As Clinton prepares to testify, Benghazi panel comes under fire

WASHINGTON — Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has batted back criticism from fellow Democrats and sparred with her 2016 Republican competitors in what has already become a heated presidential election cycle. On Thursday she will square off against some of her fiercest political foes when she testifies before the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Benghazi. 

Clinton is expected to endure an hours-long grilling from the panel’s Republicans, who, since the committee’s formation in 2014, have aggressively questioned her actions, as secretary of state at the time, surrounding the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that resulted in the deaths of four Americans.

But even as she takes the hot seat, the committee has become mired in controversy, with allegations swirling that it has become a nakedly partisan enterprise concocted by the GOP to damage Clinton’s presidential prospects.

The committee’s work — initially billed as a wide-ranging effort to uncover what, if anything, Barack Obama’s administration could have done in coordination with federal agencies to prevent the attack and whether any top officials were involved in criminal wrongdoing — has instead become consumed with Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state, a fact discovered during the course of the committee’s investigation.

The perception that the committee’s work, at a cost of $4.5 million, has become overtly political has been fueled in part by comments from Republican lawmakers themselves.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., then a candidate for speaker of the House, told Fox News in late September. “What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought.”

He later clarified his comments and was rebuked by his fellow Republicans, but the damage was done.

Last week another GOP lawmaker corroborated his comments. “Sometimes the biggest sin you can commit in D.C. is to tell the truth,” Rep. Richard Hanna, R-N.Y., told a local radio show. “This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton.”

Bradley Podliska, a former Republican staff member of the committee, has also come forward, claiming he was fired for trying to conduct a fair and thorough investigation.

“My nonpartisan investigative work conflicted with the interests of the Republican leadership, who focused their investigation primarily on Secretary Clinton and her aides,” he said in a statement through his lawyers earlier this month.

Podliska, an Air Force Reserve major who describes himself as a conservative Republican, said he plans to formally launch a lawsuit against the committee in the coming months.  

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the chairman of the select committee, has defended the panel’s investigation and said the controversy swirling around it is simply an effort to discredit its findings. He said in an interview with Politico that he hoped the public will see the truth when Clinton testifies on Thursday.  

“The only thing I can control is what we do,” he said. “We’re going to have a very fair and fact-centric hearing on Thursday. I trust the folks that matter the most, outside the D.C. world — they’ll reach the right conclusions, and we’ll ultimately be judged on the work.”

Still, Clinton and her allies find themselves no longer on the defensive about the committee’s probe and are attacking the GOP for how it has been conducted. Earlier this month, during the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, Clinton called the panel “basically an arm of the Republican National Committee.”

Their claims are bolstered by the fact that she has been cleared of wrongdoing by seven other congressional committees, none of which have found evidence that she acted inappropriately.

“Republicans have now admitted repeatedly that they are spending millions of taxpayer dollars to damage Secretary Clinton’s campaign for president,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the ranking member of the committee said in a statement on Monday, upon the release of a 124-page report by the panel’s Democratic members rebutting Republican allegations about Clinton. “It’s time to bring this taxpayer-funded fishing expedition to an end.”