Five Democratic representatives said in letter that ‘inaccurate and incomplete’ testimonies leaked by Republican committee members would be released in full

The five Democratic members of the House select committee on Benghazi have put their names to a letter excoriating the Republicans on the committee for what they describe as a series of “selective leaks of inaccurate and incomplete information” amounting to a political assault on former secretary of state and prospective presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.



The authors of the letter, which was sent to the chair of the committee, Representative Trey Gowdy, and simultaneously released to the press on Monday, claim the Republicans on the committee leaked incomplete versions of testimony transcripts in a manner designed to make Clinton look bad.



The move comes in the wake of comments last week by Representative Kevin McCarthy, which appeared to admit that the committee was a cynical political exercise, part of “a strategy to fight and win” against Democrats. McCarthy is currently considered to be the frontrunner in the race to replace John Boehner as speaker of the House when Boehner steps down at the end of October.

John Hudak, a fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, said that McCarthy’s comments had been “a tremendous error” because it gave Democrats the ability to take back the narrative and convince moderate voters – at whom this letter is really aimed – that the committee is indeed a political witch-hunt.

“This is a political issue that Republicans have been winning on for week after week – that’s no longer the case,” said Hudak. “Now it’s clearly not as much of a winning issue for them, something they’re not going to dominate on in controlling the narrative. In a big way this was the biggest thing they had on Secretary Clinton, and now they don’t, and thats a tough political loss for them.”

He described making the comments as “frankly, political amateurism” on McCarthy’s part. “It’s turning into a political disaster for [Republicans],” he said.

The authors of the letter – it is signed by representatives Elijah Cummings, Adam Smith, Adam Schiff, Linda Sanchez and Tammy Duckworth – specifically reference McCarthy’s comments, saying that they show that the committee is an “unethical abuse of millions of taxpayer dollars and a crass assault on the memories of the four Americans who were killed in Benghazi”.

They said that they would be unilaterally releasing the full versions of the transcript, starting with the interview of former state department chief of staff Cheryl Mills in September.

“We do not take this action lightly,” the letter concludes. “We have held off on taking such action for more than a year, but we will no longer sit and watch selective, out-of-context leaks continue to mischaracterize the testimony the Select Committee has received.”

Clinton, in an interview with MSNBC’s Al Sharpton on Sunday, called McCarthy’s comments “deeply distressing”. On Monday she expanded on that, telling Today that the committee “was set up, as they have admitted, for the purpose of making a partisan political issue out of the deaths of four Americans”.

“I would never have done that, and if I were president and there were Republicans or Democrats thinking about that, I would have done everything to shut it down,” she added.

The letter marks the start of the second difficult week for Trey Gowdy. A former prosecutor whose work on the committee has made him very popular with the so-called Freedom Caucus in the house, he was the subject of intense speculation last week after a movement led by representatives Mia Love and Jason Chaffetz to draft him into running for majority leader, under the assumption that McCarthy would replace Boehner. Chaffetz has since himself announced that he is running for Boehner’s job.

The following day, more rumours were circulating about Gowdy – this time, that he would be stepping down at the end of 2016. Gowdy forcefully denied both rumours, going as far as to formally declare his intention not to run for leadership at a meeting of the House Republican conference on Tuesday.

Jamal Ware, the communications director for the committee, struck back robustly at the five signatories to the letter in a press release on Monday afternoon. “By selectively leaking and spinning parts of Secretary Clinton’s top aide Cheryl Mills’ transcript, Democrats have shown their nakedly political motivation, willingness to violate the letter and spirit of House Rules, and their desire to defend Secretary Clinton without regard for the integrity of the investigation,” the statement said.

“Most Democrats on the Benghazi Committee have endorsed Clinton and they are now running a protection effort for the former Secretary,” the statement continued. “It is one thing to merely sit idly by while others do serious work, it is quite another to attempt to undercut that work with selective leaks in violation of House Rules.”