Top Intel Dem: Hard to justify continuing Benghazi probe

The ranking Democrat of the House Intelligence Committee backed Hillary Clinton on Sunday, saying nothing new was learned from the former secretary of State and Democratic presidential front-runner’s testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

“After 17 months and $4.5 million, if we can’t say anything new, if we can’t shed any new light or be able to tell the families anything of particular significance that we didn’t know already, it’s very difficult to justify the continuation of this investigation,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told host John Dickerson on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Dickerson pointed out that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) earlier in show had said there was some new information about what Clinton knew on the night of the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others — that she knew it was a terrorist attack.

“That seems to be important if we expect people to tell us the truth when they are our leaders,” Dickerson said.

Schiff said it’s important, yes, but it’s not new information.

“We did an investigation that Devin was part of in the Intelligence Committee that looked at each conflicting stream of intelligence as they came in,” Schiff said.

Intelligence experts at the time of the attack and for eight to 10 days after it, he said, thought there were protests, but that turned out to be wrong.

“To criticize Secretary Clinton for relying on the best of intelligence that we had at the time seems to me wholly inappropriate,” he said. “Had she spoken frankly in contraction to what our intelligence agency was telling her, that may be something to criticize.”