Mitch Perry
For those of you who were looking for a smoking gun that would nail Hillary Clinton from Trey Gowdy‘s Select Committee on Benghazi’s two-year investigation, you might be out of luck.
At least that’s the consensus from reporters who (presumably) read all 800-pages of that committee’s report which was released to the public yesterday. I didn’t read a word of it, so I’m not going to profess to be authoritative at all about what the report ultimately says.
However, it doesn’t appear to include too many new nuggets, certainly not enough that could change people’s perception of Clinton and she performed in her role as Secretary of State during the entire U.S. experience in Libya.
Before Gowdy’s crew got busy in 2014, there had already been seven congressional investigations on Benghazi, which frankly, seems a bit excessive regarding the tragedy that occurred there on September 11, 2012, when four Americans were killed when the U.S. consulate was attacked.
It should be noted that one of those previous investigations, from the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2014, concluded that the attacks were preventable, security at the consulate was weak, and the Obama administration put too much emphasis on a controversial video that alienated Muslims.
There was also the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s bipartisan report, which said that the State Department failed to provide adequate security for the consulate and that intelligence agencies misunderstood the threats on the ground.
So the investigations — of Libya — are over for Clinton.
Next up? The FBI’s investigation into her private email server.
This could have an effect on the general election in a way that Benghazi never could, because, while Republicans have indeed politicized the email issue, Clinton has always seemed much more vulnerable on this subject, politically speaking, over the past year. She’s never come up with a sufficient explanation of why she did this in the first place (saying that Colin Powell and Condi Rice has done it some extent just isn’t good enough a response).
My question is — what the f*ck is taking Jim Comey‘s FBI so long to come up with a final report?
Seriously, the FBI has been at this for over a year now, and while I get it that they want to to be thorough, Clinton, the Democratic Party, and the nation deserves to know at this point whether she will be indicted or cleared in this investigation.
Folks, it’s July at the end of this week. Clinton is about to become the Democratic nominee for president at the end of next month. The FBI owes it to the nation to give us their best case and let the proverbial chips fall where they may.
In other news …
Surprisingly, Marco Rubio had harsh words for Hillary Clinton after the publication of the Gowdy report on Benghazi.
Jim DeFede‘s report on Patrick Murphy‘s business background is the gift that keeps on giving for those opposed to a Murphy Senate career. The National Republican Senate Committee is airing a new ad (not to be seen in Florida, but to influence pundits in D.C.) that takes slices out of that tough report.
Murphy gets endorsed by the Florida PBA for Senate.
Alan Grayson is doing all he can to try to help lift the FDA ban on the time limit on when gay and bisexual men can give blood.
The odds on Carlos Beruff defeating Marco Rubio in August appear grim, really grim, after this poll was released.
Speaking of polls, a St. Leo’s University online poll shows both solar amendments on the ballot in August and November, respectively, having a good shot at passage this year.
