The White House on Wednesday charged that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy purposefully said the Select Committee on Benghazi was established to prevent former secretary of State Hillary Clinton from becoming president, because he was trying to “burnish his conservative credentials.”
McCarthy, who is still the front-runner to succeed House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has since rejected that he said the committee was formed to hurt Clinton, but the White House rejected that explanation.
“He said that after he said it was political,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest interjected when asked about the comment. “I think it’s quite clear in that trying to make the case to conservatives on Fox News” that the California Republican “was trying to burnish his conservative credentials.” And he did so by saying he was “instrumental in standing up a select committee” that has hurt Clinton’s presidential prospects, Earnest added.
McCarthy never explicitly said the committee was formed for the purpose of making Clinton look bad to voters in the 2016 election, but he did say the committee’s work has had that effect. “But no one would have known any of that had happened had we not fought and made that happen,” he said on Fox News.
Still, Democrats have accused McCarthy of admitting that hurting Clinton was the main intent of the panel, and Earnest reiterated that point Wednesday. Earnest said at the time, McCarthy seemed “quite proud” of the committee’s success in damaging Clinton.
As to whether Obama can work with McCarthy, or any of the other Republicans vying to replace Boehner as speaker, Earnest said that depends on the next leader’s views on issues such as funding the government and raising the debt ceiling.
Obama and Boehner disagreed often, and undoubtedly whoever succeeds the Ohioan will clash frequently with the White House, but the two shared “at least a usually functioning relationship,” Earnest said.
“But the real question is: Will the next leader of the United States House of Representatives be somebody who recognizes that ‘compromise’ and ‘bipartisanship’ are not dirty words?” Earnest asked.
