Politics

Benghazi Committee To Hold First Hearing

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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The highly-anticipated new select committee on Benghazi will hold its first hearings on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning.

South Carolina Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy, the appointed chairman of the committee, has called Greg Starr, the assistant secretary for diplomatic security; Mark J. Sullivan, the former director of the Secret Service; and Todd Keil, the former assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security as witnesses.

“Chairman Gowdy is leading a fair, fact-based and impartial investigation,” committee spokesman Jamal D. Ware said Tuesday. “The Committee will consider all evidence, across all jurisdictions, and produce the final, definitive accounting on behalf of Congress of what happened before, during and after the terrorist attacks on our facilities in Benghazi.”

Earlier this year, lawmakers in the House passed a bill to establish the new committee to investigate the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya that left four Americans dead, including Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

The establishment of the committee comes after months of encouragement from Republicans.

House Speaker John Boehner long resisted these calls from members of his party to establish a select committee but gave in after emails indicated that the White House played a bigger role than previously admitted in crafting the initial, now-debunked talking points on the attacks.

Democrats have argued that the investigations are partisan-driven and meant to try to harm former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ahead of a likely run for president in 2016.

The bill text says the Select Committee is “authorized and directed to conduct a full and complete investigation and study and issue a final report of its findings to the House.”

Among the topics the committee is tasked with investigating: “all policies, decisions, and activities that contributed to the attacks on United States facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, as well as those that affected the ability of the United States to prepare for the attacks.”

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