WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton’s name barely came up Wednesday at a closely watched House hearing on Benghazi where Clinton allies were anticipating fireworks.
It turned out that all the hype over an overtly political committee out to harm Clinton’s 2016 presidential hopes was premature.
The inaugural hearing for the new committee dedicated solely to the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Libya focused on bipartisan concern about improvements to diplomatic security.
Clinton’s name was barely mentioned in the Republican-controlled panel.
The topic for the hearing came from Rep. Adam Schiff of California, a Democrat who once suggested Democrats not even take part in what was expected to be a Clinton-bashing.
She served as secretary of state at the time of the bloody attack that took the lives of four US personnel, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
The tone was set by panel chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who paid homage to the four Americans.
I “pledge a process that is worthy of their memory and one that our fellow citizens can respect, regardless of their political ideations,” said Gowdy.
He found agreement with his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who suggested a 45-day deadline to get a progress report from the State Department on implementing the security changes recommended by independent review panels.
“We can’t bring back the past, but I think we can make a difference right now,” Cummings said.
Cummings’ teamwork with Gowdy was a far cry from his relationship with Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican whose own oversight committee has been championing the investigation into Benghazi until now.
Issa once famously tried to silence Cummings in a meeting by demanding, “Close it down.” Issa’s politically charged, in-your-face style gave Democrats concern that the new Benghazi committee would be more of the same.
The day before the hearing, Cummings held a press conference announcing a new Democratic website, “Asked and Answered,” implying that Congress has already done enough investigating into the attack.
Gowdy countered that notion when the hearing started.
“Given the gravity of the issues at hand, I would rather run the risk of answering a question twice than run the risk of not answering it once,” he said.
Gowdy and others made the point that Benghazi wasn’t the first diplomatic outpost to be attacked, yet the State Department still hasn’t implemented changes recommended after embassy attacks in Nairobi and Beirut.
“To those who believe it is time to move on, to those who believe there is nothing left to discover — we have heard all of that before and it was wrong then,” he said.
A top State Department official insisted the agency has made changes and is weighing whether the US should even be in certain countries.
“In accepting all the recommendations of the Accountability Review Board, I think in accepting 38 out of 40 by the Best Practices Panel, I think the department has made tremendous progress,” argued Gregory Starr, assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, referring to two Benghazi reviews.
There’s still plenty of opportunity for the bipartisan tone to shift.
The Benghazi hearings are scheduled to continue into the 2016 presidential election cycle.