Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) House Select Committee Benghaze Hearings On C-SPAN @MSNBC @cnnpolitics @politico @hardball @TheLastWord @maddow @washingtonpost The Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee conducted an extensive bipartisan two-year investigation and issued a detailed report. The Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee also conducted a bipartisan investigation. Those bipartisan efforts respected and honored the memories of the four brave Americans who gave their lives in Benghazi; Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty. The problem is that the Republican caucus did not like the answers they got from those investigations. So they set up this Select Committee with no rules, no deadline and an unlimited budget. And they set them loose, Madam Secretary, because you are running for President. Clearly, it is possible to conduct a serious bipartisan investigation. What is impossible is for any reasonable person to continue denying that Republicans are squandering millions of taxpayer dollars on this abusive effort to derail Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In the Chairman's interview he tried to defend against this criticism by attempting to cast himself as the victim. And he complained about attacks on the credibility of the Select Committee. His argument would be more compelling if Republicans weren't leading the charge. As we all know, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Speaker Boehner’s second in command and the Chairman's close friend admitted that they established the select committee to drive down Secretary Clinton’s poll numbers. Democrats didn't say that. The second in command in the house said that, a Republican. Republican Congressman Richard Hannah said the select committee was, quote, “designed, designed to go after Secretary Clinton”. And one of the Chairman's only handpicked investigators, a self-proclaimed conservative Republican, charged that he was fired in part for not going along with these plans to, quote, hyper-focus on Hillary Clinton, end of quote. These reflect what we have seen for the past year. Let’s look at the facts. Since January, Republicans have canceled every single hearing on our schedule for the entire year except for this one, Secretary Clinton. They canceled numerous interviews that they planned with the Defense Department and the CIA officials. Instead of doing that, they said they were going -- what they were going to do, Republicans zeroed in on Secretary Clinton, her speech writers, her I.T. staffers and her campaign officials. This is what the Republicans did, not the Democrats. When Speaker Boehner established this Select Committee, he justified it by arguing that it would, quote, cross jurisdictional lines. I assume he meant we would focus on more than just Secretary of State. But, Madam Secretary, you are sitting there by yourself. The Secretary of Defense is not on your left. The director of the CIA is not on your right. That’s because Republicans abandoned their own plans to question those top officials. Instead of being cross jurisdictional, Republicans just crossed them off the list. Last weekend, the Chairman told the Republican colleagues to shut up and stop talking about the Select Committee. What I want to know is this. And this is a key question. Why tell the republicans to shut up when they are telling the truth but not when they are attacking Secretary Clinton with reckless accusations that are demonstratably false? Why not tell them to shut up then? Carly Fiorina has said that Secretary Clinton has blood on her hands. Mike Huckabee accused her of ignoring the warning calls from dying Americans in Benghazi. Senator Ryan Paul said Benghazi was a 3 a.m. phone call that she never picked up. And Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted, where the hell were you on the night of the Benghazi attack? Everyone on this panel knows these accusations are baseless, from our own investigation and all those before it. Yet Republican members of this Select Committee remain silent. On Monday, the Democrats issued a report showing that none of the 54 witnesses the Committee interviewed substantiated these wild Republican claims. Secretary Clinton did not order the military to stand down, and she neither approved nor denied requests for additional security. I ask our report be included in the official report for the hearing. >> without objection. >> What is so impelling is that we issued virtually the same report a year ago. Same report. When we first joined the Select Committee, I asked my staff to put together a complete report and database setting forth the questions that have been asked about the attacks and all of the answers that were provided in the eight previous investigations. I asked that this report also be included in the record, Mr. Chairman. >> without objection. >> The problem is that rather than accepting these facts, Republicans continue to spin new conspiracy theories that are just as outlandish and inaccurate. For example, the Chairman tried to argue that Sidney Bloomenthal was secretary Clinton’s representative on Benghazi. Representative Pompeo said she relied on Sidney for most of her intelligence on Libya. Earlier this week, "The Washington Post" fact checker awarded this claim “4 Pinnochios”, its worst rating. Here is the bottom line. The Select Committee has spent 17 months and $4.7 million of taxpayer money. We have held four hearings and conducted 54 interviews and depositions. Yes, we have received some new e-mails from Secretary Clinton, Ambassador Stevens and others. And yes, we have conducted some new interviews. These documents and interviews do not show any nefarious activity. It’s the opposite. The new information we obtained confirms the core facts we already knew from eight previous investigations. They provide more detail, but they do not change the basic conclusions. It is time and it is time now for the Republicans to end this taxpayer funded fishing expedition. We need to come together and shift from politics to policy. That’s what the American people want, shifting from politics to policy. We need to finally make good on our promises to the families. The families only asked us to do three things. One, do not make this a political football. Two, find the facts. Three, do everything in your power to make sure this does not happen again.