Testifying before 51-year-old Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-S.C.) Benghazi Select Committee Oct. 22, former Secretary of State and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to expose on national TV the committee’s partisan charade. When former shoe-in for House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) yucked it up with Fox News Sean Hannity Sept. 28, bragging how Gowdy’s committee hurt Hillary’s poll numbers, the GOP’s dirty little secret came out: That the Benghazi committee was a political ploy to damage Hillary’s 2016 chances. Common sense didn’t prevail when House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) authorized the formation of a Select Committee May 2, 2014 to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi terror attack that killed U.S. Libya Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Gowdy’s committee started out on the right foot but quickly turned into a partisan witch-hunt.
Only two months before the 2012 presidential election, the Benghazi attack rocked the White House, especially its feeble response after the incident. Instead of Gowdy trying to figure out why former U.N. Amb. Susan Rice went on Sunday morning talk shows blaming the attack on “spontaneous rioting,” Gowdy’s committee shifted all attention to Hillary. While claiming to only go after the facts, McCarthy, chief instigator former Air Force Maj. Bradley Podliska and Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), admitted the Select Committee was designed to discredit Hillary’s 2016 campaign. Gowdy can deny the obvious but Hillary will remind him of the growing body of evidence proving the House Select Committee was a sham. While Boehner thought it appropriate to investigate Hillary for security lapses in Benghazi, no such call was made against Bush and Cheney after Sept. 11.
Only recently has the GOP food fight between 2016 front-runner real estate mogul Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush erupted over the security breach on Sept. 11. Trump emphasized the fact that Sept. 11 happened on former President George W. Bush’s watch, while Jeb insisted his brother kept the country safe. No GOP member on the Benghazi Select Committee considers how unreasonable it is to hold a Cabinet official responsible for a terrorist attack in a remote terrorist-infested part of North Africa. Yet any suggestion that Bush-43 or his VP Dick Cheney were asleep at the switch Sept. 11 is met with outrage. Whatever security lapses or poor intel in Benghazi, it had nothing to do with Hillary, a Cabinet secretary. Revelations by McCarthy, Podliska and Hanna point to a carefully orchestrated GOP strategy to damage Hillary’s chances in 2016.
When Hillary testifies Oct. 22, Gowdy walks a tightrope trying to look impartial while getting his last shot to implicate Clinton. “At this point, Trey Gowdy’s inquiry has zero credibility left,” said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon. Hillary referred recently to the Select Committee as an “arm of the Republican National Committee.” Hillary’s spokesperson doesn’t go far enough, admitting, that from the get-go, it’s absurd to blame a Cabinet secretary for a security breach halfway around the globe. Boehner’s original decision to form a Select Committee was driven by a carefully honed strategy by Reince Priebus and the Republican National Committee. With a slew of polls showing Hillary a shoe-in for 2016, the GOP had to do something to attack her credibility. Gowdy insists his panel “is not focused on Secretary Clinton . . . “ hoping to salvage what’s left of his committee’s credibility.
Declaring that his committee is not focused on Hillary, Gowdy could not be more disingenuous. He’s been caught in a potential trap that could lead to investigating the misuse of some $4.5 million in public funds for a political witch-hunt. Too many voices have come forward corroborating the political nature of Gowdy’s committee. “He’s a lot more patient that I would have been,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Ks.), partisan member of the committee. Pompeo refers to the State Department’s slow response to subpoenas for emails and other documents. While Pompeo insists that Gowdy is “bending over backwards” because of Democratic stonewalling, he doesn’t admit the inappropriate document requests. Gowdy used the committee’s subpoena power to delve into extraneous matters, not appropriate to Benghazi. Blaming Hillary for inadequate Benghazi security was always a stretch.
When Hillary shows up for her Benghazi testimony Oct. 22, she’ll have a wind at her back, with mounting evidence of a partisan witch-hunt. Gowdy can only do so much to continue to implicate Hillary in Benghazi’s lax security, risking more backlash on his committee. Had Gowdy focused on how the White House got its wires crossed after the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack, it would have been more fruitful. Former U.N. Amb. Susan Rice paid a draconic price telling Sunday morning talk shows that the attack was due to “spontaneous rioting,” not a carefully planned terror attack. Only two months before the presidential election, Gowdy could have made a case for a White House cover-up to help President Barack Obama’s reelection bid. Focusing too much on Hillary backfired on the committee, eventually revealing that Gowdy’s committee was indeed a partisan witch-hunt.
