Cummings: Benghazi panel leaking lies

[alp227]

Source: The Hill

The top Democrat on the House committee on Benghazi says someone connected to the panel leaked false information to the media to attack Hillary Clinton.

“Documents released recently by the Benghazi Select Committee demonstrate that a Member of the Committee, a staffer on the Committee, or someone who has been given access to the Committee’s documents inaccurately described to the press email exchanges obtained by the Committee in a way that appeared to further a political attack against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said Monday in a letter to Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

Cummings specifically cited a June 18 Politico article where an anonymous source claimed to have read email exchanges among Clinton, her confidant Sidney Blumenthal, Media Matters and the White House about how to tamp down criticism of Clinton’s handling of the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.

Cummings noted that the emails, since released to the public, show there was no concerted effort to downplay the tragedy and that several of the descriptions provided by the source were inaccurate.

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/defense/246924-cummings-benghazi-panel-leaking-lies

[SunSeeker]

1. Disgusting. They’re so afraid of Hillary they're getting desperate. nt

[madville]

10. The GOP or the other Democrats in the primary field?

Or both, I expect attacks to start coming from all sides, especially when her primary opponents and/or their surrogates get desperate.

[passiveporcupine]

19. The gop

This has been a non-issue since it started and I think it's disgusting that the Gop won't let this go. But, think of it this way. They don't have anything stronger than this to try to bring her down and they are terrified of her, so their continued attacks just make them look bad and her look good.

Don't blame this on us Bernie supporters. Most of us are as disgusted by this as you are, and have been since it started.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. Smell the GOP fear.

[madville]

9. We are into campaign mode, leaks could be coming from either side

The leaks could be coming from either side at this stage, either GOP or Democrats who oppose Clinton in the primary.

[Deny and Shred]

11. Obviously, it isn't Cummings

He raised the objection. That leaves

Adam Smith (WA-09), Adam Schiff (CA-28), Linda Sanchez (CA-38), Tammy Duckworth (IL-08)

Which one believes in O'Malley, Webb or Sanders so much as to make an enemy of Hillary and her allies? Which of those three do you believe is dredging up Benghazi lies at this point?

Doing this wouldn't exactly be politically expedient for one of the committee members. Those three don't exactly have the resources nor party contacts to make their favors to a committee member outweigh the damage that Hillary and the DNC could do to their re-election chances.

[JudyM]

13. Could've been a staffer, as well. Nt

[Deny and Shred]

15. It was probably a Republican, though

That staffer would need to update their resume and hope to get their security deposit back.

[blackspade]

30. Why the effort to pin this on a Democrat?

That defies logic.

[delrem]

3. If this is OK,

if it's OK for highest ranking gov't officials, SoS, DoJ, etc., to run private servers so attaining absolute control over access to the public, however selective the criteria for that access is privately deemed to be and for whatever purpose, then this fact should be baked into law. "They did it in the GWB admin" ought not be accepted as a precedent establishing universal legality - that's for sure.

[Darb]

6. I am sure you can see Hillary's reasons for the server, no?

To protect herself from fishing expeditions. If you had been put through the malicious bullshit the Clinton's have, you would do all that the law allows to make it more difficult for dickwads like Malfoy (R - Slytherin) to conjur up bullshit to attack you.

The Clinton's didn't create this atmosphere, they are forced to live and work inside of it. Complaining about the server serves their purposes completely you know, right?

[candelista]

23. "Fishing expeditions"?

Is that what you call oversight by the democratically elected government that Hillary worked for?

[tanyev]

4. Seeing how all the other Benghazi investigations have produced absolutely nothing,

one might conclude that the leaking of lies is really the only purpose for the current Benghazi investigation.

[candelista]

24. Hillary made sure of that when she destroyed the evidence: 30,000 emails.

[Gothmog]

5. Trey Gowdy is just as unethical as Issa

This committee is pulling the same stunts that Issa used to pull

[marble falls]

7. Everything I've read in the "secret" e-mails shows and engaged and effective....

SoS. I was really angry when I found out about the "secret" e-mails and the use of private e-mails. But in the end there was nothing out of line hidden. The e-mails actually show a competent prospective President that I will vote for if Bernie Sanders doesn't get the nod.

I just wish she'd explain her positions on continuing in Afghanistan, Keystone, fracking, NSA.

[candelista]

25. Really?

You've read all the 30,000 emails that Hillary destroyed? Is that how you know there was "nothing out of line" hidden?

[emulatorloo]

26. I wouldn't believe Harold Watson "Trey" Gowdy III if his tongue came notarized.

HRC is too conservative for me, but there is no way in hell I'm going to align myself with the Republican Lie Machine.

