2016 Clinton campaign redirects email blowback at GOP

Hillary Clinton’s campaign is seizing on the backlash to a faulty New York Times report regarding her email practices at the State Department by trying to link the controversy to a familiar culprit: Overzealous Republicans.

And the campaign’s prime target, unsurprisingly, is Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who heads the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Campaign spokesman Brian Fallon in recent days personally blamed Gowdy’s panel for the story — which was subsequently walked back by the Times — stating that officials were seeking a criminal investigation of Clinton’s email practices as secretary of State.


The Times reporters “got taken for a ride here by partisan sources on the House Benghazi Committee that have made a habit of routinely and selectively leaking information in an attempt to make Hillary Clinton look bad,” Fallon said on MSNBC Friday, adding: “We’ve gotten far afield from the initial jurisdiction of this committee and the work was supposed to be wrapped up months ago and now they are telegraphing it will extend well into 2016, which is just clearly an effort to influence this presidential campaign.”

The move by the Clinton camp to turn the tide of bad press back on her Republican adversaries — despite citing no specific knowledge of the Times’ sourcing — came after a brutal end of last week for the campaign. The Times and several other news outlets called into question whether Clinton sent classified information over her private email server as secretary of State.

The campaign’s response signaled a new aggressiveness toward the GOP’s ongoing investigation of the 2012 Benghazi attacks and her email correspondence during her time as secretary of State. Until now, the campaign has allowed Democrats on the congressional panel and groups like David Brock’s “Correct the Record” to take the lead in pushing back against Hill Republicans.

But after Friday’s news that the Justice Department had been asked to look at whether classified material was sent over Clinton’s private server — the original Times report said Clinton herself was the subject of a potential criminal inquiry — the campaign took on the matter itself.

The counteroffensive began Saturday morning, when the campaign announced that Clinton had accepted an October date to appear before the Benghazi panel — despite the fact that staff negotiations on the details were still ongoing. A committee source accused the campaign of trying to change the subject from the email controversy.

But the campaign retorted with this tweet from Fallon Monday morning: “Hey @TGowdySC: Are you officially reneging now on Oct 22 as date for hearing with @HillaryClinton? Talk abt refusing to take yes for answer.”

As for the flawed Times story, the committee has said it did not leak the inaccurate information; a column Monday by the newspaper’s public editor suggested Justice Department sources played a role in confirming the report.

The Benghazi committee has been a nagging presence in the early months of Clinton’s White House bid, training unwanted attention on her exclusive use of personal email at State despite government requirements that she use a government address. The possibility that classified information was sent over the server — Clinton insists she never sent material that was classified at the time — has exacerbated those concerns.

But last weekend was perhaps the first time the campaign led the charge against reports that cast her in a negative light. It blasted out at least four statements, starting on Friday.

“It is now more clear than ever that the New York Times report claiming there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton’s use of email is false,” spokesman Nick Merrill said then. “It has now been discredited both by the Justice Department and the Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee. This incident shows the danger of relying on reckless, inaccurate leaks from partisan sources.”

A Benghazi Committee spokesman said he isn’t going to get into a tit-for-tat with the campaign.

“Are we going to respond to every Clinton campaign and Correct the Record and Democratic [attack]? No – they have more people in their press shops than we have on our entire staff,” said panel spokesman Jamal Ware. “Whether they agree or not, this isn’t about Clinton; it’s about Benghazi. We are where we are because the committee has doggedly pursued the facts.”

Congressional Republicans believe Clinton allies are looking to turn Gowdy into a modern-day Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated Bill Clinton for years to little end.