Benghazi Committee Fires Back at Fired Staffer Who Called it 'Partisan'
Staffer said committee was focused too much on Clinton, not on Benghazi.
WASHINGTON — -- The House committee investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack is going on the defensive today, releasing a statement that attempts to discredit a former staffer who said the committee was pursuing a "partisan investigation" focused too narrowly on Hillary Clinton and not enough on the attack itself.
Maj. Bradley Podliska, an Air Force Reserve officer and self-described Republican voter who will not support Clinton in the 2016 election, said in an interview with CNN that he was fired after 10 months on the committee in part because he resisted instruction to focus squarely on the State Department and Secretary Clinton's role surrounding the attack.
Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy released a statement today saying he never spoke to Podliska and therefore never instructed him to focus on Clinton. Gowdy said he was confident Podliska didn't get that instruction from other superiors either.
"Nor did he mention Secretary Clinton at any time during his counseling for deficient performance, when he was terminated, or via his first lawyer who withdrew from representing him," the statement reads. "In fact, throughout the pendency of an ongoing legal mediation, which is set to conclude October 13, this staffer has not mentioned Secretary Clinton. But as this process prepares to wrap, he has demanded money from the Committee, the Committee has refused to pay him, and he has now run to the press with his new salacious allegations about Secretary Clinton."
Four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed in the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012.
The Benghazi Committee has come under great scrutiny in recent weeks. On Thursday, the presumptive future Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, pulled out of the race for speaker in part because of flubbed remarks he made in a Fox News interview where he suggested Clinton's poll numbers were dropping as a direct result of the committee's efforts.
Meanwhile the Democratic side of the select committee is seizing on Podliska's interview with CNN, calling it an "insider's look at what the Republicans have been doing behind the scenes."
Late last month the Democrats pointed out the House Select Committee on Benghazi has become the longest running congressional investigation in American history, surpassing even the Watergate committee.