Benghazi Committee Turns 2 Years Old, But Still Isn’t Done

WASHINGTON — Remember the House Select Committee on Benghazi? The ninth official probe into what really happened in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. consulate in eastern Libya?

It turns two years old today, making it one of the longest-running special congressional investigations in history.

But so far, it’s reached no conclusions about the attacks, after the eight other investigations found a number of failures, but no signs of wrongdoing.

The only notable revelation by the committee, which has spent nearly $7 million, is that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept all her official email on an unsecured private server -- which the FBI is now investigating.

The committee has interviewed nearly 100 witnesses, including 75 that it says were never interviewed before.

Perhaps that’s enough. But as for shedding any more light on what happened on that night when U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed, it has yet to do so.

Members of the committee told Roll Call before going on vacation for all of last week that they were working diligently to come out with a report before the 2016 presidential nominating conventions in July.

Representatives for the committee declined to offer any updates for this article, but pointed to an extensive list of purported achievements on the committee’s website.

Democrats contacted by The Huffington Post had plenty to say.

“Republicans have now spent more than two years and nearly $7 million of taxpayer funds for the illegitimate purpose of bringing down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers, as Kevin McCarthy admitted,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the select committee, referring to an unintended admission by the second-ranking Republican in the House.

"It has been apparent since the beginning that the Select Committee on Benghazi would be little more than a politically motivated fishing expedition,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) a senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. He noted that if the costs of other agencies responding to the committee are included in the price tag, taxpayers are on the hook for about $20 million.

"As we get even closer to the 2016 general election, all but the most dedicated partisans have written off the committee and its tremendous cost as one of the worst investigative abuses in congressional history,” Schiff said.

“The Select Committee has discovered no new evidence that contradicts the core findings of the previous bipartisan and independent investigations,” Cummings said.

Cummings also noted that as the committee’s investigation has dragged on, Republicans have progressively cut Democrats out of its workings. Members of the minority are now only allowed to review transcripts of witness interviews, and only with a Republican staffer observing them. They’ve also been excluded from contributing to the committee's report.

“Two years and millions of dollars later, Republicans have lost any semblance of credibility as they continue to drag this out as close as they can to the election,” Cummings said.

To celebrate the committee entering its third year of existence, Democrats put together a list of 10 “lowlights” of its first two years. Among them are McCarthy’s admission of the political bent of the committee, similar to charges by Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) and a former investigator on the GOP staff.

The lowlights list also includes the condemnation of the committee by the Republican presumptive nominee for president, Donald Trump, who claimed to be thoroughly unimpressed with the committee after Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).

Trump called the committee “a total disaster” that “was not good for Republicans and for the country.” He also tweeted that Gowdy "failed miserably on Benghazi,” and called him “Benghazi loser Gowdy.”

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Benghazi Committee Turns 2 Years Old, But Still Isn’t Done