By Making the Jan. 6 Probe Political, Republicans Stand to Re-Run Benghazi Playbook – By Phillip Elliot (TIME) / July 14 2021
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Welcome back, Benghazi.
Washington has hardly missed the rancor and disingenuous narratives about the 2012 terrorist attack on American outposts in Libya and the 10 separate investigations into it. The political circus it sparked here in Washington is one for the ages. Republicans’ quest for evidence that then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was to blame for the deaths of four Americans halfway around the world set a new standard for tenacity, and Democrats’ tolerance for the theatrics shocked the city. Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy made little effort to hide the campaign’s true goal of hurting Clinton’s chances to win the White House.
Well, if Republicans get their way, Washington is going to run this playbook again. Only this time, Republicans will be looking to gum up the truth from a defensive crouch, trying to convince the public that it’s Democrats acting irresponsibly in their investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that left five people dead. But instead of Hillary Clinton sitting in Washington, 5,200 miles away from events unfolding in Benghazi, Congress has a chance to consider the role Trump played in stage-managing the crisis from about a mile down the road.
First, a primer on Benghazi and its aftermath. Late on Sept. 11, 2012, a mob descended on a diplomatic facility in Libya and, later, a CIA station. Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, died. Amid the confusion, talking-points about what went wrong were circulated until they became messier than a state-fair demolition derby. Clinton didn’t want to do the Sunday shows and Rice was deputized to be the face of the Obama Administration. No one can credibly accuse Rice of misleading the American people, but she acknowledges in her 2019 memoir that she could have been more precise in her language, or just left out some of what was unclear, even to her.
CONTINUE > https://time.com/6080349/capitol-attack-probe-pelosi-mccarthy/
