Medicine Man
Member
"Democrats on the special House panel investigating the 2012 Benghazi attacks have accused Republicans of conducting the committee’s work without them and withholding information that would undermine the credibility of the panel itself, according to three letters obtained by Yahoo News.
The previously unreported letters, sent by Democrats to the special select committee’s chairman, Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, underscore ongoing Democratic concerns that the panel is a partisan witch hunt rather than a neutral attempt to uncover the truth. At the same time, Democrats contend that the panel’s tactics reflect the heat Republicans are feeling to produce an outcome different from those of the previous seven congressional reports, which debunked the conservative conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks.
At the heart of the Democrats’ grievance is that Gowdy and his staff have been interviewing witnesses behind closed doors and without the presence of Democratic members or staff, after promising both publicly and privately that the committee’s work would be bipartisan. Democrats say they have spent “hundreds of hours” trying to address their concerns with Gowdy privately and have been rebuffed on a request to vote on establishing rules for the committee’s work, according to a letter to Gowdy dated Jan. 23.
“Chairman Gowdy will talk to Benghazi sources with or without the Democrats present, just as they are welcome to talk to sources with or without Republicans present,” said Gowdy spokesman Jamal Ware in a statement. “Further, that the Democrats have released correspondence that attempts to politically characterize sources’ private discussions with the committee without proper context goes to the exact heart of why the chairman will not require sources to talk to both sides.”
The committee is scheduled today to hold its first public hearing since being reauthorized for the new Congress. Earlier this month, Republicans quietly re-upped the committee by including its reauthorization language in a giant, must-pass House rules package, effectively blocking an up-or-down vote on whether to continue to spend up to $3 million to run the special panel."
