Threatening to cut the State Department budget 15%, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the $47.8 billion budget would also restrict funds from being used to set up a diplomatic mission in Cuba. Boeher mirrored the House GOP’s frustration over the slow pace of receiving emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private accounts while serving from Jan. 21, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2012. Requests for emails and other documents under the Freedom of Information Act by House Select Committee on Benghazi chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R.S.C.) haven’t been met fast enough, prompting Boehner and House Republicans to cut the State Department budget. Under Clinton’s watch Sept. 11, 2012, the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked by an al-Qaeda affiliated terror cell, killing 52-year-old Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Less than two months before the Nov. 4, 2012 presidential election, the GOP claims a White House cover-up to protect Barack’s reelection bid. When former U.N. Amb. Susan B. Rice visited Sunday morning national TV talk shows the that Sunday, she insisted the attack on Benghazi was due to spontaneous rioting relating to some extraneous incident related to defacing Korans. When the dust settled, Rice was forced out as U.S. ambassador and prevented from her desired appointment to replace Hillary as secretary of state. White House officials slowly admitted the Benghazi attack was carefully al-Qaeda-affiliated terror attack. House and Senate Republicans cried foul, blaming the Hillary for failing to provide Benghazi enough security. Gowdy’s House Committee seeks to get to the bottom of how lax security in Benghazi caused the death of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
When you consider the purpose of the State Department budget, advancing U.S. foreign policy around the globe, not toe mention protecting U.S. embassies and personnel, it’s not for political blackmail. Threatening to cut the State Department’s budget over politically-motivated subpoena requests to discredit Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton goes beyond the pale, exposing the worst side of Capitol Hills partisan politics. No matter how the GOP spins it, messing around with the State Department budget to somehow gain better access to incriminating emails expose as total lack of regard for U.S. national security. No partisan group should hold U.S. national security hostage for political objectives. Cutting the State Department’s budget should be based only on fiscal realities, like the budget “sequester,” demanding across-board-cuts in all departments.
Budget battles loom on the Senate panel approving $500 billion Defense Department budget, including a possible Senate filibuster. Whatever fiscal arguments over the Pentagon budget, they’re not related to Gowdy’s request for Clinton’s missing emails, whether or not he’s in the right. GOP officials worry Hillary and the Democrats can run out the clock on incriminating emails before the 2016 presidential election. Knowing how Hillary polls against all challengers, the GOP looks for any way possible to get political traction. “Ultimately, this is something Congress must solve,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest, trying to put the ball back in Boehner’s court. White House officials must make a stronger case against House budget blackmail to get their subpoena requests answered. No Cabinet level-department, especially one with national security at stake, should have their budget held hostage.
Congress withholding $700 million or 15% from the State Department warrants an immediate court injunction by the White House. There’s no fig leaf on the GOP brazen abuse of funding authority, holding back national security-sensitive State Department funds purely for political reasons because Gowdy can’t get what he wants to crucify Clinton. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest couldn’t get it more wrong that it’s Congress’s job to control the purse strings. Congress has a right to deal with budgets but no partisan faction has a right to withhold funds for partisan reasons. “The propose 15 percent cut to the State Department operating funds if officials don’t feed the sham investigation of Benghazi is simply atrocious,” said Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.). While Republicans insist the funds withheld aren’t related to national security, they’re admitting the funds are withheld for political reasons.
Insisting the State Department emails haven’t been released to Gowdy’s Benghazi Select Committee deliberately, panel spokesman Jamal Ware questioned why the bulk of Hillary’s emails haven’t been released. Suggesting that Democrats are covering up some nefarious plot due to Hillary’s culpability in Benghazi’s lax security defies all common sense. Holding a Cabinet official responsible for a terrorist attack in a remote part of North Africa infested with Islamic extremists takes partisan politics to new heights. After Sept. 11, Democrats weren’t blaming former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for failing to beef up the CIA or FBI’s budget for failing to uncover Osama bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Only a federal judge can stop the partisan madness in the GOP-controlled House. Holding the State Department hostage can’t be tolerated.
