Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Benghazi Select Committtee chairman, distanced himself from House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday morning, defending the committee’s actions and goals, which Gowdy claims are not political.
Just last week, McCarthy told reporters that the Benghazi committee has been successful in bringing down Clinton’s poll numbers. The Clinton campaign took this partisan attack and spun it into a campaign ad making Clinton appear to be the victim of pointless Republican rhetoric and an investigation that wastes taxpayer dollars.
“My first reaction is Kevin, you’re wrong,” Gowdy said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday. “If you look at what we’ve done, the 50-some odd witnesses we’ve already interviewed, not a single one has been named Clinton. The 50,000 documents we’ve accessed, … less than 5 percent have anything to do with her. She was the secretary of state at all relevant times, so of course, you have to talk to her. But we didn’t start with her and we’re not going to end with her,” the South Carolina Republican said.
Clinton will testify in front of the Benghazi committee on Oct. 22, where she will explain her role in the tragedy that claimed four American lives. Many view the investigations as a direct attack on Clinton, as it has led to the thorough investigation of her private email server she was secretly using while serving as secretary of state. At the end of each month, the Department of State has released a portion of the thousands of democratic candidate’s emails.
“The media has done every bit as much work as our committee, because number one you have better sources than I do, and number two it’s not my job to look into classified information or all aspects of her email. My interest in her email is that making sure … as it relates to Libya and Benghazi the record is complete and full.”
