Benghazi probe opens in Clinton’s shadow

Hillary Clinton and the 2016 contest for the White House hung like a shadow over the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s inaugural hearing on Wednesday, even as the panel’s GOP chairman insisted it would rise above politics.
 
In his opening statement, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) rejected arguments that it is time to “move on” from Benghazi, forcefully arguing that there are serious unanswered questions about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that left Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.
 
{mosads}”Some question the need for this committee. I respect your right to disagree, but the mark of a professional, indeed the mark of character, is to do a good job even if you do not think the task should have been assigned in the first place,” he said at the top of what is Congress’s eighth investigation into the deadly assault.

Democrats, who at one point had threatened to boycott the Benghazi investigation, said they hoped Republicans honored their promise for a nonpartisan investigation.
 
“I sincerely hope the select committee will stay on the course of constructive reform and keep this goal as our North Star,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the panel’s top Democrat, said in his opening statement.
 
But the difficulty of keeping partisanship at bay was highlighted by comments from Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), a former chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, who at one point charged that Clinton interfered with the Independent Accountability Review Board that reviewed what went wrong in Benghazi.
 
Jordan noted that one of the panel’s leaders, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, admitted in a previous congressional hearing that he was reporting back to senior staff at the State Department.
 
“He gives a heads-up to the very person he’s supposed to be investigating,” Jordan said. “So of course this thing wasn’t independent.”

Gowdy made similar claims about the review board last year, saying “there’s no objectivity” to it because the leaders were appointed by Clinton.  

Clinton was secretary of State at the time of the Benghazi attack, and Republicans have repeatedly attacked her handling of the episode and questioned why warnings from Libya about a deteriorating security situation were ignored.

Democrats have portrayed the GOP’s Benghazi panel as a “political stunt” aimed at generating negative publicity for Clinton, the presumed front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 2016.

Gowdy, a former prosecutor with a methodical style, on Wednesday made a concerted effort to keep the hearing focused on the security failures in Benghazi.

The other members of the panel followed suit, with the exception of Jordan, who was the only Republican to bring up Clinton during the more than hour-long hearing.

Jordan chided the State Department for not implementing the No. 1 recommendation from a best practices panel, which was the appointment of an Undersecretary for Diplomatic Security to prevent another Benghazi.
 
“I mean, talk about the arrogance of the State Department,” he said.
 
Jordan’s questioning prompted the hearing’s only partisan flap, as Cummings inquired why he didn’t direct his question to Greg Starr, State’s assistant secretary for diplomatic security.
 
Jordan replied that Cummings could use his own time to question Starr.
 
Gowdy repeatedly tried to show that the nearly three-hour hearing was above politics, at one point crediting a Democrat on the 12-member panel, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), for coming up with the subject of the session.
 
He also praised Cummings for asking for another public hearing in December for an update on State’s implementation of the review board’s suggestions, calling it a “wonderful” idea.

With the panel meeting only for the first time and lawmakers set to leave town to campaign for reelection, it was clear Wednesday that the probe could extend well past this year — and possibly into the presidential year of 2016.

Gowdy said keeping the investigation on track would be a challenge.
 
“You can disagree and still treat an issue with respect,” Gowdy told The Hill after the hearing.
 
However, “it’s tough in this town to keep politics out.”  

“That’s the challenge: to have this inquiry in such a way people respect the process,” he said.
 
Schiff expressed concerns that the panel would struggle to keep partisanship at arm’s length and that the committee “could take on a life of its own and be a committee in search of a mission.”
 
He predicted there would be “enormous pressure” on Gowdy to deliver “something sensational” to satisfy Republicans who have long suspected an administration-wide cover-up of Benghazi.
 
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) struck a cautious note about the panel’s future, saying its members would take the investigation “one step at a time.”

— This story was first posted at 10:46 a.m. and has been updated.