In a statement released Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) telegraphed that he would delay the confirmation of President Barack Obama’s CIA nominee John Brennan if the White House fails to answer questions about the Benghazi attacks.
“I do not believe we should confirm anyone as Director of the CIA until our questions are answered,” he declared.
Mr. Graham said that any effort on his part to delay the confirmation process was not directed at Mr. Brennan but rather was meant to get to the bottom of intelligence failures involved in the Benghazi fiasco.
Senate rules allow any United States senator to block a potential nominee from proceeding to the Senate floor by placing a hold on the nomination.
“We were first told the Director of National Intelligence deleted the al Qaeda reference in the talking points because they did not want to let al Qaeda know we were monitoring them,” said Mr. Graham.
“We were then told the FBI changed the talking points so as not to compromise an ongoing criminal investigation,” he said, adding that even later, officials “clarified it was the CIA who had changed the talking points.”
“It is imperative we understand who changed the talking points just weeks before a presidential election and why,” Graham asserted.
News of Mr. Graham’s decision to potentially block Mr. Brennan’s CIA nomination comes as the nominee’s past controversial statements have begun receiving greater scrutiny. As Kerry Picket of Breitbart News has reported, in 2010 Mr. Brennan defended Jihad as a “legitimate tenet of Islam.”