Why bother to report this, really, when it has been evident from the beginning that the Benghazi investigation has been — and continues to be — an exercise in political warfare paid for (as usual) you and me.
Over 13 months the Benghazi Select Committee has spent more than $3,500,000, exceeding the budget of the entire House Intelligence Committee. This figure does not include significant expenditures made by the State Department and Defense Department to find and declassify material requested by the committee or the expense of witness travel for those who work for the government.
While exact dollar amounts spent by federal agencies are unavailable, details released about other declassification processes shed light on these costs. In March 2014 the Defense Department informed Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, they had spent “millions of dollars” and “thousands of man-hours to responding to numerous and often repetitive Congressional requests regarding Benghazi.” Currently the State Department has 12 full-time staff members paid between $63,700 and $150,000 reviewing Hillary Clinton’s emails “a process that could cost more than $1 million” according to the National Journal. The total cost for these document queries could run well into the eight figures. For example, the IRS spent $14 million responding to Congressional investigations into accusations it politicized the tax-exemption application process.
The Benghazi Select Committee has little to show for the significant expenditure—aside from a trail of unfulfilled promises by its Chairman. …TheObserver,6/15
The latest revelations will be denied… are being denied. But as one committee member admitted, according to the Washington Post today, “Only by ending this expensive and politicized investigation can we begin to undo the damage already done through this unprecedented use of Congress’s power for nakedly political purposes.”
The inner workings of the Republican investigation were revealed by one of their own investigators, “a proud conservative Republican.”
From the outset, Republican members of the House have rebuffed complaints about bias on the Benghazi panel, insisting that the committee was examining the violence in Libya that led to the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans on Sept. 11, 2012. Increasingly, Democrats expressed doubt about the committee’s work and the intentions of Gowdy.
The controversy deepened Tuesday when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) made comments that appeared to reinforce criticism that the committee’s primary target was Clinton. The GOP majority leader, who at the time was a candidate to succeed John A. Boehner (Ohio) as speaker, suggested in a Fox News interview that the committee had succeeded because Clinton’s poll numbers had plummeted. …WaPo