Donna Brazile
“You’ve made several inaccurate statements over the past months as you’ve tried to defend against multiple Republican admissions that the select committee has been wasting millions of tax dollars to damage Secretary Clinton’s bid for president,” Cummings said, growing angry during his exchange with Gowdy.
Seven congressional hearings into Benghazi – including the last one, which completely exonerated Clinton, the Obama administration and the CIA from wrongdoing – and we had to endure yet an eighth hearing this week.
The Benghazi committee is approaching the longest congressional inquiry in U.S. history, rounding the bend at a cost of $4.5 million dollars. Its chairman, Gowdy, says it uncovered “new evidence,” referring to Clinton’s private email server. The truth is that the server became public knowledge through an article in the media. Gowdy merely exploited it, milking it with selected leaks and accusations that have failed even a nodding acquaintance with the facts.
Gowdy’s committee isn’t investigating Benghazi; it’s investigating Hillary Clinton. Just when we most need statesmen, we get politicos exploiting hackers’ harmful acts for party gain. The result, polls show, is a public skeptical of both the committee and Clinton. Gowdy is a former prosecutor who has amply demonstrated he considers himself the official prosecutor for Congress, though there is no such position. If this were a serious investigation of Benghazi, it would at some point ask how we could make our U.S. embassies overseas more secure – probing Clinton for her experience and input on how to better accomplish that.
The history of the Republicans with regard to both Libya and Benghazi is not a proud one. Libya today is a country with two contesting governments, while militias, al Qaeda and ISIS roam almost at will throughout the nation.
Obama was considering U.S. action in Libya that would have stopped Libya from descending into a failed state. However, Gowdy, along with his fellow Republicans, supported a resolution to prevent a military presence that many argued was needed to avoid the chaos that now exists.
Prominent Republicans said nothing about security needs at Benghazi prior to the attack. Arizona Sen. John McCain met personally with Ambassador Christopher Stevens just weeks before the fatal attack. In that meeting, Stevens discussed security, but McCain said nothing about that at the time. McCain said he cannot remember specifics of the discussion, or if he brought any concerns Stevens had about security to the attention of Congress.
What this boils down to is that until Republican leaders in Congress saw Benghazi as a way to bring down Clinton’s poll numbers, they were silent on the subject of security. Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., told McClatchy newspapers, “There should always be more oversight by Congress, but most importantly there should have been funding to deal with embassy security.” Larson, who is on the House Armed Services Committee, is effectively acknowledging that when congressional oversight may have prevented Benghazi, Congress was absent.
A number of Republicans in positions to know have acknowledged that the committee is merely a vehicle to attack Clinton. Gowdy’s response to them was to “shut up.”
Gowdy opened the hearing, saying he was seeking an impartial investigation, and in the next breath attacked the Democrats on the committee. His attack reminds me of a charge made against Winston Churchill who replied, “I should think it was hardly possible to state the opposite of the truth with more precision.”
Gowdy, attempting to downplay Republicans’ months-long press releases about Clinton’s emails, said to Clinton, “Your emails are no more or less important than anyone else’s.”
As for Clinton not being singled out, Rep. Cummings said to her: “Madame Secretary, you are sitting here by yourself. The secretary of defense is not on your left, and the director of the CIA is not on your right.”
An early questioner was clearly suspicious that Clinton had fewer emails on Benghazi than other subjects. Had the congresswoman studied Clinton’s emails in her possession more closely, she would have known Clinton did not use email while at work, but only in the evening, from her home. That meant most of Clinton’s work was conducted without emails during the day.
So it went. No one asked Clinton how, based on her experience, we can avoid a repeat of a Benghazi. Secretary Clinton in previous interviews, testimony and in her book, has taken responsibility for the failure to fully address the security challenges U.S. personnel faced in Libya and elsewhere. But this committee isn’t about Benghazi; it’s about “getting Clinton.”
— Donna Brazile is a senior Democratic strategist, a political commentator and contributor to CNN and ABC News, and a contributing columnist to Ms. Magazine and O, the Oprah Magazine.
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