The State Department has announced it will answer no more questions on the deaths of four Americans at a Libya consulate until the Justice Department completes an investigation of the September 11th incident.
Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland passed responsibility to the DOJ, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder:
I’m going to frustrate all of you [reporters], infinitely, by telling you that now that we have an open FBI investigation on the death of these four Americans, we are not going to be in a position to talk at all about what the U.S. government may or may not be learning about how any of this this happened — not who they were, not how it happened, not what happened to Ambassador Stevens, not any of it — until the Justice Department is ready to talk about the investigation that’s its got.
On Tuesday’s anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Islamists amassed on the American consulate in Benghazi and murdered Christopher Stevens, U.S. ambassador to Libya, as well as three others. Despite an attack on the same consulate months earlier and threats from Al Qaeda leaders, the State Dept. posted no extra security for diplomatic staff.
Aside from the reasoning behind this decision, journalists are also seeking answers why Stevens was in Benghazi and not in Libya’s capital Tripoli at the time of the attack.
AG Holder has generated controversy in 2012 for his refusal to appoint independent counsel for investigation into national security information leaks by White House officials. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said of the high-ranking Cabinet member’s decision, “This administration cannot be trusted to investigate itself.”