The following article by Jennifer Granholm, former Governor of Michigan, Senior Adviser, Correct The Record and Senior Research Fellow, UC Berkeley’s Energy and Climate Institute is cross-posted from HuffPo:
Surprise! If you’ve been paying federal taxes for the past few years, then you’ve been funding a Republican hit job against Hillary Clinton. The House Select Committee on Benghazi’s investigations have bilked — in total — around $4.7 million in taxpayer dollars for their relentless, shameless, fact-free pursuit of damaging the Clinton campaign. When the Republicans take aim at “waste, fraud and abuse” they should set their sights on their own Benghazi Committee, shoot it, and put it out of our misery.
Today, Hillary Clinton will finally testify before the committee and its right-wing chair, Trey Gowdy. Still don’t believe that the committee is nothing more than a partisan smear campaign? Try these top ten facts on for size.
10. Ten is the number of congressional committees that have participated in Benghazi investigations over the years–contributing to 9 of the 11 different published reports on those tragic events. None of the investigations have found any evidence of wrongdoing by the administration.
9. Nine is the number of months since Chairman Trey Gowdy’s partisan committee has held its last public hearing. Gowdy has preferred to shroud his investigations in secrecy–so he and his staff can selectively leak information to the press and gin up damaging stories.
8. Eight is the number of current or former close Clinton confidants interviewed by Gowdy’s committee–as opposed to only 4 interviews with representatives from the Department of Defense. I wonder why Gowdy thinks Hillary Clinton’s personal assistant knows more about the incidents at Benghazi than DoD?
7. Seven is for seventy thousand–roughly the number of documents that the State Department has handed over to the Benghazi Committee for review. Remember that the cost to taxpayers isn’t just what the Committee itself spends–it’s what other agencies have to spend to meet their absurd, partisan demands. Estimates suggest the State Department has had to spend upwards of $14 million responding to congressional investigations into Benghazi.
6. Six is for the six thousand dollars in donations that Trey Gowdy just had to return to organizations linked to a shadowy anti-Hillary Clinton PAC – whose treasurer used to serve as the treasurer for Gowdy’s own political committee. What a coincidence!
5. Five is for the number of permanent House committees (including the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs!) that have spent less taxpayer money in 2015 than Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi Committee.
4. Four is for the four years that Hillary Clinton served this country as Secretary of State–a tenure of accomplishment that has been praised by Democratic and Republican officials alike. Four is also for the four seconds it took after Hillary Clinton announced her presidential campaign for the Republican National Committee to begin to try to take her down.
3. Three is the number of Benghazi Select Committee press releases between March 4th and October 8th that don’t specifically mention Hillary Clinton. Twenty-six press releases DO mention these things. Remember when Trey Gowdy told us his committee wasn’t focused on Hillary?
2. Two is for the two Republicans in the House of Representatives – Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Richard Hanna — who admitted that the Benghazi Committee was set up intentionally to bring down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.
1. One is for the one man who is behind this whole witch hunt–Trey Gowdy– funded and supported by the Koch Brothers. Over the course of his shameful, multi-year smear campaign, Gowdy has gone from a mere two-term Congressman from South Carolina to a right-wing darling. He’s been discussed as a future Majority Leader, Speaker of the House, Supreme Court Justice, Vice President, even President of the United States. Ain’t politics grand?
