Benghazi Panel; Obama on V.A. Problems; Pelosi Nominates Panel
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you. Do not go too far. I want to bring you into this discussion, this breaking news here that we have at CNN. After nearly two weeks of deciding whether or not they want to boycott this new committee to investigate the attack in Benghazi, the House Select Committee on Benghazi to be precise, the on that, of course, the attack that killed four Americans, we now know that Democrats are announcing they will participate. So you see the live pictures. Any minute now we will see House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi step behind that podium and reveal specifically which Democratic lawmakers she will be appointing to this House Select Committee on Benghazi. Let's have a huge discussion on this, the ramifications, politically, et cetera, with Wolf Blitzer, who's standing by, and also Mike Lillis, congressional reporter for "The Hill." And, Mike, let me just begin with you. Do we know specifically what led to this decision on behalf of Leader Pelosi to say, yes, we will participate?</s>MIKE LILLIS, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "THE HILL": Well, it had been a tough question for the Democrats. And, in the end, I think very simply they decided that they would rather have a seat at the table of this investigation than be on the sidelines. It had divided the caucus over the past two weeks. There was one camp that said, we have to boycott it. If we participate, we're legitimizing something that's essentially a witch hunt, that Republicans just want to embarrass the White House ahead of the elections. There was another camp that said, hey, wait a minute, this panel is going to have subpoena power, it's going to bring in witnesses, it could bring in Hillary Clinton. If we don't have Democrats at the table, some voice to defend our allies in the White House, the State Department, President Obama, then we really just seeded too much power and I think, in the end, Nancy Pelosi agreed and that's what we're about to watch.</s>BALDWIN: Wolf, as we wait to hear from Leader Pelosi, and specifically she will be naming names from members of Congress who will be sitting on this select committee, what kind of ramifications, if any, would there be for these members of Congress, politically speaking, sitting on this committee?</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST, THE SITUATION ROOM: Well, I don't think there are going to be any negative ramifications because these are all experienced Democrats who will be on the panel. There will be seven Republicans, there will be five Democrats. And if you take a look at the five Democrats, they've already released the list of who they will be, some are very experienced in these matters. Some have been involved in other hearings involving Benghazi. And you see the five up there. Elijah Cummings, for example, he's the ranking member on that House committee. Darrell Issa, the special government affairs committee that's been looking into Benghazi. And Elijah Cummings is from his perspective trying to keep Darrell Issa honest. But take a look at some of the others. Adam Smith, ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Adam Schiff, he's a key member of the appropriations subcommittee on state and foreign operations, a permanent member of the intelligence committee. Linda Sanchez, she's a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Subcommittee on Oversight. Tammy Duckworth, she's a member of the Armed Services Committee, also the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. So all of them are deeply experienced. They have all spent a lot of time looking into earlier investigations into Benghazi. And the argument, as Mike points out, was very simple, if you don't participate, the seven Republicans are going to do whatever they want. That won't be a defender, if you will, of Hillary Clinton when she comes to testify if they call her or others who come to testify. So, in the end, Nancy Pelosi decided, you know what, better to be at the table than to be away.</s>BALDWIN: Gentlemen, stay with me. I want to bring in one more voice, our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash. And, Dana, as we await Leader Pelosi to speak, we've now seen the faces of these different -- five different Democrats who will be sitting on this House select committee. Just -- do you agree that basically this is about having a seat at the table for the Dems?</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's absolutely the reason that they made this decision. But I really can't emphasize enough how much of a rift there was within the House Democratic caucus about the strategy here. It has been going on for over two weeks. It lasted through the entire week last week when they were home on recess, trying to come to terms with exactly which way to go. There's not a philosophical divide among House Democrats. They, almost to a person (ph), believe that the whole concept of this select committee on Benghazi is politically motivated. The question was political strategy, whether or not it was the right thing to do to get involved, whether that looks like a rubber stamp or blessing the idea of this committee, or to just boycott and risk, as others have said, not having a seat at the table and not participating. The other thing that needs to be talked about here is Hillary Clinton because -</s>BALDWIN: Yes. Yes.</s>BASH: Democrats on Capitol Hill think that it's about her and they don't want her to be out there perhaps without Democrats defending her.</s>BALDWIN: Can we talk about, though, as far as the investigation goes, and I want to hear from every single one of you -- Wolf, let me go back to you. And when it comes to this investigation, what are some of the unanswered questions as it pertains to Benghazi?</s>BLITZER: I think the major question that the Republicans want answered is, people at the White House, what was their direct involvement from the president, the vice president, the national security adviser and others on down. They've gotten a lot of information from what was going on at the State Department. They've gotten a lot of documents and information, what was going on at the U.S. military, the Pentagon, the Africa command and other U.S. military operations in the intelligence community, they've gotten significant information. But the Republicans believe there's still a lot of information out there that the administration has not made available, specifically information as to what the White House was doing, what the president of the United States specifically was doing. That's what they say they want, and that's presumably what they're hoping to get in the course of the select committee hearings.