Durbin: Issa endangered Libyans with document dump to get 'toehold' for Romney

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) on Sunday ripped House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrel Issa (R-IL) for exposing the identities of Libyans who were working with the U.S. government in an effort to politicize the recent deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and get a foreign policy "toehold" for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

During an interview on Fox News on Sunday, host Chris Wallace repeatedly ignored Durbin's efforts to point out that Issa had of sensitive State Department documents without redacting the names of Libyan civilians.

"Let's ask the honest questions, let's gather the evidence, let's make sure we understand actually what did occur," the Democratic senator told Wallace. "But jumping to conclusions -- I mean, Darrel Issa does a documentary dump on his website of sensitive information about those in Libya who are helping to keep America safe. It shows the lengths many will go to try to politicize this tragic situation."

Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, however, praised Issa and Fox News for continuing to attack President Barack Obama for his handling of Libya before and after the attacks.

"Thanks God for media that will ask questions, thank God for some Republican control of one branch of government," Graham opined. "If you left it up to this administration to inform the American people, we would still be believing this was a spontaneous riot spurred by a video."

"I am totally convinced that this is going to go down in history as one of the most major breakdowns of national security in a very long time," he insisted. "It's exhibit A of a failed national security strategy."

For his part, Durbin said that it was "always easier to say the day after how you could have won that football game."

"This idea of Chairman Issa, saying that he's going to dump the names in public of Libyans who are risking their lives to support America and keep us safe in an effort to get a political toehold in this election is unconscionable, it is unacceptable," Durban observed. "I'm sure that Sen. Graham doesn't support that."

"Well, let's move on to the shifting story after the attack," Wallace replied, declining to press Graham on the question of Issa's document dump.

Watch this video from Fox News' Fox News Sunday, broadcast Oct. 21, 2012.