Panel to query Clinton today
GOP says focus is on facts, new batch of Benghazi emails
WASHINGTON — As the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepares to question former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today on the 2012 attacks in Libya, Republicans say they plan to focus on facts and new information during what is expected to be a lengthy testimony.
Scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., the hearing is to consist of four rounds of questions, with each of the panel’s seven Republicans and five Democrats getting 10 minutes for their inquiries.
On the Republican side, members have been cautioned by their chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a former prosecutor, to stick to the facts and avoid comments that would provoke Democrats, who accuse the committee of having a political vendetta against Clinton.
In the buildup to the hearing, the first time Clinton has testified on the matter since January 2013, a week before she left office, Republicans have accused committee Democrats and President Barack Obama’s administration of continuing to withhold crucial information about the attacks.
Gowdy said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation that questions would focus on what he said were emails the committee had “just received” in which U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, one of the four Americans killed in the attacks, asked the State Department to increase security during the months before the attacks. Another area of interest, Gowdy said, was a series of emails sent to Clinton’s private server by former aide Sidney Blumenthal concerning
Libyan politics before and after the attacks.
“The Committee just received nearly 1,300 new pages of Ambassador Stevens’ emails, proving it is breaking new ground despite the Obama administration’s many delays,” said Gowdy spokesman Matt Wolking in a statement.
Democrats have countered that Gowdy and his team are lying about what documents they’ve seen and what they prove. “It’s a bunch of hooey,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told MSNBC on Tuesday.
Democrats are ramping up an offensive with coordinated messaging, rapid response and a bevy of memos, fact-checking documents and reports.
“Democrats, as we have all along, will seek to find any productive ground not covered by the prior eight investigations,” Schiff, a senior member of the committee, said in a statement. “We will also endeavor to make sure the Secretary is given fair opportunity to answer all questions and that the hearing stays within the scope of the committee’s jurisdiction.”
“If the Committee continues its abusive line of investigation, Democrats will have to consider how much longer our participation makes sense,” Schiff added.
Panel Republicans said they will grill the former secretary of state about the administration’s plans for a Libya post-Moammar Gadhafi, about pre-attack security requests, and about emails regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks that weren’t originally provided to the State Department.
Although virtually all of the committee’s attention, and that of previous congressional investigations, has focused on the lack of security at the Benghazi diplomatic compound, only Stevens and State Department communications specialist Sean Smith were killed there. Both died of smoke inhalation while seeking refuge in a supposed “safe room” from militants who set the buildings on fire.
The two other Americans who were killed, security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, died from mortar fire in an attack about seven hours later at a nearby CIA “annex” where U.S. intelligence agents, on a separate mission, were based.
In testimony released Wednesday, Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, said a “devastated” Clinton worked late into the night after the attacks, trying to protect her staff in Benghazi.
But the former secretary of state was “deeply engaged” in ensuring the others made it home, said Mills, who spoke for 9½ hours to the committee last month.
No new evidence was introduced to suggest that Clinton or any other top official ordered the military to “stand down” during the siege of the diplomatic post or a subsequent attack on a nearby CIA facility. Mills also rejected the idea that Clinton personally denied requests for more security or ordered Stevens to Benghazi that evening, or that U.S. officials engaged in an elaborate gun-running scheme from eastern Libya.