</s>BALDWIN: Mike, what else?</s>LILLIS: We had talked with Darrell Issa. Darrell Issa, of course, has been conducting a probe into this for over a year. He's the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. And he has very much what Wolf just said, the focus is now shifting to the White House. There were four different committees in the House that had looked at it under their jurisdiction. But the sense was that after the Ben Rhodes e-mail came out, this damning e-mail where the accusation was they were coaching different officials to go on - on the air, on the Sunday shows -</s>BALDWIN: Uh-huh. The talking points.</s>LILLIS: The talking points issue. Once that e-mail came out, John Boehner, who had resisted the special committee for months and months and months, even in the face of conservative pressure, flipped the switch and said, now we've got to do it because the White House is involved and this committee is going to focus on the White House. I think Wolf was exactly right.</s>BALDWIN: OK. I'm keeping my eye on that podium. We're going to hit pause until we see Leader Pelosi. We want to move on because we have to talk about this other major story out of Washington. So just stand by to all of you. Stand by. President Obama today finally responds to this alleged cover-up involving veterans medical care that CNN revealed. Listen, heads may roll over this. But for now, one of them will not be that of Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. The president, today, stood behind the embattled ex-general under fire after CNN reported 40 vets died while waiting for care at a V.A. hospital. And now you have -- look at the map, we'll show you -- 26 V.A. facilities nationwide now under investigation for allegedly faking wait lists or other records, all the while possibly risking the health of people who have dedicated their lives to this country.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful and I will not tolerate it, period. Here is what I discussed with Secretary Shinseki this morning. First, anybody found to have manipulated or falsified records at V.A. facilities has to be held accountable. The inspector general at the V.A. has launched investigations into the Phoenix V.A. and other facilities. And some individuals have already been put on administrative leave. I know that people are angry and want swift reckoning. I sympathize with that. But we have to let the investigators do their job and get to the bottom of what happened.</s>BALDWIN: And we have to talk about this. Mike Lillis, you're wearing a second hat for us here, we'll talk about this story, congressional reporter from "The Hill" rejoining us, and CNN's Drew Griffin live in Phoenix. It was Drew and this team that broke this story wide open. So, Drew, just beginning with you. You know, President Obama, he says he will not stand for this. But we know that the White House has been aware of some of these problems for years. We knew he had to address this publicly, but what really did we learn today?</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, I think we learned that even though these delays in care and veterans death have been well documented, even though there have already been multiple investigations and reports that show manipulation of records and hidden wait times going on for years, and even though it's obvious, based on our current reporting, that the problems persist and may even be getting worse, the president, at least for now, is sticking by his man who for five years has failed to do anything about the problem. The president, I thought today, was echoing what Eric Shinseki told the Senate last week was, you know, I'm mad as hell, but have patience and we'll get to the bottom of it. Many veterans groups have simply run out of patience. Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: He may be standing by his man, but, Mike, when we saw Obama today speaking before members of the press corps who was not there, was not, Secretary Shinseki, what's the significance in that, do you think?</s>LILLIS: Well, he doesn't want to float the guy out there. He's - he is the embattled one. He just testified before the Senate. So he's made some public statements but they weren't received very well. It certainly didn't appease any of the Republicans who immediately, after Obama was done speaking, were shooting out e-mail blasts to reporters saying, you know, too little, too late, this guy still needs to go. And so you're just not seeing - you know, he doesn't - he doesn't have the public face and Obama thought that this rose to the level where he has to finally address it. I think interesting to note that he -- every time Obama said, you know, I - I still -- I'm still with - I'm still with Shinseki, he's still my guy, he's still interested in fixing the problem, but we're not ruling out, you know, getting rid of anybody who committed wrongdoing, as high as that is going to go. So he hasn't ruled out anything at all and we'll wait and see, but this guy's in trouble, I think.</s>BALDWIN: Drew, what about - speaking of Phoenix, you're in Phoenix, and that was the original location where you discovered - you and your reporting discovered that that's where these fake wait lists existed. And so now we have learned that the - you know, that the Phoenix V.A. director got a pretty nice bonus last month in addition to last year, correct?</s>GRIFFIN: Yes, that's right. I think this is what in D.C. they call bad optics. Out here in Phoenix, they call it disgusting. The director of the Phoenix V.A., in April, at the very same time the inspector general was out here investigating allegations of hidden wait lists and bad management, received an $8,500 bonus. This is just last month. The V.A. has explained this to Congress as some sort of a low-level clerical error. But, again, it is, as I said, Brooke, bad optics and, here, disgusting.</s>BALDWIN: Disgusting. It is disgusting. Drew Griffin, thank you so much for your reporting. Mike Lillis, thank you. Stay with me. We'll keep a close eye on what we're seeing on Capitol Hill, watching and waiting for House Leader Nancy Pelosi to speak specifically about these Democrats named to the House Select Committee on Benghazi. That's ahead. Also ahead, she says armed men killed her dad, her brother, burned down her church, burned down her school and today she is on American soil testifying about her encounter with the very same terror group responsible for kidnapping hundreds of school girls. You will hear directly from her. Plus, any moment now, President Obama will be welcoming the Super Bowl champs to the White House. What will Richard Sherman say? Remember him? That's coming up next. Stay with me.