http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/246629-clinton-benghazi-panel-a-charadeJuly 01, 2015, 09:52 am
Clinton: Benghazi panel a ‘charade’
By Ben Kamisar
The House Select Committee on Benghazi is a “charade,” Hillary Clinton’s campaign charges in a new video blasting the committee for wasting taxpayer money on politics.
“The Benghazi Select Committee is spending $8,000 a day in taxpayer money to keep digging,” the video says in on-screen text.
“How long will Republicans keep spending tax dollars on this political charade?”
The video, released by the campaign’s rapid response website, cobbles together clips almost exclusively from Fox News where anchors comment on the story or question politicians on the committee’s motivations. The only piece from another network, MSNBC, shows Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC arguing that the investigation has proved conspiracy theories over the 2012 attacks that killed four Americans to be false.
The Fox News anchors point out that the committee’s report will be delayed until the election year of 2016, and ask committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) why questions to former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal about her 2008 campaign were “relevant.”
When asked whether he knows more about the attacks now after hearing from Blumenthal, Gowdy says on Fox News that “No, but I never expected Sidney Blumenthal to be able to tell me that anyway.”
It's the second video released by the team as part of its push back against criticism of Clinton. The first installment took on a controversial book that accused her of favoritism in the donations her family foundation has provided.
A spokesman for the committee has not yet returned a request for comment about the video.
The video comes as Correct the Record, a super-PAC working with the Clinton campaign, is publishing a memo criticizing Gowdy for “inconsistencies” on his committee’s investigation.
The memo, given first to The Hill, juxtaposes Gowdy’s statement from April that subpoenas are “a little heavy handed” with the committee deciding to subpoena Blumenthal and criticizes the committee for leaking that subpoena and other information after stating in an interim report that “serious investigations” don't leak.
The memo also accuses the committee of politicizing the investigation through, among other charges, referring to Clinton's use of a private email address as a “scheme to conceal” emails in a press release from March.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the committee’s ranking member, has repeatedly bashed the committee’s Republicans over alleged leaks and selective releases.
The video came out the morning after the State Department released another batch of Clinton emails from her private email server that she used at State. Clinton gave State about 50,000 emails that she said could have been considered official.
