Next up on my investigations list: CNN.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)
declined to make a CNN appearance Sunday to defend against
allegations by a former investigator on the GOP's special Benghazi committee that it had almost exclusively focused its energies on a "partisan investigation" of Hillary Clinton.
Maj. Bradley Podliska, an intelligence officer in the Air Force Reserve who describes himself as a conservative Republican, told CNN that the committee trained its sights almost exclusively on Clinton after the revelation last March that she used a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. That new focus flipped a broad-based probe of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, into what Podliska described as "a partisan investigation."
The committee did, however, find to time to issue a statement to the
New York Times over the weekend:
"The committee vigorously denies all of his allegations," the statement read. "Moreover, once legally permitted to do (sic), the committee stands ready to prove his termination was legal, justified and warranted — on multiple levels.”
That statement failed to note that John Boehner had
handpicked Gowdy to keep Clinton's email issue in the public eye. Gowdy also went on attack, releasing a statement that accused CNN of shoddy journalism for airing Podliska's "sensationalistic and fabulist claims."
Wonder if Gowdy considers Kevin McCarthy's depiction of the committee's purpose "fabulist." Apparently, the fact that CNN invited Gowdy to participate in the segment wasn't fair and balanced enough.
A spokesperson for the Select Committee on Benghazi told POLITICO that CNN should have done more to vet Podliska in the first place and should have reached out to the committee to help determine which questions to ask.
Oh yes, that's absolutely what CNN should have done—gotten all its questions from the committee. Nothing could be more balanced than that.