If you want to promote their bullshit, knock yourself out.

[candelista]

27. You didnt answer my question, which has nothing to do with Trey Gowdy.

Hillary permanently deleted over 30,000 emails from her server before turning over the rest to the State Department. This is according to the New York Times and every other reliable news source, not Trey Gowdy. Here's a link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/us/politics/no-copies-of-hillary-clinton-emails-on-server-lawyer-says.html

So please answer my question: How do you know that "in the end there was nothing out of line hidden"?

[blackspade]

29. So what if she did delete? They were personal and not relevant to her SoS work.

Do I want to see e-mails about her daughters wedding plans?
Her estate planning? That would be a big fat NO.
No one wants their personal shit all over the internet or in the hands of GOP hacks.
What e-mails do you think are being hidden? To what end?
I'm no HRC fan, but this line of attack is bullshit.

[marble falls]

31. I'm a Bernie Sanders supporter, and I agree with you.

[dorkzilla]

34. hear hear! nt

[emulatorloo]

36. well said. n/t

[emulatorloo]

35. Because I don't give a shit about her personal emails and no amount of Benghazi innuendo

by Trey Gowdy or you is going to change that. If you and Trey want to dig around in HRC's panty drawer looking for fake scandal, knock yourself out.

[stonecutter357]

8. K&R!

[hollowdweller]

12. Benghazi looking more and more like Whitewater

Not finding anything damning but keeping the investigation going in hopes it can be used to rope any anything, even unrelated that can damage Clinton.

Right now we are sort of in the phase where Whitewater was when Fisk couldn't find anything, but the republicans could not accept it.

Next will somehow be to find something or some rumor in an excuse to expand the investigation and try to get more info, not necessarily about Benghazi but just anything embarrassing or bad about Clinton, like when they dumped Fisk and put Ken Starr in.

I'm really a Bernie supporter but this is really enough to make me want Clinton to win, carry a bunch of dems in with her and hopefully put a few on the supreme court.

[jalan48]

14. Wasn't this the point of the 'new and improved' Benghazi investigation?

Republican's have assumed Hillary would be the nominee so they need to keep the Benghazi scandal alive. They create yet another committee which has already declared it won't release it's final info until-wait-just before the 2016 election. I think they shot their wad long ago on Benghazi-the majority of Americans see through the charade.

[LiberalLovinLug]

17. IMO the goal isn't to find some damning evidence

after multiple committees that have found nothing. The goal is to keep the narrative going. Keep talking about Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi! whenever and wherever they can during Hillary's run. Because they know that with the idiocracy that is the Republican base, the more your repeat something, the more it becomes the truth, especially for things they REALLY REALLY REALLY want to believe.

[rtracey]

16. without a doubt

I find it extremely hard to fathom any committee coming up with evidence about the blame of Benghazi on Clinton. Too many committees have cleared the hurdles.... Just a Gowdy Power grab, and it will blow up in his face. The politics of the not releasing until after the elections shows how Gowdy/ Boehner are in this together to smear Clinton..... Trump is taking care of this for us. The GOP are a sad sack of shit....

[rpannier]

18. Gee... color... me... uh... ummm... yeah... shocked

or something like that

[C Moon]

20. Something's "Koching" (if prounced cook).

I grew up in a town in Southern California. We had a park called Koch Park. We always pronounced it Cook Park.

[Grins]

21. Not the first time..

March 2004:


Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle's report, based on interviews with more than 160 staffers and others, says Manuel Miranda, who was a lawyer on the staff of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and Jason Lundell, a clerk working on judicial nominations on Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Orrin G. Hatch's staff, pilfered the (Democratic party members') memos by entering the computer files of Democratic staff members.

According to the report, more than 4,000 documents were copied beginning in 2001, when both men worked for Hatch (R-Utah), and continued for 18 months.

The report says a computer server shared by the committee's Democratic and Republican staffers was set up in such a way that "a majority of the files and folders ... were accessible to all users on the network."

[George II]

22. When I originally saw that Politico article I thought something was fishy - it just looked...

....too phony to be true.

[blackspade]

28. Pretty much anything that comes out of this "committee" is bullshit.

The GOP desperation is showing.

[louis-t]

32. Gowdy will now reward the person who leaked lies.

These people are sick.

[dorkzilla]

33. anyone who believes this shit was never going to vote for Hillary anyway

The GOP knows they're going to lose the general badly and these are desperate moves of a dying party. Their message isnt going over well with rational people.

[restorefreedom]

37. i expect any moment now

to hear more about how the irs targeted conservative groups. they can.t let this stuff go. it's like catnip for the fringe crazies

who will never vote dem anyway.