I will make this short but didn't see any diaries specific to this today or last night.
While there are a lot of people behind Hillary yesterday, from supporters, staff, government officials, and House Democrats, I wanted to highlight someone who went out of his way to give her assists at important points in the day: Rep. Adam Schiff.
Schiff did a number of things yesterday to expose this hearing for what it was.
He took on the Sidney Blumenthal issue forcefully:
Schiff said he couldn't release the transcript of Blumenthal's testimony himself, but could discuss "Sidney Blumenthal by the numbers."
"Republicans asked more than 160 questions about Mr. Blumenthal's relationship with and communications with the Clinton Foundation," Schiff said. "But less than 20 questions about the Benghazi attacks.
"Republicans asked more than 50 questions about the Clinton foundation," he said. "But only four questions about the security in Benghazi."
"Republicans asked more than 270 questions about Blumenthal's alleged business activities in Libya but no questions about the U.S. presence in Benghazi," Schiff said.
Schiff added that Republicans asked about the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America, which Blumenthal worked for, but didn't ask about Ambassador Chris Stevens or other U.S. personnel who were killed in the Benghazi attack.
Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), a Democrat, observed that for all the time the panel has spent on Blumenthal, you’d think “that he was in Benghazi on the night, manning the barricades.”
He and Rep. Cummings provoked Gowdy into a fight on the Blumenthal transcript, and essentially turned the issue around so that the majority looks like the secretive ones by bringing Blumenthal into this--not Hillary.
He was shaming Gowdy constantly:
8:10 p.m.: Rep. Schiff and his fellow Democrats are now doing everything they can to shame Chairman Gowdy into bringing the hearing to a close. "Your testimony has gone on longer than all the other hearings we've held combined," Schiff told Clinton. "But in the interest of disclosure, we haven't done very much."
1:11 p.m.: Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Chairman Gowdy clash over whether the panel is trying to prosecute Clinton or investigate the terrorist attacks. (You can probably guess which lawmaker argued each point.)
Gowdy's defensive "this is not a prosecution" monologue (a) looks bad, and (b) is playing on a lot of news sites today.
None of this takes away from the efforts of others (Adam Smith and Elijah Cummings in particular), and of course, Hillary herself. But I was impressed that Schiff came ready to fight and thought that a diary giving him some kudos would be appropriate.
(Disclaimer: I don't know Schiff, don't work for Schiff, live over a thousand miles away from his district, and don't know much about him other than his conduct yesterday.)