#DishonestDems can’t keep their misleading claims straight

June 10, 2016
Blog Post

By Majority Staff

The Washington Post Fact Checker recently gave Rep. Elijah Cummings two Pinnocchios for his false claim about the Benghazi Committee’s cost. And PolitiFact previously reported as “false” the accusation the committee was “the longest-running congressional investigation ever.”

You’d think the dishonest Democrats would have gotten a calculator by now. Apparently not:

  • On Friday, Cummings claimed the committee has conducted a “three-year attack on Hillary Clinton.”
  • But just 10 days before, Cummings referred to “the Select Committee’s two-and-a-half-year attack on Secretary Clinton.”
  • Regardless of the fact Benghazi Committee Democrats apparently believe 10 days equals half a year, their own website says the “Select Committee on Benghazi has been investigating for 764 Days.”
  • As anyone with a calculator can easily determine, that’s only two years and 34 days.

Of course, the Obama administration’s serial delays in producing documents to the committee during that time total more than 10,000 days – the equivalent of over 27 years. (Separately, this week the State Department defended its assertion that releasing emails sought through some FOIA requests would take 75 years. That’s not a typo!)

Furthermore, the State Department confirmed just last month the Benghazi Committee went the extra mile to complete its investigation as soon as possible by helping the State Department get extra funding to respond to congressional requests for documents.

Chairman Gowdy responded to Cummings’ absurd mischaracterization in a letter earlier this week:

[Y]ou admitted the Majority’s questioning of the former Secretary’s Deputy Chief of Staff was “overall fair.”   So whatever your motivation is for mischaracterizing this Committee as a “two-and-a-half-year attack on Secretary Clinton,” that allegation is not based in fact or reality.  When the witness transcripts are released – and they will be – the public will be able to judge whose questions evidenced an obsession with the former Secretary of State and whose did not.

Consider these facts: the Majority did not publicize its August 2014 discovery of the former Secretary’s use of personal email for official government business,  did not reveal its March 2015 subpoena of her Libya-related public records until she denied its existence,  did not attempt to take possession of her private server,  did not grant her IT staffer immunity in exchange for his testimony, and did not require her to raise her right hand in public prior to her testimony, instead administering the oath privately.   The Majority also never promised a predetermined outcome to this investigation.  Even Rep. Schiff recently conceded this Committee is not investigating the former Secretary’s private server.   So while her emails have never been the focus of our investigation, it was necessary to obtain the ones related to Libya, and this Committee is the first and only Benghazi investigation to do so. …

My decision to conduct a fair investigation focused on the facts stands in stark contrast to your approach.  Several news outlets have taken note of your focus on acting as the former Secretary’s “defense attorney,”  “chief defender,”  “top supporter,”  “staunch defender,”  and “biggest defender.”   It has also been reported she is “personally grateful”  for your constant attacks on this Committee.  As one news anchor concluded, “the Democrats have … [tried] to discredit and undermine their own committee.”   It is telling that when questioned by The Washington Post, your staff did not deny “strategic coordination with the campaign.”

114th Congress