Cummings Responds to Republican Efforts to “Hype the Numbers” on Benghazi Committee

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the Benghazi Select Committee, sent a letter to Chairman Trey Gowdy responding to efforts by Republicans to inaccurately inflate the number of interviews conducted by the Select Committee in order to defend against repeated admissions from their own party that Republicans have used millions of taxpayer dollars to damage Secretary Clinton’s bid for president.

This morning, the Washington Post Fact Checker evaluated these attempts  to inflate the numbers and awarded them two pinocchios, concluding:

The numbers game is important to Republicans because they use the figure to justify how the Select Committee is necessary and breaking new ground.  But there is a bit less here than meets the eye. … there’s little reason to hype the numbers and better to remain as precise as possible.

In his letter today, Ranking Member Cummings wrote:

One of the key data points you have cited to defend against reports that the Select Committee is targeting Secretary Clinton is the number of “new” interviews the Select Committee has conducted.  Last Thursday, for example, you sent a letter to me stating:  “The Committee has interviewed over 50 witnesses to date who have never before been interviewed.”

The problem with your argument is that your numbers are wrong.  The Select Committee has conducted a total of 53 transcribed interviews and depositions to date.  Previous congressional committees and the independent Accountability Review Board (ARB) had already spoken to 23 of these individuals.  In other words, the actual number of “new” interviews is 30—significantly lower than the 50 interviews cited in your letter on Thursday.  

Moreover, the majority of the Select Committee’s 30 new interviews have been with State Department employees, and they have included current and former campaign officials, IT employees, press officials, and others who had little or nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi.  Overall, the Select Committee has conducted nearly ten times as many interviews with State Department employees than Defense Department employees (38 compared to 4).

Ranking Member Cummings continued: 

Over the past two weeks, we have heard the truth from the Republican House Majority Leader, one of your own handpicked ‘conservative Republican’ investigators, and now yet another Republican Member of Congress, all saying what is crystal clear to those of us who have been working inside the Select Committee on a daily basis.  In light of the McCarthy-Hanna-Podliska admissions, it is finally time for the Republican Party to stop denying the undeniable, stop defending the indefensible, and stop using millions of taxpayer dollars for the illegitimate purpose of trying to damage Hillary Clinton’s bid for president.

Read the full letter here a