Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, reportedly declined to appear on CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday to address allegations made by an ex-staffer of the committee.
The staffer, Bradley Podliska, who was an investigator on the committee for 10 months, told news outlets Saturday that he planned to file a federal lawsuit against the committee for wrongful termination.
Podliska said that he was terminated, in part, for refusing to focus his investigation on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The committee responded to The New York Times‘ request for comment on Saturday in a letter.
“The committee vigorously denies all of his allegations,” the statement read. “Moreover, once legally permitted to do (sic), the committee stands ready to prove his termination was legal, justified and warranted — on multiple levels.”
CNN’s Dana Bash said Gowdy was invited on the program before she introduced her other guests that addressed the allegations against the committee.
“But first we would like to say we did invite the chairman of the Benghazi Committee, Trey Gowdy, to come and appear on this program this morning to respond but he declined,” Bash said.
