Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House select committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks, is crying foul on the GOP-led investigation of the incident after learning that the panel's chair—Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina—
is fundraising off the issue. Here's
details from Martin Matisiak:
“From issuing a completely unnecessary subpoena to Secretary Clinton to Republican fundraising off of the tragedy in Benghazi, it appears that the Select Committee has given up any pretense of a legitimate investigation, and now has just become a surrogate for the Republican National Committee,” Cummings (D-Md.) said in a statement…
“This taxpayer-funded committee should focus on an investigation that ensures reforms are implemented to improve the safety and security of our officials serving overseas,” Cummings added.
Rep. Gowdy is
speaking at a March 19 event aptly called "Beyond Benghazi," which is most definitely beyond Benghazi in the sense that it has more to do with Republican National Committee coffers than the actual tragedy itself. There's nothing like fundraising off an incident that led to the death of a committed and well-respected U.S. diplomat. Way to keep it classy, RNC.
Gowdy's Benghazi panel—which has become a witch hunt for information that would politically harm Hillary Clinton—had been floundering until the controversy surrounding Clinton's use of a private email account while she served as Secretary of State. Gowdy has subpoenaed Clinton's emails, saying, "There are gaps of months, and months and months." Democrats insist the subpoena is unnecessary since she has released some 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department.
"We urge you to withdraw the ill-considered subpoena — whose issuance to a cooperating witness served only to highlight the increasingly partisan nature of the Committee's focus — and to immediately publish the Secretary's emails in their entirety, as she has requested,” the five lawmakers said Friday in a letter to Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).