Gowdy's McCarthy-Like Hearing Reveals Shameful Political Witchhunt in Questioning Clinton Confidant

The Hill ?@thehill 42m42 minutes ago
(Lanny Davis) "Have they lost all sense of shame?" http://hill.cm/UwSn4RW

___The decision to call private citizen Sidney Blumenthal, former President Clinton’s assistant and Hillary Clinton’s longtime friend, on June 16 for a behind-closed-doors sworn deposition is emblematic of the shameful, shamelessly partisan conduct of Gowdy and the Republicans on his committee — and their constituents should be asking them each this same question.

There are facts they cannot deny.

Blumenthal had nothing to do with the Benghazi attack or the government’s reaction to it. He passed along to Hillary Clinton, then secretary of State, via email information from a former high-ranking CIA official about Libya. She, in turn, passed along some of Blumenthal’s emails to see if they contained anything useful. That is it. Both acted responsibly.

He volunteered to come to the committee to respond to all questions, without the need for a subpoena. Yet the committee Republicans sent two federal marshals in the middle of the day to his doorstep to serve a subpoena on his wife — and leaked to the media the fact they were serving a subpoena.

Blumenthal was questioned for nine hours. Democratic members estimate the questions asked by Gowdy and the Republican members of a committee that’s supposed to be investigating the tragedy of Benghazi to be as follows:

• more than 160 about his relationship and communications with the Clintons, and fewer than 20 about the Benghazi attack;
• more than 50 about the Clinton Foundation, and just four about security in Benghazi;
• more than 270 about Blumenthal’s humanitarian Haitian assistance idea, which came to nothing and in which no money was ever exchanged, and zero about the U.S. presence in Benghazi;
• forty-five questions about David Brock, Media Matters and related organizations, and zero about former Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who with three other Americans was killed in the attack.

The nature of the questions asked exposes the committee’s true intent. Many of the questions amounted to this: Are you now or have you ever been a Democrat? Are you now or have you ever been a friend of Hillary Clinton?


read more: http://thehill.com/opinion/lanny-davis/246042-lanny-davis-have-they-lost-all-sense-of-shame