Sen. Lindsey Graham says he'd like to see a Benghazi select committee in the Senate.
In comments on
Hugh Hewitt's radio show, Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he'd been calling for an expansion of the committee
— which is looking into the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Libya
— to include senators "for two years," according to a posted transcript.
"Trey Gowdy and Elijah Cummings have done a good job," Graham said. "What I would envision is a select committee being formed in the Senate of members from the appropriate committees instead of a stovepipe approach.
"We would create a select committee in the Senate to marry up with the select committee in the House, become a joint select committee, bootstrap on the work already done by the House, and take this to its logical conclusion.
"If you ask me the big winners and losers of the midterms, I'd say the big winner is getting to the bottom of Benghazi," Graham added. "The big losers are the Iranian nuclear ambition, Hamas, Hezbollah."
He said he didn't care whether he was the head of the Senate version, adding: "Maybe somebody senior to me, but I want to be on it."
"I'm dying to ask some questions of people who have never been interviewed before," particularly national security adviser Susan Rice, he said.
"She's said on TV shows the level of security at the consulate was strong, substantial and significant," he said. Then he framed what his questions to her would be if given the chance:
"Who told you that? That's not part of the talking points, and nothing could have been further from the truth. Where did you get that information? Or did you just make it up?"
Graham also said he'd like to "use the funding mechanism" of Congress to rein in President Barack Obama's plans to use executive authority for immigration reform.
"I think we should do two things at once," he said. "We should limit the ability of the executive action through funding, not shutting the government down, and at the same time, come up with a solution apart from Obama."
"[Y]ou can't capitulate to this overreach by the president, and you can't overreact," he said.
"So, what I would like to do is try to use the funding mechanisms of Congress to limit his ability to do executive action, and to do what he's doing, and at the same time come up with legislation that first secures your border, defines what securing the border would be.
"When that point is achieved, you start allowing people who are non-felons to get a legal status, and create order out of chaos."