Two Republican lawmakers have recently spoken about the House Select Committee on Benghazi; the committee in charge of investigating Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Early this week, Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy said in an interview, “Everybody though Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no would have known any of that had happened had we not fought.”
Yesterday on the radio another Republican lawmaker spoke about the Benghazi Committee's true intentions. Richard Hanna, Republican representative of New York, said “This may not be politically correct, but I think that there was a big part of this investigation that was designed to go after people and an individual, Hillary Clinton.” Although Hanna is not part of the committee, his statements combined with McCarthy’s make it difficult to believe that hurting Clinton was not at all part of there intentions.
Clinton’s campaign has quickly responded, driving home the idea that these comments have taken away the credibility of the Benghazi Committee. Her press secretary even said that Republican’s are no longer afraid to hide that this committee is a partisan face.
The Republican party is trying to clean up the damage as McCarthy tries to take back his statements other Republicans are sharing their views. Ron Johnson, senator of Wisconsin, who is also the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee dismissed their comments, stating that “[he] doesn't share that opinion,” and that the emails have “very serious national security implications.”
Hillary Clinton responded to McCarthy’s statements during Tuesday nights debate, calling the committee an “arm of the Republican National Committee” that was a “partisan vehicle” with the goal of destroying her campaign numbers. However she also said that she will still testify in front of them next Thursday.
Do you think that these comments affect the credibility of the Benghazi Committee? Should Hillary still testify in front of the Committee next Thursday? What effect will these comments on the investigation as a whole?
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/10/14/3712578/richard-hanna-benghazi-clinton/
2 comments:
Under the law, Hillary Clinton must testify to the committee next Thursday and congress has the authority to investigate the situation. Hillary says that the Republicans are bringing up this issue just to damage her in the election; if she is truly “innocent” or unaccountable for the scandal, then she should testify anyway and prove herself right. On the other hand, if her emails that are uncovered were classified and pertaining to Benghazi, then voters may see that she might not be the right candidate to lead our country. She may be “untrustable” as the Republicans say she is. Many say that the whole email scandal is not that big of a deal; however, I think it is because this testimony will show her true character and these potentially confidential emails about Benghazi on her private server may prove her lack of suitability for presidency. The Benghazi committee is investigating the Benghazi issue to find out what truly happened at that time and how it was handled. It was a major foreign policy disaster and needs to be investigated fully so that issues like these can be prevented in the future.
Aside from the Benghazi issue, Hillary Clinton did use a server that was not a part of the state department and used an unprotected email server that could be hacked by foreign governments. At the time, she was secretary of state and she should more aware that this would become a security issue and should have followed the policy of using the state departments protected email server.
I agree with Athena, in that Hillary Clinton should (must) testify in front of the committee next Thursday. In testifying it will help to reveal the truth of the matter, whether or not she's innocent. Americans deserve the right to know the truth of this whole email controversy, since after all she is currently the front runner in the Democratic party (and depending on the outcome of this investigation it may sway people to continue their support or move away from her). While I personally feel that her trustworthiness is questionable at this point in time, I don't think these feelings, also held by the Republicans, should bias the committee. In order for this committee and investigation to work properly the members will need to remain open minded and dedicated to only finding the truth, which will help validate the end results that come of it. Therefore these comments definitely have had a negative impact on the overall investigation, reaffirming Clinton's statements that the committee is an extension of the Republican National Committee. Hopefully the committee will be able to move past these comments and demonstrate to the public and Hillary Clinton that the investigation is being conducted fairly, only in the hopes of coming to the bottom of this matter.
Post a Comment