Clinton aide testifies before House Benghazi panel

The three-term Republican congressman from South Carolina chairs the embattled House committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

Addressing questions about the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton repeatedly stressed that the differences between her and her Democratic rivals are “nothing like the differences that we all have with the Republicans”.

The Benghazi panel is under intense scrutiny after two House Republicans suggested it’s aimed at hurting Clinton’s presidential bid.

In a stark reminder of how the tragedy of Benghazi continues to commingle with raw politics, it will also come less a week after Huma Abedin, Clinton’s longtime personal aide, both at the State Department and in her presidential campaign, spent eight hours testifying to the committee behind closed doors on Friday.

House Republicans had already conducted five previous investigations into that terror attack (along with two more investigations by bipartisan Senate committees, and an eighth by a high-level State Department accountability review board). He wants fellow Republicans who feel otherwise to “shut up” ahead of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony on Thursday.

A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated Abedin’s employment at the State Department, work for the Clinton family foundation and work done for a consulting firm would not be part of the questioning.

“I came here today to be as helpful as I could”, Abedin said, adding that she sought to “honor the service” of those who died in the attacks. That she’s the leading Democratic candidate for president, he says, is of no interest. But it is also incumbent upon the most transparent human being that’s ever lived, according to herself, Hillary Clinton. That view was bolstered when House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, said in an interview that Clinton’s poll numbers began dropping after the committee was created. Republican Reps. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., and Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., did attend the meeting as did Cummings.

Though not in attendance, Gowdy said in a statement that the panel “greatly appreciates her willingness to take the time to voluntarily appear before the committee”.

After he was appointed to the select committee, Democrats targeted him for politicizing Benghazi because he then served as deputy chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House’s campaign arm.

Meanwhile, Clinton’s top aides in Washington were asking Stevens how to “message” the violence in Libya back home.

Clinton’s campaign painted the interview as just another “tactic in their partisan plan to go after Hillary Clinton”.

Another panel member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Gowdy “is under vast pressure” from his party to deliver something after 17 months.