Testifying for 11-hours Oct. 22, 2015, former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton offered Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) nothing new. Whatever the emails released by Hillary or the State Department, there was nothing convincing about Hillary violating any rules related to unlawfully releasing classified or top secret information. “It was classified when it was on her server and it was classified when it was sent,” Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Ks.) told conservative radio talk show hose Lars Larson Jan.8. When House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) confessed Sept. 30 on Fox News’ “Sean Hannity Show” that the Benghazi Select Committee succeeded in weakening Hillary’s poll numbers, the rest of the GOP groaned. McCarthy’s gaffe exposed the Benghazi Committee’s true political intent.
Running out of time and logic, Gowdy’s Select Benghazi Committee won’t get the indictment from Obama’s Democratic Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch needed to pull the rug out from underneath Hillary’s presidential campaign. Pompeo wants the FBI and Justice Department to move quickly on something on which only members of the GOP’s Select Committee agree: That Hillary violated the government’s classified rules. “I think that there is only one answer that can be reached, and I am hopeful that will be the outcome that the FBI achieves,” said Pompeo, convinced that he’s got Hillary set up for FBI indictment. No one other than hard-core Republicans believe Hillary’s emails warrant criminal prosecution. “These are just the facts,” said Pompeo. “We’ve all seen the reports of the classified information on the server. It could not and should not have been lawfully handled the was she did it.”
Pompeo’s conclusions offer compelling proof of what McCarthy admitted to Hannity Sept. 30, namely, that the House Benghazi Select Committee was designed to sabotage Hillary’s presidential bid. Established May 18, 2014, the GOP’s Select Committee tried to prove, before the New York Times broke Hillary’s use of a private emails March 2, 2014, that Hillary breached her duty (a) to provide the Benghazi mission adequate security and (b) that she failed to respond the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack that killed 52-year-old Chris Stevens and three other Americans. When former U.N. Amb. Susan Rice, and current National Security Advisor, went on Sunday morning TV talks shows Sept. 15, 2012 blaming the attack on “spontaneous rioting,” the GOP went wild, charging a White House cover-up of an al-Qaeda terrorist attack less than two months before the 2012 presidential election.
Road block-after-roadblock prompted Gowdy & Co. to pivot to Hillary’s emails once it was pointed out that former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney were not blamed by Democrats for Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Holding Hillary responsible for a terrorist attack in the remote Libyan desert didn’t pass the smell test. Gowdy kept pounding on the idea that Hillary refused to beef up the Benghazi mission’s security, leaving the outpost vulnerable to a terrorist attack. When that didn’t fly, Gowdy’s committee went after Hillary’s private emails, insisting she violated the government’s strict rules on receiving-and-transmitting classified information. GOP officials did everything possible to walk back McCarthy’s Sept. 30, 2015 statements to Hannity about how the Benghazi Select Committee did its job of damaging Hillary.
When Republicans, like Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) admit “a big part” of the Benghazi Select Committee “was designed to go after . . . Hillary Clinton,” it calls for the committee to be disbanded. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi Committee, indicated the Pompeo’s remarks prove the committee’s bias against Hillary. “I think it’s inappropriate,” Cummings said. “It’s very unfortunate when we have a committee that is supposed to be about the business of finding our facts, for anyone to come out with those kinds of statements,” referring to Pompeo’s call for FBI charges and Justice Dept. indictment. Gowdy knows that his intense focus of Hillary’s emails was not part of his original mandate related to the events leading up to, during and after the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi attack. Nitpicking over the nature of classified emails exposes the Committee’s extreme prejudice.
Calling for Hillary to be charged by the FBI and indicted by the Justice Department shows that degree of desperation of the Benghazi Committee. Grilling former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today about whether or not Hillary ordered the U.S. military to “stand down” or not provide urgent military help after the terrorist attack, Panetta admitted it never happened. Whatever the real purpose of the Benghazi Select Committee, the GOP needs to reassess its strategy of sabotaging Hillary’s presidential bid. With real estate mogul and former reality TV star Donald Trump looking like strong GOP candidate, the Benghazi Select Committee has lost its utility. While the voting hasn’t begun yet, by all metrics, Trump looks like he’s on his way to locking up the GOP nomination. Regardless of anything found by the Benghazi Select Committee, the GOP looks in a better place to deal with Hillary.
