House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi jumped on anti-Hillary Clinton comments made earlier this week by the House Majority Leader, and said that Republicans’ investigation into the 2012 Benghazi attacks should itself be subject to an ethics probe.
Speaking to reporters during a weekly press briefing on Thursday, Leader Pelosi referenced claims made by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday that Congress’ Select Committee on Benghazi succeeded in lowering former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers in her bid for the presidency—a claim that belied the committee’s stated purpose of investigating the 2012 Libyan terrorist attack.
“I do believe that his could be an ethical issue in the House,” Pelosi said about the activities of the select committee.
“The question is: is this an ethics violation of the rules of the House? Is this a violation of the law?” the Minority Leader added, noting that every Member of Congress is aware of rules prohibiting taxpayer dollars from being used for any political purposes.
“I think he fairly gleefully claimed that this had a political purpose and had a political success,” Pelosi said of McCarthy, who is the front-runner in succeeding outgoing Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) as Speaker of the House.
The select committee, chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), has spent more than 16 months investigating the events in Benghazi that led to the deaths of four Americans, including then-US Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. It’s the longest existing special investigation in the history of Congress, surpassing the time it took the Church Committee to probe illegal domestic surveillance in 1975, and the time it took panels to investigate the Iran-Contra affair, Watergate and the assassination of President Kennedy.
It has also cost taxpayers $4.5 million.
Since McCarthy’s comments, other Democratic lawmakers have come forward to impugn the character of the committee.
“This stunning concession from Rep. McCarthy reveals the truth that Republicans never dared admit in public: The core Republican goal in establishing the Benghazi Committee was always to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and never to conduct an even-handed search for the facts,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Government Oversight Committee.
There are also allegations from liberal lawmakers that Chairman Gowdy has managed the investigatory committee improperly.
“If you look at the way this committee has operated, they have not worked with Democrats at all,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of five Democratic lawmakers who sit on the committee, during an appearance Wednesday night on MSNBC. “They’ve called witnesses without telling us. They’ve subpoena people with armed marshals that are willing to cooperate. They have interviewed witnesses without even notifying the minority party.”
“It’s time to shut this down,” Schiff added.
During Thursday’s briefing, Pelosi also weighed in on another issue that could spark a new congressional probe: reports of an executive agency snooping on Members of Congress.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General reported Wednesday that Secret Service personnel conducted a smear campaign against Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the Government Oversight Committee who was investigating the agency for numerous incidents of misbehavior by agents.
The IG discovered that the members of the Secret Service, in a bid to discredit Chaffetz, improperly accessed his personal file, and conspired to reveal to the press that he unsuccessfully applied to be an agent in 2003. A story on Chaffetz’s bid was published shortly after by The Daily Beast.
“What has alleged about snooping on Mr. Chaffetz is ridiculous and should never have happened and people should be held accountable for it,” Pelosi told reporters.
