Allegations of targeting Clinton ‘baseless,’ Benghazi chairman says

The chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi is dismissing allegations of partisanship aimed at derailing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as “baseless.”

{mosads}Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said the committee’s hearing with Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal does not represent a disproportionate “pivot” in the investigation toward Clinton’s private email server.

“What is relevant to our Committee’s jurisdiction is the Secretary’s reliance on Sidney Blumenthal for advice and counsel on matters, inter alia, related to Libya/Benghazi,” Gowdy said in a letter on Sunday responding to the ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). [READ LETTER BELOW.]

Gowdy said there is evidence Blumenthal may have “conveyed false and unreliable information to Secretary Clinton about Libya and misrepresented it.”

“This hardly evidences your baseless allegations of a ‘pivot’ toward the Secretary or her email,” he added.

The South Carolina lawmaker added that there has only been one interview conducted by the panel explicitly on the topic of the Clinton’s private email server. That witness, Bryan Pagliano, the IT staffer who set up Clinton’s server, invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Gowdy said the investigation is only interested in Clinton’s private email server insofar as it can shed light on the former secretary of State’s actions leading up to, during, and in the immediate aftermath of the 2012 terrorist attack that left four Americans dead.

“Accessing this information is indispensable if we are to do what the House of Representatives asked us to do which is write the final, definitive accounting of what happened before, during, and after the attacks in Benghazi,” Gowdy said.

The committee interviewed senior Clinton aide Huma Abedin for six hours on Friday.

Clinton is expected to testify in a hearing on Thursday.

Read Gowdy letter

Read Cummings letter