Members of the Select Committee on Benghazi from both political parties previewed their lines of attack or defense just hours ahead of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony before the panel.
Democratic Rep. Linda Sanchez said Thursday that the panel has not been able to find closure regarding what happened in Libya because that was never the Republican committee members’ intent.
“As Kevin McCarthy himself stated, they’ve been able to drive her poll numbers down. That’s not accidental. That was their intention all along,” she said on CNN’s “New Day.”
But Republican committee member Mike Pompeo later dismissed that attack and said Democrats on the committee have done nothing to help get answers.
“I regret that the Democrats on the committee haven’t lifted a finger to hep us get to the facts,” the Kansas congressman told CNN. “We had four Americans murdered and our objective was – when we started and it will be today and it will be after today – to get answers for the American people.”
Clinton is scheduled to appear before the committee for at least eight hours of investigation Thursday.
More investigations won’t provide new answers because Hillary Clinton has been transparent thus far, Sanchez said.
“They’re asking the same questions over and over again that have already been answered. There’s nothing new in 17 months that they’ve uncovered that changes the narrative of what happened that evening,” she said.
But Pompeo defended the committee, saying previous probes are very different from the current investigation.
“We have a great deal of information and a lot more fidelity about what happened that day,” he said. “It’s not even close. We received 900 pages of documents yesterday afternoon. There are emails from Ambassador (Christopher) Stevens three and a half years after the events. It’s not remotely reasonable to say that the previous committees had any opportunity to have the facts in front of them.”