WASHINGTON ― If you were hoping to watch the final hearing of the Select Committee on Benghazi and see the members debate and vote on their final report, you’re out of luck.
The committee is meeting Friday in a closed session to hash out any final details in their report, which they rolled out during recess on June 28 without input from the Democratic members of the committee.
Although the Republicans said the 800-page document broke new ground, Democrats said it just rehashed old details. It, like the previous eight probes of the 2012 terrorist attacks in Libya, found no wrongdoing on the part of U.S. officials, although it did echo the previous works in saying the response to the assaults had significant flaws.
Even its release was marred by partisan gamesmanship, with the committee’s GOP leadership selectively giving it to reporters who were not allowed to reach out to Democrats for comment.
Democrats didn’t get copies until shortly before it was released widely. And now they can’t raise objections to the report publicly as it’s wrapped up.
The final work of the committee is being done behind closed doors likely because parts of the report are classified. Other committees in such situations often debate the non-classified parts in public, then move to a closed session.
But the lack of any effort to let the public see the final stages of the controversial committee led Democrats to hammer the move.
“It’s no surprise that Benghazi Committee Republicans are choosing to take their final vote tomorrow behind closed doors, with no transparency and where no one can fact check their claims,” Democratic Whip Rep Sten Hoyer (Md.) told The Huffington Post.
“That’s how they’ve operated since day one ― not sharing information with committee Democrats and concealing the truth from the public,” Hoyer said. “It reveals what everyone has known since the beginning and what [Majority Leader Kevin] McCarthy admitted: that the Benghazi Committee’s purpose is political, not investigative.”
Hoyer was referring to McCarthy’s comment to Fox News that the committee work had damaged the presidential prospects of Hillary Clinton.
The Republicans on the committee saw it differently, and pointed to the words of Dorothy Woods, the widow of Tyrone Woods, who was among the four Americans slain that night. He had tried to protect the facility from attackers.
The widow vigorously defended the committee’s extended work in a CNN interview, saying critics have been unfair and that no one has “the right to tell me it’s time to move on. They’re not in my shoes.
“I think that that’s the essence of what they have done, is they’ve been dismissive. The committee’s been ridiculed. The committee has been, they’ve been criticized,” Woods said. “And for them to sincerely do the right thing, to care about Americans, that’s what’s important.”
The committee has lasted more than two years, making it one of the longer probes in congressional history. It has cost more than $7 million, and Democrats estimate that the price tag is closer to $20 million when the costs to the many responding federal agencies are counted.