After House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)’s Tuesday comment that the House Select Committee on Benghazi has succeeded in hurting Hillary Clinton politically, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), a member of the committee, believes it’s time for Democrats to walk away from the investigation.
During a Wednesday night interview, Smith told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that when the House first formed the committee, he wanted Democrats to boycott it. But he now believes that would have been a mistake, because Democrats would have given Republicans “the high ground.”
“We basically had to give them enough rope to hang themselves,” he said. “I think that helped prove just how partisan and how embarrassing this is.”
Smith said that he will take direction from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the top Democrats on the Benghazi committee, but Smith added that he personally believes it’s time for Democrats to quit the committee.
“The committee is a joke and I think Democrats ought to call it what it is and say we’re not going to participate in this anymore. And that’s my initial reaction – but I’ll listen to my leadership on this and perhaps they will again have greater wisdom – but it’s just has been an embarrassment,” he said.
Smith also tore into McCarthy’s comments about the political success of the Benghazi committee, calling him a “political hack.”
“To blatantly give what we’ve all known was the truth for some time — it’s distressing that it’s the truth, no question about that. But it is equally distressing that we have someone who is about to be speaker who doesn’t know any better than to not say it on national television,” he said.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) have also called for the Benghazi committee to be disbanded.
Watch Maddow’s interview with Smith via MSNBC:
