We're now into the third hour of the Republican-led "investigation" of the
attack in Benghazi in 2012 Kill-Hill waste of time and money currently underway on Capitol Hill.
You can watch a live stream of the hearing here
Previous coverage of the hearing can be found here, here and here.
9:32 AM PT (Kerry Eleveld): GOP Rep. Mike Pompeo thinks he has Clinton cornered, suggesting that members of Clinton's "team" had met with Al Qaeda operatives in Benghazi shortly before the attacks. Clinton says she was aware of no such meetings. Pompeo calls it "deeply disturbing." Clinton says, "I'm sorry, which 'team' is this?" Pompeo: "We don't know exactly who... I don't know which one." Basically Pompeo's got nothing. Clinton, unfazed, says she has no idea to whom he's referring. Pompeo yields back his time, after getting quite possibly the biggest slap down yet.
9:47 AM PT: Republican Jim Jordan (OH) beating the dead video horse. Because Clinton said "Some have said" video prompted attack, it means she's lying, she knew the truth and lied to protect President Obama's re-election. In other words, the original talking points by the GOP that have been debunked in the past six investigations.
10:02 AM PT (Laura Clawson): Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ending the first round of questions, again points out that "we've had eight investigations. We've gone through this endlessly." Gowdy brags about the number of people the current committee has interviewed and the number of documents they've gone through, Schiff says, but he doesn't have any new substance. Gowdy likes to talk about this "fact-centric" investigation, so let's talk facts. Like the facts of the Stop Hillary PAC delivering 264,000 signatures demanding Clinton appear, and the next day the Republicans decided they wanted to have Clinton appear. Like the fact that the secretary of defense had been supposed to appear but that plan was abandoned. On and on, detailing ways Republicans have blatantly politicized this to target Clinton."There won't be a final conclusion, there won't be anything definitive about the work of this committee" because the final report will be so partisan.
"What is the core theory of their case?" Schiff asks of the Republican majority. He thinks it's that Clinton interfered with security in Benghazi and as a result people died. Would Clinton like to comment on this allegation, especially given that the ambassador was someone she considered a friend?
"Deeply distressing ... I would imagine I've thought more about what happened than all of you put together." Clinton says she took responsibility as a challenge and an obligation—as she expects her predecessors, Democrats and Republicans alike had felt after similar attacks—to make sure that what we could learn, we had learned, and to "create more understanding and cooperation" between the State Department and the Congress. In the past, a Democratic Congress worked with a Republican administration to respond after attacks in Beirut, after bombings in East Africa. That's what she's hoping for here.
Gowdy dives in to deny that "there is no theory of the prosecution, Mr. Schiff, because there is no prosecution." Gowdy is very insistent that "this is not a prosecution." Uh-huh. Which is why Republicans are always talking about Gowdy as a prosecutor. And in fact, Gowdy called himself a prosecutor right after he was appointed.
10:07 AM PT (Laura Clawson): Then Gowdy wants to talk about Sid Blumenthal's work for the Clinton Foundation, Media Matters, and others. And about the meaning of the word "unsolicited," because Gowdy continues to want "unsolicited" to mean "actively not wanted" vs. "not actively asked for." "I don't want to parse words," Gowdy says, as he parses the hell out of words. Because, see, Clinton once responded by saying "anything else to convey" in the context of a chatty, friendly email to an old friend, so she was soliciting him by being polite and friendly. "I said it began that way [unsolicited]," Clinton responds. Some of Blumenthal's emails were interesting, she says, including interesting to experts on the region.
Gowdy is hectoring and, uh, prosecutorial. Clinton almost seems a little amused at his tone.