McCain: Benghazi a 'Coverup'

The leaked Benghazi emails set the agenda for today's Sunday talk shows, with John McCain labeling the White House's response to the attacks a "coverup." "For the president's spokesman to say, 'Well, there was only words or technical changes made in those emails' is a flat-out untruth," he told ABC's The Week, as per the National Review. "I'd call it a coverup. I would call it a coverup in the extent that there was willful removal of information which was obvious. It was obvious ... people don’t bring rocket propelled grenades and mortars to demonstrations." Elsewhere:

• Dick Durbin called the attacks on the Obama administration a "witch hunt": "There is no attempt to cover it up," said the Illinois senator on Face The Nation, the National Review reports. "This is a squabble between two agencies, the CIA and the State Department, about the wording."
• Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Rep. Darrell Issa faced off on Meet the Press: "Hillary Clinton's not a target. President Obama's not a target," Issa said, as per Politico. "The target is: how did we fail three different ways? Fail to heed the warnings of an impending attack, fail to respond properly during the attack ... and then fail to get the truth to the America people in a timely fashion."
• Susan Collins said two of the four Benghazi deaths could have been prevented with military intervention: "I don’t think we could have gotten there in time to save the ambassador and information officer, but I do think help could have been sent in time to save the further deaths," she told State of the Union, Politico reports.
• Dianne Feinstein said the White House got the "talking points" wrong immediately following the attacks, but Republicans blaming Clinton have ulterior motives: "I understand that the Republicans have a grievance because this happened a month before the election and every effort has been made to turn it into something diabolic," she told Meet the Press, Politico reports. "And I don’t see that."

(More Benghazi stories.)