility and then nobody who made the decision in the chain has to suffer any consequences for failure for performance. I believe in fact the Accountability Review Board did it’s work well. I think the notion of a quote, cover up, has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it.

Watch the clip:

Pickering wanted to testify at today’s House Oversight Committee hearings on the Benghazi attacks, which was billed as letting State Department officials expose an Obama administration cover-up of wrong-doing in handing the aftermath of the attacks. “I am willing to testify,” Pickering said. “I made that clear yesterday and the White House I understand made that clear to [Committee chair Rep. Darrell] Issa [R-CA]. He declined. I don’t know the reasons for that.” Pickering also countered claims that the military could have done more to respond to the attacks:

PICKERING: The aircraft at Aviano were 2 to 3 hours away but there were no refueling aircraft available. I think that speaks for itself. It has all along. I don’t see any contradiction. … There should be no controversy over that. Aircraft were there but they were not available in a time span that could have made any serious difference in connection with the issue.

Earlier on Wednesday, Republican Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) shot down his colleagues’ conspiracy theory laden claims about the Obama administration and Benghazi. “We need to know were these people culpable or not. If they were, why are they still on the payroll? Other than that, I’ve been able to read all the cables. I’ve seen the films,” Corker said. “I feel like I know what happened in Benghazi. I’m fairly satisfied.”

Republicans are touting today’s House Oversight Committee hearing as a potential final nail in the coffin of the Obama administration’s continuing cover-up of what really happened the night a diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya was attacked last September. In truth, the event is sure to be a rehash of previously debunked finger-pointing and yet another round of political posturing surrounding the tragic death of four Americans.

The GOP’s star witness at today’s hearings is the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, Gregory Hicks, who the right-wing has labeled the main Benghazi “whistle-blower.” Hicks is expected to give testimony before the panel detailing what he believes could have done above and beyond the efforts the administration expended the night of the attack, actions he claims could have saved lives:

“If we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split,” Hicks told House Republican investigators.

Hicks is also expected to explain to the panel that a team of special operations forces was told not to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi prior to the second wave of the attack. According to an excerpt of Hicks’ testimony “[Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can’t go now, you don’t have the authority to go now.’ And so they missed the flight … They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.”

Republicans are latching onto Hicks’ testimony about the lack of military response during the attack as evidence of the administration’s negligence in protecting diplomats overseas and a resulting cover-up to avoid scrutiny. “We were certainly misled at every step of the way,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), one of the loudest voices on Benghazi, said on Monday to a surprisingly skeptical panel on Fox News.

The military has repeatedly said, however, that there were simply no air assets close enough to Benghazi that would have arrived in time to make a difference. Hicks himself admitted during his pre-hearing testimony that the nearest fighter jets were at Aviano Air Base in southern Italy, hours away from Libya with no tanker assets available for refueling purposes.

And while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) during the Senate’s last hearing on the military’s response to Benghazi scolded the Pentagon for not having assets available at the Souda Bay naval base in Crete, Greece, the fact remains that even the hour and a half from the island to Benghazi would have been too late to save Ambassador J. Christopher Stephens and communications specialist Sean Smith. Both died during the first wave of the attack, less than an hour after the Pentagon was first notified.

Likewise, despite what Fox News reports have said, U.S. forces based in Europe as part of U.S. Africa Command would not have arrived until after the second wave of attacks, which took place at the CIA annex in Benghazi hours after the first, had finished.

“The United States military, as I’ve said, is not and frankly should not be a 911 service, arriving on the scene within minutes to every possible contingency around the world,” then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the Senate Armed Services committee in February. That hasn’t stopped conservatives from railing against the lack of cavalry riding into Benghazi at the last minute, which in turn ignores the valiant efforts from the CIA’s response team that saved lives the night of the attack.
Read more

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) accused the Department of State of repeated threats and intimidation against witnesses to last year’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. But when pressed by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace for examples, he could offer none.

Asked about a claim by a witness’s lawyer that whistle-blowers had been blocked from testifying (a claim rejected by the Department of State), Chaffetz said that “more than one” witness has indeed been “suppressed” by the Obama administration.

WALLACE: Tell me–a direct threat, a direct act of intimidation against a potential witness?

CHAFFETZ: Yes, and I think we’ll probably…

WALLACE: Tell me one… tell what’s been said.

CHAFFETZ: There are people, more than one, that have felt intimidation from the State Department.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) quickly debunked his colleague: “There’ve been two attorneys involved here, the only reason they haven’t received information is that they haven’t asked for it yet… there has not been a request for documents from these attorneys to the State Department.”

The only “retaliation,” Lynch noted, was that one of the witnesses wants a reassignment and a promotion and feels he’s being retaliated against because has not yet gotten the promotion.

Watch the video:

As Media Matters has previously noted, Victoria Toensing, the Republican attorney making the initial claims has been peddling Benghazi conspiracy theories for months, including a November Fox News op/ed in which she attempted to draw a link between the attack and the resignation of former CIA director David Petraeus.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) levied a series of wild accuastions Sunday morning when discussing the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last September, accusing the Obama Administration of perpetrating a “massive coverup” and NBC’s David Gregory of not caring about the death of American diplomats.

McCain’s outburst came after Gregory asked McCain what, exactly, the Administration was covering up. Taking umbrage at Gregory’s skepticism, the Arizona senator grew confrontational:

MCCAIN: We have had a massive coverup on the part of the administration.

GREGORY: I’m asking you, a coverup of what?

MCCAIN: I’m asking YOU, do you care whether four Americans died? The reasons for that? And shouldn’t people be held accountable for the fact that four americans died — including a very dear man?

GREGORY: You said there is a coverup. A coverup of what?

MCCAIN: Of the information concerning the deaths of four brave Americans.

Watch it:

As Gregory suggests, it’s not exactly clear what McCain thinks is being covered up. Both the lack of immediate military response to the attack on the consulate and the matter of UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s “talking points” on the attack were clearly explained several months ago. Nevertheless, McCain’s colleague Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has threatened to put a hold on the confirmation of the President’s nominees for both Secretary of Defense and CIA Director until he gets “the truth” on Benghazi.