Clinton aide Huma Abedin questioned on Benghazi attacks

Hillary Clinton said Friday that while she will do her “best” to answer the House Select Committee on Benghazi’s questions in her testimony next week on Capitol Hill, she doesn’t have very much to add and that “conspiracy theories” about the attack have already been debunked.

Abedin testified Friday morning in a closed-door session before Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)’s committee.

Turmoil swirled again on Friday around the Republican-controlled Benghazi committee in the U.S. House of Representatives as it began questioning a senior aide to Hillary Clinton.

Objections to the panel’s work have been fueled by comments during the last two weeks by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Rep. Richard Hanna of New York, who cited the committee’s work as helping to undermine Clinton’s presidential prospects and poll numbers.

She’s also come under scrutiny for pocketing a $33,000 payout from the State Department for unused leave and using her simultaneous employment inside and outside of government to cater to the Clintons’ friends and associates.

Just as Trump has shown no sign of relenting in his attacks on the Democratic front-runner, Clinton said Friday she will “continue to criticize him for going beyond the bounds of what I think is appropriate for anybody running for president”.

“When you have the No. 2 person in the Republican Party … to tell you this is all about a taxpayer-funded political effort to derail the campaign of Hillary Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, that is a problem”, Cummings told reporters.

But the Clinton camp does not think that Abedin should be at the center of the investigation. He said Abedin had no policy or operational role in the Benghazi matter, and wasn’t even with Clinton on the night of the attack.

Those subjects were not expected to be covered by the Benghazi Committee, a spokesman said before the interview.

The panel confirmed Abedin’s appearance and repudiated any suggestions that they’d ask her about her dual-job, which is under investigation by Senator Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) but appears to have little do with Benghazi.

Congressional Republicans have said Abedin may have skirted ethics guidelines in her 2012 work as a special adviser for Hillary Clinton while she also worked for Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm co-founded by Douglas Band, a former aide to President Clinton.

Still, the chairman felt compelled to issue a statement saying his panel “is not focused on Secretary Clinton, and to the extent we have given any attention to Clinton, it is because she was secretary of state at all relevant times covered by this committee’s jurisdiction”.

Gowdy is “bending over backward” for Democrats who “have not lifted one finger to help us in the fact-discovery process”, Pompeo said.

Defense lawyers also urged Cooper to dismiss other counts, such as carrying and firing a firearm during a crime of violence, that were brought under laws they said were specifically intended by Congress to cover domestic crimes, not ones that occur overseas.

Gowdy and other Republicans say the committee has been and remains focused on those killed in Benghazi and on providing a definitive account of the attacks.

“I came here today to be as helpful as I could be to the committee”. “It has-been useful to know what the mood was like at the Department of State”, he continued.

The thing which doesn’t make sense to me is WHY the State Department and the White House allowed this to happen.