Rep. Gowdy’s report: 75th witness testifies on Battle of Benghazi cover up
“[The Democrats’] motivations are obvious: they’ve endorsed the former Secretary of State for president, and will no doubt continue to act as a full-fledged arm of her campaign, wasting taxpayer dollars on everything but getting answers for the families of the victims who were left without adequate security on Sept. 11, 2012, in one of the most dangerous places in the world.” – Rep. Trey Gowdy, February 2016.
On Tuesday, the House Select Committee on Benghazi privately interviewed its 75th witness to date, questioning Matt Olsen, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Olsen was the first administration official to publicly call the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi a “terrorist attack,” doing so on Sept. 19, 2012, eight days after the attack.
According to the Committee Chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, “The Select Committee has made enormous progress this month. We interviewed a top State Department official, Patrick Kennedy, and after months and months of quiet negotiations with the White House, we finally were able to question both Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes.”
“In addition, just last week, the committee gained access to crucial national security records we sought for nearly a year. [These are] records no other investigation has seen,” claims Rep. Gowdy.
“While there are still witnesses to talk to and documents to review, these significant breakthroughs are big wins that will help the committee complete the most comprehensive investigation into what happened before, during and after the Benghazi terrorist attacks, and release a report as soon as possible,” the Republican leader said.
Prior to the Select Committee’s investigation, no congressional committee had interviewed Susan Rice or Ben Rhodes about Benghazi. The Select Committee was established in May 2014 after the Obama administration defied a congressional subpoena and refused to turn over an email written by Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes .
So far, 59 of the 75 witnesses interviewed by the committee had never before been interviewed by Congress. The Select Committee is also the first and only Benghazi investigation to include roughly 70,000 new pages of documents – including the Secretary of State’s emails – and the first to even request access to Ambassador Chris Stevens’ emails.
While members of the Washington press corps ignored much of the alleged shenanigans of the Democrats on the Benghazi Committee, especially Rep. Elijah Cummings, Chairman Gowdy has complained they’ve contributed nothing to the committee although they spent one-third of the budget to obstruction and making misleading statements to cooperative news media members.
Chairman Gowdy said, “While Democrats on the Benghazi Committee have made a big show of pretending to care about the cost of this investigation, they’ve made zero meaningful contributions and spent virtually all of their time and effort on undermining and obstructing the committee’s work, directly contributing to its length and cost.”
He and other Republicans noted that the Committee’s Democrats’ spending has topped $2 million, or more than one-third of the committee’s total cost.
“Their incessant politicization of legitimate congressional oversight is appalling and grotesque, and only proves that the process could have been completed much faster if Democrats had helped with the work instead of delay it. Of course, their motivations are obvious: they’ve endorsed the former Secretary of State for president, and will no doubt continue to act as a full-fledged arm of her campaign, wasting taxpayer dollars on everything but getting answers for the families of the victims who were left without adequate security on September 11 in one of the most dangerous places in the world,” Gowdy said.
Officials with the non-profit Special Operations Speaks (SOS), a group representing for special forces soldiers, sailors and Marines, responded to Gowdy’s report with a statement: “Much is owed the men who sacrificed their all at Benghazi. This is especially the case concerning uncovering the truth in getting to the answers to the critical questions of the families of THE BENGHAZI FOUR. It is our absolute intent to leave no stone unturned as we seek to uncover the TRUTH concerning the cover-ups and lies surrounding the national tragedy of Benghazi that occurred on Sept 11, 2012, or any other pertinent matter that affects U.S. national security and the well-being of our great nation.”
Matt Olsen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, tells Charlie that “we all were treating [the Benghazi raid] as a terrorist attack” the night of the incident. Olsen also talks about ISIS, the NSA leaks.
