Three-star former Lt. General Dana Chipman waits to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 13, 2013. | AP Photo Top GOP Benghazi lawyer: 'Nothing' could have prevented American deaths New transcripts released by panel Democrats ratchet up the fight over how long the congressional investigation is taking.

The chief counsel of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, before leaving the Republican-led committee earlier this year, said he did not believe the Pentagon could have done more to save American lives during the night of the attack, according to copies of his comments included in a Sunday letter from Democrats to Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

Army Lt. Gen. Dana Chipman told former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in a transcribed interview by the panel in January that “nothing could have affected what occurred in Benghazi” to prevent the deaths of four Americans in the immediate response to the attacks, the letter released by Democrats states.


“I think you ordered exactly the right forces to move out and to head toward a position where they could reinforce what was occurring in Benghazi or in Tripoli or elsewhere in the region,” Chipman said, according to the letter. “And, sir, I don’t disagree with the actions you took, the recommendations you made, and the decisions you directed.”

He made similar comments in an interview with the Defense Department’s former chief of staff, Jeremy Bash, according to the transcript of that interview: “I would posit that from my perspective, having looked at all the materials over the last 18 months, we could not have affected the response to what occurred by 5:15 in the morning on the 12th of September in Benghazi, Libya,” Chipman said. “So let me start with that positing or that stipulation.”

The release of private transcripts and comments made by a panel staffer represents an unusually aggressive step on the part of panel Democrats. While Benghazi Republicans and Democrats have bickered for months, dismissing each other as partisans, neither side has ever released comments made by staff in private.

Democrats have demanded that the Benghazi investigation wrap up now, if not disband completely. The panel’s investigation continues to be a political risk for Hillary Clinton, and the later the probe drags on, the more likely it is that its findings could land when the 2016 campaign season is in full swing.

The letter will surely escalate the most recent feud between the two parties over the panel’s requests for additional Defense Department interviews. Democrats and a top official at the Pentagon have accused Benghazi investigators of asking for unnecessary meetings and posing questions with a partisan, theoretical slant. Gowdy has responded that the Pentagon has sought to block him from talking to people on the ground the night of the attacks.

The letter also revealed that the panel has lost one if its greatest assets: Chipman. The committee over the past two years often pointed to Chipman’s nonpolitical and former high-ranking position in the military — he served as Army Judge Advocate General — to ward off accusations that they were conducting a partisan witch hunt.





That makes his departure, which had not previously been reported, significant — particularly given the timing: The panel is expected to release its findings in the next month or two.

Republicans on the panel confirmed that Chipman left the committee in January for the Federal Judicial Center. They said he had lined up the position as early as February 2015, timing that GOP lawmakers said proves they had no intention of dragging out the probe deep into the 2016 election.

In a statement released by the Republicans on Monday morning, Chipman said he agrees with Gowdy’s interview requests that have recently come under attack by panel Democrats, but the statement didn’t deny the comments he made in private in January.

“I agree with Chairman Gowdy,” he said. “If some witnesses refer the committee to other witnesses, the responsible thing to do is interview them. The committee has an obligation to the American people to determine what can and cannot be substantiated, so if an individual makes public allegations about Benghazi, the committee should interview that person.”

Gowdy has said some of the military-response findings and interviews over the past few months have been the most eye-opening of all the panel’s work. He has not said why. However, the panel recently noted in a letter to the Pentagon that the Defense Department has admitted it changed its timeline of the events on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, and gave Congress information that the panel now believes was inaccurate.

Many of the panel’s DOD interviews took place after Chipman’s departure.

Ultimately, Republicans are trying to determine whether the military could have done anything differently in Benghazi to save some or all of the four Americans who died in the attacks. They dismissed the Democrats’ letter Sunday as a partisan attack to try to discredit the panel’s work and recent findings.

“Democrats have peddled the same politically motivated, predetermined conclusions from the very beginning, so it’s no surprise they’re still clinging to their false claim everything has been ‘asked and answered,’ even after the Pentagon admitted the map it previously provided to the committee showing the forces available on the night of the attacks was incomplete,” said Benghazi panel press secretary Matt Wolking. “Democrats’ false attacks on legitimate congressional oversight are proof they’re nervous about the new information committee investigators have uncovered.”

In the letter Sunday, Democrats tried to shame Gowdy for continuing his probe despite the comments of his former chief counsel. Chipman, according to the letter, “made clear during these interviews that he had serious concerns about the military’s inadequate posture prior to the attacks and the speed of its response,” Democrats said. But both of those issues were concerns expressed by a previous panel’s investigation, they said.

Democrats also blasted Republicans for what they called “repeated, unnecessary and ever-changing demands to the Defense Department to chase conspiracy theories and pad Republican interview numbers after their hearing with Secretary Clinton.”

“Our nation’s warfighters are charged with a solemn responsibility, but your evolving list of increasing demands is now putting a strain on the Pentagon that is completely unwarranted, unreasonable, and unjustified,” the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “Based on this record, it appears that following the 11-hour-marathon hearing with Secretary Clinton, Republicans have exponentially increased their interview requests to the Department of Defense to pad their numbers in a desperate attempt to redeem the Select Committee’s credibility.”

Democratic leadership in the House on Monday called for the panel to be disbanded.

“With every day that passes, the Benghazi Committee’s contempt for the truth becomes more blatant,” said Drew Hammill, spokesman for Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California. “This openly political factory of falsehoods should be shut down immediately.”

