The day House Republicans have been building up to for months is finally here: Hillary Clinton is testifying before the Benghazi Committee that aims to destroy her. But where the Republicans expected to go into this moment with glee in their hearts as they got closer to their goal, things haven't worked out quite the way they expected.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy kicked off their problems by saying that "Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping." And then, lo and behold, the media started noticing that Chair Trey Gowdy's had been on a partisan mission all along, leading to "among the worst weeks of my life" for Gowdy. Some in the media even started directly calling out Republican Benghazi lies.
And so by Clinton Testimony Day, three in four Americans say the Benghazi Committee is political. Which is why the consensus is that the panel's Republicans will have to tread a little carefully ... except that they'll come under fire from their own base if they don't attack Clinton viciously enough. It's a delicate task, and delicate tasks are not exactly these guys' forte.
Settle in. It's likely to be a long, long day. The hearing begins at 10 AM ET and is expected to go into the evening.
7:03 AM PT (Barbara Morrill): You can watch a live stream of the hearing here.
7:18 AM PT: Trey Gowdy begins by putting on his prosecutor hat in a defensive filibuster about how absolutely truth-seeking and non-political the Benghazi Committee is. Naturally, he badly exaggerates at many points as he repeatedly invokes the idea of truth.
7:28 AM PT: Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings opens by detailing as much of the blatant evidence that Gowdy and his Republican members are absolutely politicizing this "investigation" as he has time for. There's quite a lot of evidence on that front. I mean, a lot. Really. But Cummings fights to convey as much of that as possible.
7:45 AM PT: Hillary Clinton begins by talking not about the committee's work or about the previous investigations into Benghazi, but about the people who died there, honoring them. "As secretary of state, I had the honor to lead and the responsibility to support nearly 70,000 diplomats and development experts across the globe. Losing any one of them, as we did in Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico, Haiti, and Libya, during my tenure, was deeply painful for our entire State Department and USAID family and for me personally."
She leaves no doubt of her strong sense of responsibility for the people involved and sorrow at their deaths, and she places herself firmly above the fray, before pointing out the many, many investigations into the events in Benghazi. Clinton then points out that diplomats go into dangerous places, know they are doing so, and that diplomacy requires it. She makes the case for continuing diplomacy despite this, warning against allowing any one tragedy to push America out of diplomatic efforts and into war as a first resort; and cites previous attacks on American diplomats, including during Republican administrations (she doesn't need to point out that Republicans weren't so outraged then, when it wasn't politically useful).
And finally, she briefly addresses recommendations of previous investigations, and highlights her response, and that of Secretary John Kerry, in implementing those recommendations. But, she points out, Congress is holding up some needed changes.
Clinton ends with a call to be above partisanship, saying she's here to honor those who were lost and "to do what I can to aid those who serve us still."
7:59 AM PT (Barbara Morrill): Republican committee member Pete Roskam's (IL) goal probably wasn't to point out that Clinton was an influential Secretary of State who did her job, but that seems to be the only thing he accomplished. Maybe he'll do better next time.
8:10 AM PT: Cummings begins with what Trey Gowdy previously said was his top unanswered question. "Why our people in Libya and Benghazi made so many requests for additional security personnel and equipment and why those requests were denied." But Cummings points out that this question has been asked and answered many times, and highlights the credentials of previous investigators, before returning to Gowdy's question, and asks Clinton as well to comment on the independence of the Accountability Review Board—the people whose qualifications he has just described. Clinton says, as—she points out—she has said before, she didn't hear, approve, or deny the requests for additional security, because that would not normally be the role of the secretary. But when the Accountability Review Board made security recommendations, she acted on them and created a new position to handle security concerns in high-risk posts. Security professionals are security professionals, she says, and she wasn't going to substitute her judgment for theirs.
Cummings reviews criticism of some State Department officials, criticism that's come up in several investigations. "The problem is Republicans just keep asking the same question over and over again and pretend they don't know the answer." He then moves on to one of Rep. Darrell Issa's more egregious claims that Clinton had personally denied security requests. In short, Cummings is shredding Republican talking point after Republican talking point. He throws it to Clinton on the question of how security requests were denied—a question he points out she's answered repeatedly. Clinton says she knows there's been confusion and welcomes the opportunity to clarify. Once again, State Department cables have the secretary's signature. It doesn't mean the secretary has read and approved every damn cable the State Department sends out, and the ones on Benghazi security did not hit her desk.
"There was no actionable intelligence," she says, about a planned attack on Benghazi. Clinton points to a funding shortage—ahem, Congress—that forced State to prioritize and reject some requests.