Major Bradley Podliska has accused the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Benghazi of going on a glorified witch-hunt. The board was formed to investigate possible government missteps in the wake of the September 11, 2012, Benghazi attack. However, Podliska feels the committee has lost sight of its original purpose.
Poldiska, an Air Force reservist and “life-long Republican,” said that in the beginning the Benghazi Committee had a “noble goal of finding the truth” about the tragic event. However, Bradley now believes the Republican-led board has made using Benghazi to ruin Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances its primary aim.
If true, it is a truly distasteful tactic, given that we’re talking about an event where innocent people were killed. Sadly, words from the mouths of conservative politicians attached to the board seem to validate Major Bradley Podliska’s concerns.
Ex-Benghazi staffer: “The victims’ families are not going to get the truth” full interview: http://t.co/yvfz2JsrCA http://t.co/FK2oHpwaIZ
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) October 11, 2015
According to Slate , California Representative Kevin McCarthy was interviewed on Fox News , during which time he practically bragged at the role the Benghazi committee played in affecting Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.
“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee, what are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping, why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened.”
The above gaffe has since been retracted, but the damage was done. The Clinton campaign already put out an ad attacking the committee over its usage of a major tragedy to play political games. Despite his apology, McCarthy felt moved to pull out of the race of House Speaker.
With the scandal still in the air — and Clinton due to testify later this month — the public accusation by Bradley Podliska couldn’t come at a worse time.
Kevin McCarthy and his Benghazi gaffe star in Hillary Clinton’s new ad http://t.co/b1qkwvcvN0 pic.twitter.com/d5bLKeCbzr
— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) October 6, 2015
In an interview with CNN , the former investigator discussed what he felt was now a “partisan investigation.” Said Podliska, “I knew that we needed to get to the truth to the victims’ families. And the victims’ families, they deserve the truth.”
Podliska worked with the committee for a period of 10 months, during which the group discovered that Hillary Clinton used a private email server when she served as secretary of state. Instead of continuing forward with Clinton’s actions as part of the whole Benghazi investigation, Maj. Bradley Podliska said the discovery soon became the focal point of the investigation.
Bradley accuses the committee of drawing millions of dollars and precious resources from other agencies in order to focus on Clinton’s specific involvement — and how to best use the event to make her look bad.
Major Podliska is preparing to sue the Benghazi Committee next month because he felt he was wrongly fired. He insists that a part of the reason he was let go was that he refused to make the Benghazi investigation solely about Hillary Clinton. He also claimed the committee let him go because he took a leave of absence “to fulfill his military service obligations.” If that were true, it would represent a violation of federal law .
EXCLUSIVE: Watch Benghazi whistleblower Maj. Bradley Podliska on @CNNSOTU at 9a http://t.co/FrlMzYiYlX pic.twitter.com/3LmFAGEqMJ
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) October 11, 2015
Members of the House of Representatives’ Select Committee on Benghazi, which is chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina), has hit back at Bradley Podliska. The New York Times wrote that committee members claim the major was released due to reasons having nothing to do with Hillary Clinton.
Apparently, Podliska received “repeated counseling for performance and lack of judgment” and himself attempted to use the investigation to attack the Obama administration. The Benghazi Committee also noted that one of his former supervisors was a judge advocate general of the Army. Therefore, the board claims that accusation of a strong opposition to his departure for active duty military service is largely unfounded.
“We are confident that the facts and evidence give no support to the wild imagination fueling these and any future allegations.”
Do you think Major Bradley Podliska is right and that the Benghazi Committee is now more concerned with discrediting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign than the attack itself? Please share your thoughts below.
[Image Credit: Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images]