Hair Trigger Trey Gowdy wants his "GOP colleagues to “shut up” about the committee’s work because most of them know very little about what the panel is doing."

That's a joke. Nobody knows what's going on with the select committee on Benghazi other than the fact that it is the longest select committee in session ever, is a duplication of effort after 8 congressional investigations and the findings of an independent commission, it has become a politically partisan sham, and it is a colossal waste of time and money.

We'll probably find Jimmy Hoffa's body before anything worthwhile is unearthed by this bogus witch hunt.

More bad news for "Hair Trigger" Trey:


Benghazi committee chair finds himself in the hot seat (again)

The Republicans’ Benghazi Committee has unraveled to an extraordinary degree in recent weeks, as the entire effort is reduced to a taxpayer-financed election scheme. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the beleaguered chairman of the controversial panel, told Politico the other day, “I would say in some ways these have been among the worst weeks of my life.”


At least the controversies surrounding the committee couldn’t get much worse, right? Wrong.



The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank today flagged an overlooked angle that deserves to be added to the broader indictment against the Benghazi witch hunt.
As that mess was being cleaned up, Gowdy was dealing with another, courtesy of my Washington Post colleague Mike DeBonis. Gowdy has spoken piously about keeping his investigation above politics and about refusing to raise money from it. But DeBonis reported that Gowdy’s campaign had returned three donations after the Post inquired about the money’s ties to a political action committee that ran an incendiary ad during last week’s Democratic presidential debate. Three $2,000 contributions had been made to Gowdy by groups affiliated with the treasurer of Stop Hillary PAC. Stop Hillary PAC had spent $10,000 on robocalls last month to boost Gowdy in his district, and its treasurer had been involved with Gowdy’s former leadership PAC. […]


Could such a skilled prosecutor and his experienced staff really be so hapless? Or are the mistakes more purposeful?

The Stop Hillary PAC, which exists to “ensure Hillary Clinton never becomes president of the United States,” made headlines last week for running a rather disgusting attack ad during last week’s debate, prominently featuring Ambassador Chris Stevens’ grave, against his family’s wishes.



The Post reported, however, on the alliance between Gowdy’s political operation and the political action committee: the congressman’s leadership PAC and the Stop Hillary PAC shared a top official, an anti-Clinton operative named Dan Backer; the Stop Hillary PAC spent $10,000 on robocalls a month ago in support of Gowdy; and Gowdy received campaign contributions groups the Stop Hillary PAC’s treasurer helped run.


Gowdy, realizing that this doesn’t look good, quickly returned the contributions, but the damage – or more accurately, the additional damage – was already done.



TPM ran a related item yesterday, showing an image of its email inbox “when you search the StopHillaryPac email and Gowdy’s name.” The takeaway isn’t subtle: the Stop Hillary PAC and Gowdy appear to be close allies.


It’s against this backdrop that the Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to the Republican National Committee yesterday, asking the RNC pick up the tab for the party’s Benghazi Committee, since it’s unfair to ask taxpayers to pay for “a political inquisition.”


The top four Senate Dems added, “Due to the political nature of the committee, we believe it is inappropriate that a reported 4.7 million taxpayer dollars were used to finance its operations and that the RNC subsequently orchestrated numerous fundraising opportunities in its wake.”



The RNC responded fairly quickly, declining the Democratic request.

SHEESH . . . Watching some of this "hearing" on CSPAN . . . What a misnomer to call it a hearing . . . Everybody is talking and nobody is listening to what the other has to say . . . Any thought that I might have had about this dog & pony show actually providing some viable outcome was dashed early on . . . This is nothing more than a partisan political hack job . . . Only person asking relevant questions is Rep. Duckworth . . . Biggest snarky smart aleck award goes to Rep. Pompeo . . . 'Hair Trigger' Trey is going to lose it . . . All he does is rehash political talking points that have nothing to do with any kind of problem solving . . . I think he sees himself as Perry Mason, but comes off as a bullying hothead without the muscle to back up his bluster . . . Many after the fact corrections by repubs . . . They make a statement then later on get word from their staff what they said was not correct so they later "clarify" their remarks . . . Open mouth, insert foot comes to mind . . . Every round of questioning makes it more clear that the intention of the majority party is to verbally assassinate Clinton's presidential campaign, not add factual information to Benghazi 'investigation' or solve any problems . . . Conjecture and innuendo by a bunch of bozos that like to hear themselves talk . . . Tired of this, going to switch to soccer -- it's more exciting.

I'm trying to keep up with this Inquisition, but I can't.  I really can't.

BTW, I understand that 16 or more innocent people were killed at various American compounds and consulates during the years of the GW/Cheney administration.  When do those hearings start?

In other words -- 11 hours wasted.


The Benghazi chairman was stumped on a simple question about Hillary Clinton's marathon testimony


(REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)

After questioning Hillary Clinton for 11 hours in Congress, the head of the House Select Committee investigating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya didn't have a concrete answer about whether he'd learned anything new.
On Thursday, Clinton sat with lawmakers on Capitol Hill for a daylong hearing about the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.

Over the course of the day, lawmakers grilled Clinton about everything from her use of a private server while serving as secretary of state, to the rationale behind her support of an international military incursion into Libya in the first place.

But when asked by a reporter after the hearing about what new information the committee had gleaned from the hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina) didn't have an answer.

"In terms of her testimony, I don't know if she testified that differently today than she's previously testified," Gowdy said.

The congressman then said that he'd follow up by looking at the day's transcripts.