House Oversight Committee ‘The Security Failures of Benghazi’ Oct. 10 2012 | Photo via Wikipedia Commons
ADDICTING INFO
It’s been over a year since the latest Benghazi sideshow committee went to work on trying to find something with which to smear Hillary Clinton. During that time, the Democrats on the Committee have tried to expose the investigation for what it is: a political witch hunt. And the GOP unabashedly raised money on it, as well.
They’ve trotted out “witnesses” like Mark Thompson, Greg Hicks and Eric Nordstrom, hoping for some kind of dirt. They even managed to get hold of Hillary’s emails and… surprise!… there is nothing in them to validate any of the right’s myths about Benghazi. No “stand down” order was ever given, something those of us with brains have known for a long time. The CIA told us this back in November of 2012, but that wasn’t good enough for the crazies.
Now the Democrats on the Committee are standing up and calling out the Republicans, who, by the way, are saying that they will sit on any findings until just before the 2016 election. This is blatantly political. All the big words and lofty aspirations that Trey Gowdy trotted out in May of 2014 were nothing more than yet another smokescreen. One that has cost the American taxpayer over $3 million.
Writing an op-ed for The Washington Post, Rep. Elijah Cummings has called Gowdy and the GOPers out on their waste and high-handed tactics. He points out that the investigations in Benghazi have lasted longer than those of Iran-Contra, JFK’s assassination, the Pearl Harbor attack and Hurricane Katrina. He adds that, at the pace Gowdy has set, the investigations will last longer than the Watergate and 9/11 investigations. And cost another $3 million. Enough is enough:
“The committee should stop blaming others for its own delays. It waited more than six months to send a request for new documents to the State Department and nearly a year to send new document requests to the Pentagon and the CIA. The committee has not held a single hearing in 19 weeks, despite the chairman’s assertion that there would be public hearings on a monthly basis. It refuses to set a date for Clinton’s testimony, although she has been willing to appear since last year.”
Listen, when folks over at Fox News start to call you out, you might want to pay attention:
“Don’t tell me this investigation cannot get finished in 2015. Dragging the investigation into 2016 looks political – and worse, reports are that the Committee’s report will be released right before the 2016 election. That looks awful. It sends a bad message about fairness. Perception matters – big time!”
There have been nine — count ’em — nine separate investigations into the Benghazi fiasco. Not a single one of them found a conspiracy or any hint of a cover-up. Nothing we do now can ever bring back those four Americans who lost their lives in Benghazi. We’ve discovered, to the best of our ability, why we lost them. But, with Hillary a 2016 Presidential candidate, the Republicans know that they must smear her and Benghazi is one way to do that. That they cause people pain in doing so means nothing to them. To Republicans, the end always justifies the means.
