Dem Rep: Congress Has Spent More Time Investigating Benghazi Than 9/11

UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 16: Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., speaks during the Democratic members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi news conference on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (C... UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 16: Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., speaks during the Democratic members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi news conference on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images) MORE LESS
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

The House Select Committee on Benghazi has now spent more time and resources investigating those attacks than it spent looking into 9/11, a Democratic member of the panel said Thursday.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) provoked the ire of Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) early on in the select committee’s grilling of Hillary Clinton by saying it hadn’t uncovered any new information about the attacks in the 17 months since it was empaneled. He returned to that observation in the second round of questioning.

“We didn’t investigate 9/11—you know, 9/11/2001, just to specify—with the length and depth that we have chose to investigate this,” he said. “So again, I come back to the central point of the central problem with this committee. It is a prosecution. It is a partisan exercise. It is not trying to investigate and find out the truth.”

A joint congressional committee and the independent 9/11 Commission investigated the 2001 terror attacks. By contrast, eight congressional committees, including the current select committee on Benghazi, in addition to the State Department’s Accountability Review Board have investigated the 2012 terror attacks.

This post has been updated.

Latest Livewire
Comments
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: