“Disband the Benghazi committee!” wrote Congressman Adam Schiff in a New York Times op-ed today, because “after 16 months and more than $4 million, the committee has gained no additional insight into the attacks in Benghazi.”
The California Democrat argued that “the Select Committee became little more than a partisan tool to influence the presidential race, a dangerous precedent that will haunt Congress for decades.”
Since its formation, the Select Committee on Benghazi has been aimless and slow moving, not knowing what it was looking for or where. It has acted in a deeply partisan way, frequently failing to consult or even to inform Democratic members before taking action, and selectively leaking information to the press. After 16 months and more than $4 million, the committee has gained no additional insight into the attacks in Benghazi. It has nothing new to tell the families of those killed or the American people.
Schiff accused the panel of using the investigation “as a cudgel against the likely Democratic nominee for president.”
“The committee is solely concerned with damaging her candidacy, searching for something, anything, that can be insinuated against her,” Schiff wrote in the op-ed.
Jamal Ware, spokesman for the Benghazi committee, blasted Schiff in an email to reporters.
“You all need to ask Mr. Schiff how it is he has drawn these conclusions since he has only seen fit to attend one hour of one witness interview since the committee was constituted,” Ware said.
The GOP-led panel put out the following tweet hitting back against Schiff’s NYTs oped:
This Democrat has attended only one hour of one #Benghazi interview. The Committee has held more than 45. pic.twitter.com/Olhn50m4lN
— Benghazi Committee (@HouseBenghazi) September 4, 2015
As you may recall, two members of the Benghazi Annex Security Team challenged Congressmen Schiff and Adam Smith (D-WA) to a debate on Fox News last fall after the Democrat congressman essentially accused them of lying about the stand-down orders they say they received.
Mark Geist and Kris Paronto wrote in their book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi” that they disobeyed the stand-down orders and rushed to the sound of guns on 9/11/2012.
A week later, Congressman Smith agreed to appear on Hannity to face the two special operators and it did not go well for him.
Smith could have used some back-up, but Schiff, who usually jumps at the chance to be in front of TV cameras, was AWOL for the debate with Geist and Paronto, too.
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