Benghazi Czar Trey Gowdy (R-SC)
The House Benghazi Committee's investigation rolls on, having spent $3.5 million and counting. Up next,
a secret grilling of former Bill Clinton aide and longtime Bill-and-Hillary friend Sidney Blumenthal. Blumenthal sent then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a series of emails about Libya, and House Republicans are seeking to make this look like one of the root causes of the deaths at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Republicans want to know how the practice started, if it was really “unsolicited,” Blumenthal’s intelligence sourcing, if Clinton ever responded to or acted on his advice — and whether the handful of emails they already have comprise the entire scope of Clinton and Blumenthal’s correspondence on the matter.
Translation: Republicans want to imply that Blumenthal had information he shouldn't have had, that Blumenthal's information led Clinton to make decisions that endangered American diplomats, and that this was all done over email, emails Clinton has refused to turn over. That last means that not only do Republicans think Clinton and Blumenthal were engaged in a nefarious plot, but that they were so incompetent they did it over email. Jeez, guys, everyone knows you don't put big secrets in email!
This will not be the first time Blumenthal has faced this kind of Republican investigation of the Clintons:
Led by South Carolina chairman Trey Gowdy, Republicans will have to tread carefully to avoid Blumenthal vs. Ken Starr, Part II. Should analogies be made between this Benghazi deposition and Blumenthal’s last big Capitol Hill fight with the man who prosecuted Clinton for lying about the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal, it could damage the probe’s credibility.
And this is not a probe with a lot of credibility to waste. That's presumably one of the reasons Republicans elected to bring Blumenthal in without the press or the public witnessing it. Then, afterward, Republicans can leak dire rumors to their hearts' content as they continue to make the Benghazi investigation a prolonged, expensive, taxpayer-funded partisan attack on Hillary Clinton.