Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) on Wednesday suggested that House Republicans are using the Benghazi select committee to target President Obama due to his race.
NewsOne Now host Roland Martin asked Clyburn, a leader in the Civil Rights Movement, if he saw “similarities in terms of where we are as a country” now to what he experienced in the Jim Crow South.
“I would not be all that concerned, for instance, about this new Benghazi select committee that we just put in place,” Clyburn responded, as recorded by Mediaite. “One of the reasons I’ve been very critical of doing this is because I know that they are not out there to try to find what may or may not have happened.”
The Democratic congressman said that there have been eight different studies on Benghazi, and that there’s no way Republicans have yet to find the answers they need.
“I seem to remember our history,” Clyburn said. “After reconstruction, when people of color gained political presence throughout the south, they drummed up all kinds of things, indictments and accusations, they drove these people out of the south. … Some went to Chicago, some came here to Washington D.C. And I see the same kind of efforts to discredit this president, this administration.”
“If I didn’t know the history of this country so well, I might not be as concerned as I am,” Clyburn continued, referencing the Benghazi committee. “I am concerned because I see us revisiting those same kinds of things that led to the end of Reconstruction at the end of the 1890s.”