Democrats' fact sheet proves Benghazi committee purpose is to hurt Hillary Clinton politically

When the House Select Committee on Benghazi was created, Chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) was said to be a straight-arrow, former prosecutor who would run a fair investigation.   Sane people knew an eighth congressional investigation was unnecessary, but that's what congress does.

Nothing so far has happened to give the appearance of a fair and balanced investigation, however -- including Rep. Kevin McCarthy's inartful boasting on live TV that the committee had lowered Hillary Clinton's poll numbers.

Now the Democratic members of that select committee have released their own "fact sheet" to show what a partisan farce the committee has turned out to be.    This was reported by Daily Kos's Eric Lewis on October 6th.

1.  Before the Hillary Clinton emails became hot news last spring, Gowdy had outlined his plan for a wide range of interviews with all the agencies involved.   But since then, he has focused almost exclusively on Hillary Clinton herself and her advisers.    Gowdy never even invited heads of the Defense Department to testify, and the only interview with an intelligence official was with the CIA's head of Legislative Affairs regarding their delay in turning over documents.   No interviews with former Secretary(s) of Defense Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, nor with CIA Director David Petraeus, or with the key military officers.

2.  Gowdy's almost sole agenda has been investigation of Clinton's close associates in a witch-hunt.  Her long-time adviser Sidney Blumenthal was subpoened and questioned for seven hours, with 160 questions about his relationship and communications with Clinton and more than 50 questions about the Clinton Foundation, but fewer than 20 questions about the Benghazi attacks.    And not a single question about Ambassador to Libya Stevens, who was killed in the attack.

The only documents released to the public in the 17 months of the investigation thus far were the emails between Blumenthal and Clinton, which Gowdy ordered without consulting the Democratic members of the committee.   At the same time, Gowdy also unilaterally blocked the release of Blumenthal's actualy testimony, which could have exposed the committee's obsession with Clinton's emails rather than with Benghazi.

3.  Clinton's Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills was also interviewed for hours.   Immediately afterward, Republicans on the committee began leaking inaccurate information and isolated quotes designed to damage Clinton with unsubstantiated or previously debunked allegations.   Again, they refuse to release the transcript.    

This is the pattern that led Hillary Clinton to agree to testify before the committee only if it is a public hearing so that they cannot do that were her testimony.  As of now, she is scheduled for a public hearing on October 22nd;   but Gowdy does not plan to release the committee findings until "just months before the 2016 election" -- obviously timed for maximum negative impact on Clinton.

4.   In its 17 month witch hunt, Gowdy's committee has spent more than $4.6 million of tax payer money in what's being called one of the longest and least productive -- and most-unnecessary -- select committees in history.   It has lasted longer than the Select Committee on 9/11, longer than the Watergate investigation, or the John F. Kennedy assassination probe.   And of course every film clip or press release from Gowdy's office is fodder for the ad-makers for Republican political candidates -- which amounts to tax-payer funded political advertising for Clinton's opponents.

What are the chances that there will NOT be selective leaks of the committee's final report, without context or Clinton's explanation?   Even in the era of dirty-tricks politics, this is beyond the pale:   to use the official investigating power of Congress in a partisan witch-hunt to damage a presidential candidate.

The cynic in me says that Gowdy is veering away from the real substance of his committee's mission because he knows he will come up with nothing new on Benghazi, after seven other committees have already found no wrong-doing by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.    So he's playing the email card in hopes of coming up with . . . anything.

We can only hope this backfires on the Republicans.   With them in charge of the House, they can hold hearings on whatever they like.  It's certainly not the first time they've wasted taxpayer money on partisan pursuits -- i.e., spending millions on a defense of DOMA when the Department of Justice decided not to defend it before SCOTUS.

It's really up to the voters to turn these people out in 2016.   Unfortunately, they've fixed that, for most of them, by gerrymandering them into safe districts.

Ralph