https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trey-gowdys-benghazi-surprise/2016/04/13/dd861754-01ab-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2FstoryBy Dana Milbank Opinion writer April 13 at 6:42 PM
Is Trey Gowdy planning a July surprise?
The chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi went to ground after he and his colleagues grilled Hillary Clinton in October. They haven’t had a single hearing since then (and had only three public hearings before that one), though they occasionally send news releases reminding the world that their 700-day-old investigation continues.
But that is about to change. Gowdy, after blowing through several previous deadlines he set, has said to expect a final report “before summer,” and Republicans say they are drafting it now. In another indication that the rollout is approaching, Gowdy last month stopped giving Democrats transcripts of witness interviews. This move, ostensibly to prevent leaks, diminishes the minority’s ability respond to allegations contained in the majority report.
Depending on how long the declassification review takes, the Benghazi report is on track to drop by mid-July, just before Congress recesses for the conventions and at a time when Republicans will be in need of a distraction from the Trump-Cruz standoff. If the review takes longer (they typically last from a few weeks to a several months), it could come out in September, in the campaign’s homestretch.
Either scenario would confirm what critics of the panel have said all along (and what Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy incautiously confirmed) — that the panel is a political exercise designed to damage Clinton. Fox News host Greta van Susteren, writing in the Huffington Post a year ago, argued that “dragging the investigation into 2016 looks political” and that releasing the report right before the election “looks awful” and “sends a bad message about fairness.”
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