By Jake Tapper

Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have located individuals who have evidence about the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi Libya - ones whom they describe as whistleblowers - and are asking federal agencies to allow the witnesses to be able to share classified information with their attorneys without fear of retaliation.

In letters to Mary McLeod, the principal deputy legal adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. State Department; Stephen Preston, General Counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency; and Robert Taylor, acting General Counsel at the Pentagon, Congressman Darrell Issa, R-California, the chairman of the House committee on Oversight and Government Reform, requests clearance for attorneys "to possess and discuss Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI)" so that "attorneys representing witnesses in this matter can properly represent their clients and so witnesses can lawfully disclose sensitive or classified information to their attorneys."

Issa also requested from the different agencies the rules and regulations that would be relevant to allowing these witnesses to talk to their lawyers and ultimately to testify to Congress.

The sensitive nature of the work these State Department, CIA, and military officials were doing in Libya has been a hindrance to both congressional and journalistic investigations into what happened in the attack, which left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador, Chris Stevens.