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  • 2016-05-19 (xsd:date)
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  • Trey Gowdy Admitted Nothing Could Have Saved Benghazi Victims? (en)
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  • One of the most polarizing events of the Obama administration was an 11 September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, leaving four Americans dead and years of partisan bickering in its wake. In May 2016, comments made by Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, became popular on social media. The controversy about Gowdy's remarks began with a 15 May 2016 letter [PDF] sent to Trey Gowdy, Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, by Elijah Cummings and Adam Smith, two House committee members, objecting to the former's incessant demands for information about Benghazi from the Department of Defense (DOD): In that letter, Cummings and Smith cited January 2016 remarks made by Gowdy's former Chief Counsel, retired Army Lt. Gen. Dana Chipman, that they contended showed Gowdy's investigation to be unnecessary: The letter also referenced unflattering comments made about Gowdy's handling of the investigation by fellow Republicans: The letter concluded by saying that Gowdy had personally damaged the credibility of the Select Committee beyond repair. Pundits and media critics characterized some of the Committee's activities to be a larger part of a stand down conspiracy theory continually unsupported by factual analyses of the events of that day. On 18 May 2016, the Select Committee on Benghazi Democrats published a video to their YouTube channel showing Gowdy being questioned by a Fox News interviewer about Gen. Chipman's supposedly having said that no U.S. military forces could have gotten to Benghazi in time to save lives. A description published alongside that video said that Gowdy had finally conceded a key point: During the Fox News interview, Gowdy was asked whether General Chipman had in fact said from the beginning that nothing could be done to save the four Americans in Benghazi. Gowdy confusingly denied that was true, contesting that General Chipman's remark, as quoted by Cummings and Smith in their letter, was a very small point taken out of context, then himself stated that U.S. troops could not have reached Benghazi in time to save lives: Multiple online references to this interview maintained that Gowdy had accidentally admitted that no lives could have been saved in Benghazi, but that characterization was inaccurate: he spoke deliberately during an interview in which he appeared specifically to discuss the issue, and he followed up his statement that military forces could not have rescued the Benghazi victims by questioning why troops were not positioned to do it. Whether Gowdy would have otherwise stated such had the controversial letter not been leaked was a matter of speculation, but it is true that he affirmed that help could not have arrived in time to save the lives of the victims of the Benghazi attacks. (en)
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