Understanding The Latest Round Of Benghazi Hearings

Benghazi, again. New hearings this week on the attacks and the aftermath. We look at the facts and factionalism.

Benghazi, back in the spotlight yesterday.  The September 11 attacks last year that left four dead, including a U.S. ambassador, at a burning American outpost in Libya.

The fire of fury and recrimination over the attacks and their aftermath were still going strong Wednesday at a House committee hearing on Capitol Hill.

A Republican chairman suggesting cover-up.  A ranking Democrat charging low politics.  An emotional American diplomat out of Libya describing high dismay at how the story was told.

Up next On Point:  looking again at Benghazi.
-- Tom Ashbrook

Ernesto Londoño, national reporter for The Washington Post, covering the Pentagon. (@londonoe)

Christopher Hill, dean of the Josef Korbel School of  International Studies at the University of Denver. He was a career diplomat who served as Ambassador to Iraq during the Obama administration and Ambassador to Poland, Macedonia and South Korea during the Bush administration. (@ambchrishill)

Peter Wehner, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He has been writing a series for Commentary Magazine on the Benghazi investigations: "The 2012 Election Is Over; The Benghazi Scandal Is Not," "The Benghazi Scandal And Media Bias" and "Hillary Clinton’s Postmodernism." (@Peter_Wehner)

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The Washington Post: The Benghazi Hearing Live Blog -- "Three State Department officials are set to testify in an investigation of what Republicans leading the investigation contend was a deliberate attempt to mislead the American people about what happened that day."

TIME: Terror, Security, And Hillary 2016: Making Sense Of The Benghazi Hearings -- "To Republicans, the deadly September 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, was a huge, conscience-shocking security scandal, one that Democrats are shamelessly trying to cover up. To Democrats, the attack was the sort of tragedy that inevitably comes from practicing diplomacy in a dangerous world, one that Republicans are shamelessly exploiting for political gain. Those two views came no closer to agreement during a Wednesday House hearing on the subject."

Politico: Benghazi Hearing: State Officials Get Emotional -- "In his first full public accounting, Gregory Hicks, a Foreign Service officer and ex-deputy chief of mission in Libya, recounted in vivid detail what happened the night of the attacks. Republicans insist that the Obama administration and the State Department didn’t do nearly enough to aid U.S. personnel under attack in September 2012."

CBS News: Timeline: How Benghazi Attack, Probe Unfolded -- "Since the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which left Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead, questions have persisted over what happened that night, whether there was adequate security at the compound and the manner in which the Obama administration initially characterized the attack."

Listen to our show covering the Benghazi attack on September 11, 2012: