Benghazi committee changes rules in new standoff with Dems

Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi are taking new steps to limit Democrats’ control of transcripts of witnesses’ testimony.

The move was necessary, committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said on Wednesday evening, to prevent Democrats from selectively leaking portions of the interviews; some Democrats had refused to promise they wouldn’t make such leaks.

{mosads}While Democrats will be able to review the transcripts during business hours, they “will not leave the majority’s control,” Gowdy wrote in a letter to top committee Democrat Elijah Cummings (Md.), “due to the minority’s stated intention to selectively release them at will.”

“I regret this is necessary to prevent the minority from undermining our thorough, fact-centered investigation.”

In his letter, Gowdy referenced a February story in The Washington Post in which a Democratic aide said that Cummings was planning to release transcripts of interviews with top White House aide Ben Rhodes, Naitonal Security Adviser Susan Rice, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus.

Gowdy’s letter follows a message from Cummings on Tuesday, during which Cummings claimed that Democrats have been blocked from getting control of the transcripts since Feb. 11.

“Democrats on the Select Committee will not agree to conditions that prevent us from putting out the facts that witnesses have told the committee in order to rebut the conspiracy theories about Benghazi,” Cummings said in a statement after Gowdy announced his rule changes. “Republicans are writing a secret, partisan report that they plan to make public shortly before the election — and they are violating House Rules in order to try to silence Democrats from putting out the facts before then.” 

The flare-up amounts to the latest escalation of partisan tensions on the Benghazi panel, which has been a subject of squabbling from the start. Democrats have repeatedly accused Republicans of using the congressional probe to attack Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton and were aided late last year by comments from prominent Republicans.

Republicans, in turn, consistently claim that Democrats are hindering their effort to get to the bottom of the 2012 attack in Libya, which killed four Americans. GOP lawmakers also blame the Obama administration for withholding documents as part of their effort.

Last October, Democrats released the transcript from the committee’s interview with Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff, on the eve of Clinton’s high-profile appearance before the committee.

The move deeply angered Republicans and interfered with the panel’s investigation, Gowdy told Cummings in Wednesday’s letter.

The transcript “is now being quoted in federal litigation and other matters, even though it is not a final, corrected, and official transcript,” Gowdy wrote. “These actions have thus endangered not only the thoroughness and fairness of the committee’s own work, but also federal litigation and other proceedings, as well as the rights of witnesses to correct potential errors in the transcript.

“Further breaches would no doubt be similarly damaging.”

Gowdy said in his letter on Wednesday that he would be willing to revert back to the old rules so long as Democrats commit in writing not to “selectively release interview transcripts prior to their official release by the committee.”

“Simply picking some transcripts while ignoring others undermines fundamental fairness and chills the likelihood that additional witnesses will want to come forward,” he said.

Updated at 9:15 a.m.