Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to former secretary of State Hillary Clinton, arrives at the U.S. Capitol to testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. | Getty Partisan sniping swirls around Abedin testimony The Benghazi committee has denied accusations of partisanship, even as both parties jockey ahead of Clinton's upcoming appearance before the panel.

A partisan feud broke out during Friday's closed-door testimony by a top Hillary Clinton adviser, as Democrats blasted the GOP-led Benghazi panel for summoning the witness in the first place while conservative activists circulated emails they said showed the aide's testimony was relevant.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the panel, slammed the panel for bringing in Huma Abedin, Clinton's former deputy chief of staff at State, for questioning. His comments echoed a Thursday night statement from the Clinton campaign, which said “[i]t remains unclear why the committee is focused on her, given her lack of knowledge about the events surrounding Benghazi.”


"She, based on other testimony we have gotten, has no policy responsibilities, no operational responsibilities, was not with Secretary Clinton on the night of this phenomenal tragedy," Cummings said outside the private hearing on Friday.

Abedin is now vice chairwoman for Clinton for America. Although Abedin was only a part-time employee at the State Department at that time of the attack — she was working as an outside contractor with a consulting firm while working for Clinton — she had been Clinton’s right hand person at the department for years.

Panel Republican Mike Pompeo (R-Kans.), one of two conservative lawmakers present for the interview, scoffed at the notion that Abedin's testimony was irrelevant.

"I don’t want to comment on what the Clinton campaign says. It’s a campaign, and that is inherently political," he said. "The purpose is very clear: Ms. Abedin was a senior official at the State Department at all the relevant times and so was privy to and had access to information that pertained to all of the things surrounding the events in Benghazi, Libya that killed four Americans."

Pompeo wouldn't say anything about the interview, as the panel as a general practice doesn't publicly reveal what happens during their sessions. But the conservative activist group America Rising PAC jumped into the fray, saying Democrats and the campaign are being dishonest.

"Saying Huma Abedin has a lack of knowledge about Benghazi when she served as the State Department's deputy chief of staff from 2009 to 2012 is absurd and should be dismissed," said Jeff Bechdel, America Rising PAC communications director, in a statement. "Given her role at the center of Clinton's universe and high-ranking job at the State Department, why wouldn't she be questioned?"

On Friday, the group circulated several emails showing Abedin talked to Clinton about Libya and Benghazi issues, including a June 2011 email she forwarded to Clinton about a human rights meeting in Benghazi, a message that is now partially classified, according to Clinton emails released by the State Department.

Another March 27, 2011 email she forwarded Clinton also discussed the plan for the “Chris Stevens mission,” according to the message's subject line. The email is an overview of Stevens' his move from Malta to Benghazi and provided details of his meeting with Libyan rebel leaders. She forwarded Clinton a number of similar updates on the Benghazi mission as well as a transcript of a speech by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddaf’s son Saif Gaddafi.

Stevens was later killed in the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the Libyan consulate.

And Abedin had some Benghazi-related correspondence with Clinton after the attack. In an Oct. 29, 2012 email she told Clinton she “had a long visit with my friend who was in Benghazi.”

“Will download in person but I think very important for you to call [redacted], the injured DS officer,” she wrote. “He is now well enough to talk.”

Abedin emerged from the eight hour interview to make a general statement but did not take questions: “I came here today to be as helpful as I could be to the committee. I wanted to honor the service of those lost in the Benghazi attacks. I’m proud to have served at the State Department, and I was honored to work with Secretary Clinton … I answered all [the committee's] questions to the best of my ability.”

Cummings, who addressed reporters outside the closed-door session, repeatedly referenced comments from Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.), a former GOP investigator fired from the panel and — most recently — Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.). All three of those Republicans have in the past two weeks suggested the panel is either driven by partisanship or had focused its investigation on Clinton in an effort to derail her presidential bid.

McCarthy apologized for his comments, but the damage was done.

“When you have the No. 2 person in the Republican Party who comes forward, the person who makes plans with the Speaker, the person who was one step away from being the Speaker, tell you it’s a taxpayer funded effort to derail Hillary Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, that is a problem,” Cummings said Friday. “The question becomes whether this is a taxpayer-funded effort to derail the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, and to be very frank with you, when I take the statements of those three gentlemen, and I match them up with what … they do … they all match. It comes together.”

Cummings later in the day told MSNBC he thought Friday's line of questioning was "overall fair," echoing what Clinton's former chief of staff Cheryl Mills said of the panel when she left her closed-door session last month.



The committee has denied accusations of partisanship, even as both parties jockey ahead of Clinton's appearance before the panel on Oct. 22.

“We have a simple mission, right? A complex task but a simple mission and that doesn’t change, it doesn't make a difference under what anybody says,” Pompeo said.

After Clinton testifies, and the bickering subsides, he said the panel will just keep doing its work until the end: “You may all lose interest. You may all stop clicking cameras, but this committee won’t stop. We have a task and we’re going to complete it and when we do I am confident that the American people will say this was a professionally conducted investigation.”

The campaign, meanwhile, said in a statement they should be focused elsewhere: "The Committee's focus on Huma (as opposed to numerous intelligence and defense community officials still outstanding) is additional evidence that the actual attack in Benghazi, and its lessons about how we might better protect diplomats serving in dangerous places, are the last things on the committee's mind."



Clinton was the head of the State Department during the 2012 terrorist attack on the Libyan consulate, which left four Americans dead. Probes of what happened have suggested security was inadequate for the compound, and that diplomats there wanted more protection.

Republicans on the Special Committee on Benghazi have said they want to find out who in particular was responsible for the U.S. Libya policy that put the diplomats in a risky situation, how it was they were not protected and what the administration’s response was to the entire event. The administration originally blamed the attack on a heated protest-gone-bad, before changing course and acknowledging it was a terrorist attack.

The campaign blasted the panel Thursday night for publicly announcing Abedin’s appearance. Democrats say Clinton’s close advisers, including former chief of staff Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s top policy man Jake Sullivan and longtime Clinton ally and friend Sid Blumenthal, are getting different treatment than other witnesses, whose names are never announced.

“This morning again we have a situation where it is clear, where we look at their actions: calling Ms. Abedin in, letting the press know about the time, the location of her interview,” Cummings said.

The committee says it announced the appearance because a number of reporters wanted to know if the panel intended to ask Abedin about her controversial dual-job status, that allowed her to work at State while also taking a pay check from Teneo, an outside consulting firm with close connections to the Clintons.

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.

