Senate ad targets Rogers over disputed Benghazi detail

A new ad in Michigan's Republican primary for U.S. Senate targets former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers over his role in investigating the 2012 Benghazi terror attack a decade ago, though Rogers' campaign contends the claim is "an absolute falsehood."

The ad, released by Rogers' opponent Sandy Pensler, revives the claim by military contractors who were on the ground that an order to "stand down" delayed them from responding to distress calls from the State Department compound after it came under attack in Libya on Sept. 11, 2012.

A report by the Rogers-led House Intelligence Committee in 2014 concluded that wasn't true, angering Kris Paronto, a former Army Ranger who was one of the CIA contractors who responded that night to defend the consulate.

The ad uses a C-SPAN Book TV video clip of Paronto recounting that he looked Mike Rogers "in the eyes" during testimony to the House committee "and said that if we would have not been delayed, we would have saved the ambassador’s life. ..."

The reference is to the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the attacks along with three other Americans after militants stormed the compound. A Libyan man, Mustafa al-Imam, was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2020 in connection with the attacks.

The ad plays a short clip of Rogers from a March 25 podcast by the Lansing publication Michigan Information & Research Service (MIRS), in which he was asked for his response to claims that his committee's Benghazi report didn't reflect what the contractors experienced and had "covered up" for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In that interview, Rogers disputed the claim as "absolutely factually incorrect" and defended his panel's work, noting that his timelines were used by other investigations into the Benghazi incident. Rogers added that the final arbiter of the episode is that former President Donald Trump endorsed him in March.

"The facts do not align with with those stories. It's very, very easily refutable. People say things. They have no proof of it," Rogers told MIRS.

"It's just all nonsense. It was, I think, people were trying to sell a book at the time. God bless them," Rogers added. "But (it) just didn't didn't happen the way that they said back then, and so we're not finding any pushback today on it."

In the Pensler ad, a narrator says "Mike Rogers called our soldiers liars," and concludes by saying Rogers "covered for Hillary then, covers for Hillary now."

“This is an absolute falsehood, and just further desperate lies from Sandy, who’s once again choosing to work against President Trump," Rogers spokesman Chris Gustafson said Monday in a statement.

"Here are the facts: Mike led an investigation under the House Intelligence jurisdiction to find the facts surrounding Benghazi to create a timeline, and used their findings to vote to create a permanent committee to investigate Hilary Clinton, which led to the disclosure of her 30,000 emails. Any insinuation to the contrary is an injustice to the Americans serving who lost their lives that fateful day.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served on the Benghazi Select Committee as well as the House Intelligence panel, weighed in Monday to defend Rogers after the ad's release.

"I know @MikeRogersForMI did amazing work to bring to light Hillary Clinton's failures throughout her time as Secretary of State. Any idea that there was a cover-up is just absurd and false," Pompeo tweeted.

"The truth is that the Benghazi Committee wouldn't have been successful in uncovering Hillary's 30k emails, rampant corruption, and her failure to keep Americans safe without Mike Rogers."

Politico has reported that Pompeo didn't sign onto the final House Intelligence report, feeling it was incomplete.

Pensler's campaign said the ad is running as part of a seven-figure statewide buy on broadcast, cable and digital platforms.

More:U.S. Senate hopeful Sandy Pensler plans TV ad blitz through Republican primary

Rogers' committee's report was among multiple inquiries by various panels in the aftermath of the Benghazi attacks. His committee spent two years on its investigation and concluded that both the CIA's response had "saved lives," and that there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks.

"Appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night, and the Committee found no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support," the report states.

The Associated Press reported at the time that the report concluded the U.S. diplomats' Temporary Mission Facility "was not well-protected" and that State Department security agents knew it couldn't be defended from a "well-armed" attack. The report was also critical of the Obama administration's "initial public narrative" about the causes and motivations for the attacks as "not fully accurate."

Others in the intelligence community at the time also said no one had ordered a stand down, including CIA Director David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

But some Republicans took issue with Rogers' report, including then-House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz of Utah, who called it "shallow and incomplete, at best," in an interview with Politico in 2016.

"I have spent time talking to these gentlemen and I have no reason not to believe them,” said Chaffetz, who worked on a Benghazi investigation. “That’s not some ‘Republican myth’ — that’s coming from the mouths of the people who were there.”

Others seeking the GOP nomination for Senate include former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash of Cascade Township and Dr. Sherry O'Donnell of Stevensville.

mburke@detroitnews.com