Democrats complain that Issa’s Benghazi probe has cost millions of dollars. Dems demand end to Benghazi probe

All 17 Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are demanding that Chairman Darrell Issa end his year-and-a-half-long probe into the Benghazi attacks, which left four Americans dead and have become a catchphrase signifying conservative suspicion of the Obama administration.

Led by ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the move to end what Democrats dismiss as a “partisan investigation” is part of a broader effort by party leaders on Capitol Hill to finally move past the political furor surrounding the incident.


Democrats and Obama administration officials complain that the probe has cost millions of dollars while forcing the Pentagon and other federal agencies to respond to seemingly endless congressional demands for more information, all without yielding any coverup or conspiracy. They argue that the investigation has not produced any information related to allegations that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to “stand down” military units that could have been sent to Benghazi in a bid to save U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and the other besieged Americans.

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Democrats privately believe that Issa is using Benghazi to try to hurt Clinton’s possible presidential ambitions in 2016. “This is all about putting up points against Hillary,” complained a Democrat close to the issue. “It’s clear what they’re trying to do.”

Despite the increased pressure from Democrats, an Issa spokesman said there are no plans to stop investigating.

Referring to Issa’s comments on Clinton and her role in the Benghazi incident, Oversight spokesman Frederick Hill insisted that the California Republican wasn’t trying to back away from anything and wasn’t seeking to damage Clinton politically.

“That’s not true, that’s not our aim. We’re trying to get to the bottom of what occurred,” Hill said. “If the basic question is does the chairman still have concerns that [Clinton] had personal responsibility to ensure the safety of the people at this facility? Absolutely, he continues to.”

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A secondary dynamic is the toxic Issa-Cummings relationship, which has worsened dramatically since Issa cut off Cummings’s microphone during a March 5 Oversight hearing on the IRS. Democrats were furious about the move and later introduced two privileged resolutions condemning Issa’s actions. While Republicans easily defeated those measures, Democrats have continued to try to paint Issa as reckless and unbound by facts or reliable information, all in a bid to use him as a metaphor for the GOP-run House.

In their latest missive to Issa, Cummings and the Oversight Democrats said in a Wednesday letter that Issa should “put a halt to the Committee’s partisan investigation of the September 2012 attacks in Benghazi and begin focusing instead on conducting responsible oversight to implement constructive reforms to protect our diplomatic corps overseas.”

Democrats added: “To date, the Committee’s investigation has been characterized by wild and unsubstantiated political accusations that turn out to be completely inaccurate after further investigations.”

Citing fact-checking of Issa’s statement by The Washington Post and other other media outlets, Democrats criticized two previous Issa statements: that Clinton personally approved security reductions at the Benghazi site prior to the attack; and that Clinton told Panetta to “stand down.”

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“Continuing this reckless patten of launching wholly unfounded accusations on national television … is undermining the credibility of our Committee and the seriousness of our work,” the Democrats claimed. “The Committee has held three hearings, conducted 27 transcribed interviews, organized several partisan delegations to Libya, issued two Republican staff reports, and reviewed tens of thousands of pages of documents. In addition, Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Admiral Michael Mullen, two distinguished public servants with decades of experience at the Departments of State and Defense, led an independent Accountability Review Board that thoroughly investigated the attacks and issued a report with 29 recommendations.”

Cummings and the Democrats said they are anxious to see those ARB recommendations implemented.

Issa, though, clearly has no intention of softening his approach to Benghazi, a popular topic with conservatives that once made nightly headlines on Fox News and something with which allies of Speaker John Boehner claimed he was “obsessed.”

While Issa may be forced to give up the Oversight gavel in January because of GOP term limits on chairmen, he intends to press forward with his probe in the meantime. He will issue at least one Benghazi-related report by the end of the year, Hill said, and he continues to receive hundreds of pages of new documents and whistleblower testimony.

“They didn’t want to do this early, they don’t want to do it late, they never wanted to do this,” said Hill, Oversight’s deputy staff director for communications and strategy, of the Obama administration’s response to the probe.

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Hill said the reason the panel continues to probe the attacks — as well as pursues its investigation into allegations that the IRS improperly targeted conservative nonprofit groups — is because the Obama administration has turned it into a battle between the committee and the administration’s legal teams, slowing down the process dramatically while exponentially increasing costs.

“There are legitimate costs that come with complying with congressional oversight,” Hill said. “Pulling documents and making copies of them — that’s not that expensive. Where they really start running up the costs on these things is basically when they start pulling in lawyers and start scrutinizing all these documents for reasons to withhold things, not to turn over things, for them to be able to not cooperate with Congress.”

For instance, Hill noted that the State Department would not give the committee unfettered access to some of the Benghazi materials. Instead, State Department officials delivered the documents to the Capitol every day, only to have them returned to the department every evening. A State Department minder would be present with the documents during the time they were under the panel’s scrutiny.

Hill also noted that a recent poll showed the American public does not believe the Obama administration’s responses on Benghazi.

Other House Democrats have launched similar broadsides against Issa in recent weeks. House Armed Services Committee Democrats, led by Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, have released a March 13 letter stating that “The total cost of compliance with the Benghazi related congressional requests sent to the [Defense] Department and other agencies is estimated to be in the millions of dollars.”

Smith blasted the “ongoing and ridiculous investigations” of Benghazi by Republicans. While not singling out Issa by name, Smith said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Smith that the Pengaton “has devoted thousands of man-hours to responding to often repetitive congressional requests regarding Benghazi, which includes time devoted to approximately 50 congressional hearings, briefings or interviews which the department has led or participated in.”