Handing 67-former Secretary of State and Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton an early Christmas gift, 50-year-old Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Fox New Sean Hannity on national TV Sept. 30 that Benghazi Select Committee did its job discrediting Hillary’s presidential bid. While McCarthy and Hannity yucked it up on Fox News about Hillary’s sinking polls, the Republican establishment quaked to the core. McCarthy’s indulgence cost him as shoe-in to replace retiring House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Withdrawing his name for House Speaker Oct. 7, the GOP’s big problem is not finding a replacement but continuing their covert discredit Hillary strategy. When Rep. Trey Gowdy’s (R-S.C.) Benghazi Select Committee kept losing traction, the GOP shifted attention to Hillary’s use of a private email server while secretary of state [Jan. 21, 2009-Feb. 1, 2013].
Exposing GOP strategy to use a taxpayer-funded committee, chartered with fact-finding related to the Sept. 11, 2012 Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack that killed Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans, for political purposes hit the GOP strategy with a wrecking ball. GOP’s attempts to go after Hillary’s emails stand to backfire, as the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary get closer. McCarthy’s disclosure about the political purpose of the committee infuriated Gowdy, forcing McCarthy to withdraw his name for House Speaker. “This has become a partisan investigation,” Maj. Bradley Podliska, an Air Force Reserved intelligent offer, told CNN News. “I do not know the reason for the hyper-focus on Hillary Clinton,” said Podliska, speaking rhetorically. Even a politically naïve intelligence officer knows the GOP tried to derail Hillary’s presidential bid.
Weighing a 2016 presidential Run, 74-year-old VP Joe Biden, once heard all of Hillary’s vulnerabilities, especially about Benghazi and her use of private emails while secretary of state. Recent developments discrediting the GOP’s Benghazi and email strategy give Hillary’s campaign a much-needed shot-in-the arm, working against Biden’s decision. Unearthing the GOP’s dirty-tricks campaign against Hillary automatically helps her campaign, weighing against Biden’s bid. Podliska’s revelation about how the House Select Committee was used to discredit Hillary’s presidential bid confirms the GOP’s dirty tricks. Fired from the Select Committee in June for refusing to politicize the investigation, Podliska blew the whistle on the Benghazi investigation. “I was trying to conduct a objective, nonpartisan, thorough investigation,” Poliska told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
When you think of the GOP’s strategy to blame Hillary for the deaths of U.S. personnel at a remote outpost in a terrorist-infested part of North Africa, it’s incredulous that Hillary could be fingered at all. No Democratic Committee was formed after Sept. 11 to blame former President George W. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney or any member of the national security staff for some 3,000 deaths. Yet House Speaker Boehner, under relentless pressure from his Party’s right wing, approved May 2, 2014 the decision to form the Benghazi Select Committee. GOP presidential polling was running so badly at the time, 42-year-old Reince Priebus and Republican National Committee groped to find any way to discredit Hillary. Blaming her for Benghazi played nonstop on Fox News, until the GOP-dominated House finally approved the Benghazi Select Committee May 8, 2014.
Hearing Podliska’s revelations about the Benghazi Select Committee, Hillary called on GOP House leadership to shutdown the committee. “This committee was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans,” Hillary told the “Today Show” last week. When Hillary testifies before the Benghazi Select Committee Oct. 22, they’ll hear an earful about McCarthy’s detailed description of how the committee succeeded in knocking down Hillary’s poll numbers. McCarthy’s Sept. 30 disclosure to Hannity made Gowdy’s work next to impossible. If he grills Hillary Oct. 22, it will further confirm the intent the committee to discredit Hillary, backfiring on the GOP. If Gowdy avoids confrontation, it will prove Hillary’s point about the committee’s political purpose of damaging Hillary’s 2016 presidential run.
McCarthy not only shot himself in the foot, he hit the GOP’s covert “discredit Hillary” campaign with a wrecking ball. McCarthy couldn’t walk back comments to Sean Hannity, eventually forced to withdraw his name to replace House Speaker John Boehner. While the GOP will eventually get the right replacement with House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the damage to the GOP’s defeat Hillary strategy has been irreversible. Whether throwing mud at Hillary about Benghazi or private emails, the public’s growing skepticism with the GOP puts Hillary in a strong position going forward. Biden’s fateful decision to run or not run was partly related to Hillary’s sinking poll numbers. Now that Hillary’s stock’s bound to rebound, it takes away a big part of Biden’s reason for running. With Podliska’s whistle-blowing, it gives Hillary new energy heading into 2016.
