Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Senate Republicans Finally Get Their Hands on Benghazi Emails

The emails should placate the Senators looking to delay the confirmation of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel.

Well, that's over. Multiple outlets are reporting that the White House will provide to the Senate Intelligence Committee a cache of emails in which Obama officials discuss how to describe the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, shortly after they occurred. The offer kills two birds with one stone Friday news dump: it should placate the array of Republican Senators who wished to delay the confirmation of Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel in order to extract more information about the attacks in Benghazi, and it runs interference on questions about the administration's ever-expanding drone strike program. As The New York Times first reported, Senators like John McCain and Lindsay Graham seemed to think that they could extract even more information about the administration's response to Benghazi by leveraging White House unwillingness to release classified memos about targeted killing.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire