It appears that Congress is receiving the ol’ Washington two-step in their attempts to try to find out what really happened on 9/11/12 at the Benghazi Consulate Compound.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have questions for former CIA Director David H. Petraeus about the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, his recently disclosed extramarital affair and other issues — but their queries will have to wait for a later date.

Acting CIA Director Michael Morrell will testify Thursday in closed-door hearings of the Senate and House intelligence committees instead of Mr. Petraeus, who resigned abruptly last week after admitting he had an extramarital affair.

…Intelligence committee leaders will question Mr. Morrell and FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce about Mr. Petraeus’ affair during meetings Wednesday, a day before the closed-door hearing at which Mr. Petraeus originally was scheduled to appear.

Congressional leaders indicated that they still might call on Mr. Petraeus to testify eventually.

“I would not rule out Gen. Petraeus being called to testify. That still could happen at some point in time,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, Georgia Republican and vice chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“I don’t see how in the world you can find out what happened in Benghazi before, during and after the attack if Gen. Petraeus doesn’t testify,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

One former senior congressional staffer, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of current employers, told The Washington Times that Mr. Petraeus would be “duty-bound” to testify, even as a private citizen.

“He is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He could be asked to testify as a former senior official, and if he refuses — which I don’t think he would — he could be subpoenaed,” said the staffer, who is the director of a House subcommittee.

Mr. Chambliss said that, in the meantime, it is “fine” for Mr. Morrell to testify in Mr. Petraeus’ place at Thursday’s classified hearing, along with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Matthew Olson, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center.

Mr. Morrell “certainly was there when all the decisions were made relative to Benghazi,” the senator said.

Mrs. Feinstein also ruled out any connection between Mr. Petraeus’ resignation and its postelection disclosure, and political fallout from the Benghazi incident. For several days after the attack, administration officials said it emerged from spontaneous protests, not terrorists.

There was “absolutely not” any connection to Benghazi, Mrs. Feinstein said. “And, I think if you really think this thing out, you will — everybody will come to that same conclusion.”

But Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the details leaked to the media so far do not makes sense to him.

“It seems this [investigation] has been going on for several months, and yet now it appears that they’re saying the FBI did not realize until Election Day that Gen. Petraeus was involved. It just doesn’t add up,” said Mr. King, who also is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. “I have real questions about this. I think the timeline has to be looked at.”

Okay…well, I guess they’ll just have to rely on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony.

Oh, wait:

…Clinton is reportedly scheduled to travel to Singapore, Australia, Thailand, Burma and Cambodia while the hearing will take place.

The Senate Intelligence Committee also plans to hold a closed-door hearing the same day, according to spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

At a House hearing before the Nov. 6 elections, Republicans said President Barack Obama’s administration failed to provide adequate diplomatic security before the Benghazi attack and sought to play down the role of terrorists afterward. Democrats defended the administration’s performance and said Republicans were seeking to exploit the attack for political gain.

Clinton, meanwhile, vowed to keep good on her promise to increase security at U.S. diplomatic outposts.

“We now have a formal Accountability Review Board investigating the terrorist attack that killed Chris, and we will certainly apply its recommendations and lessons learned to improving security everywhere,” Clinton said during a tribute to Stevens at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington.

The issue is that the chairman of the Accountability Review Board, U.S. diplomat Thomas Pickering, has come under suspicion for being sympathetic to Islamist causes.

Meanwhile, author Ed Klein believes the Clintons are rallying their lawyers in the event the Secretary of State is subpoenaed. Some believe Clinton when she claimed that she did order additional security for the Benghazi compound and that the request had “not been carried out.”

With talk of Hillary Clinton stepping down from her post, it is possible that she may be more outspoken about the administration’s handling of the deadly terror attack come 2013.

And, this just broke wide open yesterday:

Paula Broadwell, the biographer revealed as the woman having a secret affair with the now-former CIA director, gave a talk at the University of Denver on Oct. 26 in which she appeared to reveal sensitive, maybe even classified, information about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

The most interesting revelation is her claim that the CIA was holding several Libyan militia members prisoner, which may have prompted the attack. (Though she also sought to explain the Obama administration’s initial view that the attack was linked to the YouTube video Innocence of Muslims, an anti-Islam polemic that sparked riots across the Muslim world.)

She also said flatly that forces at the CIA annex had requested backup from a special Delta Force group she called the CINC’s in extremis force. It was not clear whether she was basing her comments on an Oct. 26 Fox News report by Jennifer Griffin, or whether her information came from elsewhere. (Griffin refers to it as “Commanders [sic] in Extremis Force,” but does not mention Delta Force or any Libyan prisoners.)

A CIA spokeswoman disputed the Fox News account at the time, saying, “no one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.” The agency later released a timeline of that evening’s events that cast doubt on Griffin’s story.

In any case, Broadwell’s remarks, which were first reported by Arutz Sheva, are obviously very interesting in light of this week’s big news, as well as the Wall Street Journal’s revelation that the FBI found that Broadwell was in possession of classified documents (though she was never charged with any crime).

Her comments came in response to a questioner who asked her to comment on Petraeus’s handling of the events in Libya.

With this new information leaked by Miss Broadwell, it’s imperative that someone in the Administration needs to speak to the Senate Committee concerning that horrible evening in Benghazi.

I have an idea: Why don’t they ask the president to stop by before he heads out for his upcoming trip to Asia , scheduled for November 17th?

And, if that doesn’t work with his schedule (he likes to sleep in, you know), he could speak directly to the American people, who deserve to know the truth.

Of course, that is about as likely to happen as Obama making a guest appearance at a Gaither Concert.

Until He comes,

KJ