Senate Democrats Demand That RNC Pay Taxpayers Back For Benghazi Investigation

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid announced that Senate Democrats have sent a letter to the Republican National Committee demanding that the RNC pay the taxpayers back for their Benghazi investigation.

Reid called the panel a hit job on Hillary Clinton, “Former First Lady, United States Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify before the so-called Benghazi Select Committee tomorrow. In recent weeks, it has become absolutely clear that this committee is nothing more than a political hit job on Hillary Clinton.”

On the Senate floor, Democratic Senate Leader Sen. Harry Reid summed up what this “investigation” has accomplished:

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– Republicans have spent $4.7 million of taxpayer money to attack Secretary Clinton.

– Republicans have done little to investigate the Benghazi attacks.

– And what little work House Republicans actually did reconfirmed the basic findings of all of the previous investigations.

House Republicans have used the tragic deaths of four innocent Americans and turned it into an appalling political farce. The very notion that an official House Committee was used as a political tool is inexcusable. It is even more disgraceful that nearly $5 million taxpayer dollars were spent on this political hit job.

Senate Democrats will continue to fight to get this sham of a committee disbanded. Weeks ago we sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner urging him to bring this disgraceful committee to an end. Today, Senate Democrats have sent a second letter to the Republican National Committee, requesting that it reimburse the American people for the Benghazi Committee’s expenses. That seems only fair since the so-called committee is clearly a Republican political organization.

Senate Democrats aren’t standing on the sidelines. They are demanding that the Republican National Committee pay the taxpayers back the millions of dollars that they have used for their political investigation of Clinton.

Getting the money back is not enough. The best thing that could happen would be for the political leaders to hear the calls of millions of Americans and launch an independent investigation into the illegal use of taxpayer funds for partisan political purposes by House Republicans.

I suspect that after Hillary Clinton knocks down the eight-hour spectacle of staged political theater that Republicans are planning, the House Select Committee on Benghazi will go off into a corner and die a slow political death.

Republicans need to be held accountable, and nothing less than a criminal investigation is enough. The House Republican abuse of power must stop.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association