Chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Trey Gowdy (R-SC) let his his frustration with some fellow Republicans show in an interview on CBS' Face The Nation on Sunday.
Asked about statements that his committee's purpose was political made by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), Gowdy went on the defense (see video below):
I get that there’s a presidential campaign going on. I’ve told my own Republican colleagues and friends, 'shut up talking about things you don’t know anything about.' Unless you’re on the committee, you have no idea what we’ve done, why we’ve done it and what new facts we’ve found. We have found new facts, John, that have absolutely nothing to do with her. I get that people don’t want to talk about that, but the seven members of my committee are much more focused on the four dead Americans than anyone’s presidential aspirations.
Gowdy went on to explain that the committee isn't focusing on the Clinton email server but, instead, on the events before, during, and after the attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi. Gowdy suggested that, from the moment he arrived in Libya, Christopher Stevens began to ask for security help. He talked about Ambassador Stevens' emails to the State Department asking for more security in Libya.
At another point, Clinton aide Victoria Nuland asked Stevens for advice on "public messaging" on the increasingly dangerous situation in the region, Gowdy said.
"He didn't need help with (public relations), and he was asking for more security," Gowdy said on CBS' "Face the Nation." Gowdy refused to release the emails on Sunday. But he said they point to, "the total disconnect between what was happening in Libya with the escalation in violence — that we were a soft target, that there was an increase in anti-Western sentiment...while Washington is asking him to read and react to a Sidney Blumenthal email and help on how to message the violence."
At one point, according to Gowdy, Stevens joked in an email: "Maybe we should ask another government to pay for our security upgrades because our government isn't willing to do it."
Ms. Clinton's testimony may very well be the most important moment in her 2016 campaign and. according to reports. she has cleared her calendar Monday-Wednesday in order to prepare for her Thursday testimony.