WH: GOP-led Benghazi panel under pressure to justify its existence

A White House spokesman said Monday that the House committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, will be under pressure to “justify their own existence” when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies this week.

{mosads}Press secretary Josh Earnest said comments by two Republican lawmakers suggesting the panel’s true purpose is to derail Clinton’s presidential campaign have undermined its credibility.

“My expectation is that those Republican members of the committee are going to come loaded for bear when Secretary Clinton comes before them because they are under a lot of pressure to produce,” Earnest said. “The pressure will really be on them, frankly, to justify their own existence.”

Clinton’s testimony on Thursday is seen as a pivotal moment for the GOP-led investigation into the Benghazi attack and for the Democratic front-runner’s presidential aspirations.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) have both said the aim of the committee is to damage Clinton’s standing in the 2016 race. McCarthy later walked back his comments.

The comments were a political gift to Clinton because they undercut claims by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the Benghazi committee chairman, and other top Republicans that the panel’s sole purpose is to investigate the attack, which happened under Clinton’s watch as secretary of State.

They also could allow Clinton to go on the offensive against the panel if asked about the controversial personal email server she used at the State Department.

Gowdy urged his GOP colleagues in an interview this weekend to stop making damaging statements about the committee.

“I get that there’s a presidential campaign going on, but I have told my own Republican colleagues and friends, ‘shut up talking about things you don’t know anything about,’ ” Gowdy said during an interview on CBS’s “Face The Nation” in response to a question about comments from Republicans linking the investigation to Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.