A former Benghazi staffer and Air Force intelligence officer has come out claiming that the Benghazi Committee had become partisan as they wanted to go after Hillary to bring her poll numbers down. As you see in this short clip, Gowdy responds to this staffer’s claims, calling it a damn lie in an interview with NBC News last night:
Below is Trey Gowdy’s full and strong statement dismantling this staffer’s claims. I’ve highlighted a couple of interesting parts:
One month ago, this staffer had a chance to bare his soul, and raise his claim this Committee was focused on Secretary Clinton in a legal document, not an interview, and he did not do it. Nor did he mention Secretary Clinton at any time during his counseling for deficient performance, when he was terminated, or via his first lawyer who withdrew from representing him. In fact, throughout the pendency of an ongoing legal mediation, which is set to conclude October 13, this staffer has not mentioned Secretary Clinton. But as this process prepares to wrap, he has demanded money from the Committee, the Committee has refused to pay him, and he has now run to the press with his new salacious allegations about Secretary Clinton.
To wit, until his Friday conversations with media, this staffer has never mentioned Secretary Clinton as a cause of his termination, and he did not cite Clinton’s name in a legally mandated mediation. He also has not produced documentary proof that in the time before his termination he was directed to focus on Clinton. The record makes it clear not only did he mishandle classified information, he himself was focused on Clinton improperly and was instructed to stop, and that issues with his conduct were noted on the record as far back as April.
Because I do not know him, and cannot recall ever speaking to him, I can say for certain he was never instructed by me to focus on Clinton, nor would he be a credible person to speak on my behalf. I am equally confident his supervisor, General Chipman, did not direct him to focus on Clinton.
In fact, when this staffer requested interns do a project that focused on Clinton and the National Security Council, he was informed by the Committee’s deputy staff director his project was ‘not approved.’ This individual was hired as a former intelligence staffer to focus on intelligence, not the politics of White House talking points.
On September 11th, in his mediation filing, this staffer specifically claimed his reserve status as a basis for his termination. I would note first this staffer’s reserve duty was approved both times it was requested.
In all of the interviews conducted since news broke of Secretary Clinton’s email arrangement, exactly half of one interview focused on Clinton’s unusual email arrangement. The Benghazi Committee has now interviewed 44 new witnesses, including 7 eyewitnesses to the attacks never before interviewed, and recovered more than 50,000 pages of new documents. Approximately 5 percent of those are Secretary Clinton’s self-selected email records. I cannot say it any plainer than stating the facts, the Benghazi Committee is not focused on Secretary Clinton, and to the extent we have given any attention to Clinton, it is because she was Secretary of State at all relevant times covered by this Committee’s jurisdiction.
“Had CNN contacted the Committee regarding its interview with this staffer before it rushed to air his sensationalistic and fabulist claims, it could have fully questioned him about his unsubstantiated claims. But that is the difference between journalism as practiced by CNN, and the fact-centric investigation being conducted by this Committee.
This Committee always has been, and will be, focused on the four brave Americans we lost in Benghazi and providing the final, definitive accounting of the Benghazi terrorist attacks for the American people.
Sounds like this staffer himself wanted to target Clinton at a time and was told no by the committee. As Lachlan Markay points out, this claim and the full statement by Gowdy should be easy to verify.
As the NRO points out, CNN claims it did contact Gowdy to have him on but he declined:
“We categorically deny Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy’s statement about CNN,” a network spokesperson said. “We reached out to the committee for a response prior to publishing or broadcasting, which the committee provided. That response was included in our reporting. In addition, Chairman Gowdy was invited to discuss this on CNN and declined. Chairman Gowdy is wrong.”
Perhaps I’m parsing, but it sounded like Gowdy was referring to be contacted before the interview, so that CNN could question the staffer about his ‘unsubstantiated claims’. But I could be reaching with that.