A former investigator who was fired from Congress’ Benghazi probe made headlines across America over the weekend, claiming that the House of Representatives’ investigation into the deadly attack was actually aimed at tarnishing the image of Democrat 2016 presidential contender and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rather than getting the truth. Through a spokesperson, the House Select Committee on Benghazi promptly and “vigorously” denied the allegations. Either way, the back and forth between the alleged whistleblower and the investigative committee appears to indicate that the real issues — gun-running to jihadists, White House support for designated terror organizations, unlawful regime-change machinations, official lies, and more — are still not being properly investigated.
According to Major Bradley Podliska (shown), a U.S. Air Force Reserve intelligence officer who worked for the congressional committee for 10 months before being fired, the Benghazi probe is actually a “a partisan investigation.” The House Select Committee was originally supposed to investigate all elements of the September 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. government compound in Benghazi, Libya, following the jihadist-led, Obama administration-backed uprising against strongman Muammar Gadhafi. However, speaking to various media outlets, Podliska claimed that the e-mail scandal surrounding Clinton caused the GOP-led House investigative panel to change its focus, allegedly zeroing in on Clinton and her misdeeds in the saga at the expense of other potential wrongdoers within the administration. Senior U.S. officials had previously concluded that Obama “switched sides” in the terror war.
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Podliska, who is being described as a “whistleblower” by the Clinton campaign and some of the establishment press, is reportedly planning to file a federal lawsuit over his dismissal. He claims he was fired for resisting the committee’s alleged efforts to focus almost entirely on Clinton and the State Department in a supposed bid to further tarnish her flailing presidential campaign. He also claims to have been unlawfully fired partly for taking leave from his work as investigator to fulfill his military obligations, according to media reports. CNN, which reported that it spoke with Podliska, said he described himself as a “conservative Republican” who is “more on the libertarian side” and plans to vote for the GOP’s 2016 nominee, not Clinton or the Democrat nominee — perhaps a bid to blunt any response to his allegations by the committee or skeptics of his claims.
In an interview with CNN, Podliska struck an emotional tone and painted himself as both a victim and a courageous truth teller. “I knew that we needed to get to the truth to the victims’ families. And the victims’ families, they deserve the truth — whether or not Hillary Clinton was involved, whether or not other individuals were involved,” he told the cable network in an interview broadcast Sunday on the State of the Union show. “The victims’ families are not going to get the truth and that’s the most unfortunate thing about this.” Podliska also claimed to be “nervous” because he was allegedly “going up against powerful people in Washington.” The committee is chaired by Republican Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a popular former prosecutor but hardly a figure on par with Clinton or Obama when it comes to power.
At the time he was fired, Podliska told reporters, he was given three reasons for the dismissal: using work e-mail for social purposes, assigning an “unauthorized project” to an intern, and putting classified information on an unclassified system. He rejects the latter reason entirely and disputes the other two allegations. As his own allegations were making headlines across the establishment press, though, the select committee promptly blasted the alleged “whistleblower” and his claims, saying the investigator was properly fired for, among other concerns, being biased in his work. “Contrary to his brand new assertion, the employee actually was terminated, in part, because he himself manifested improper partiality and animus in his investigative work,” a spokesman for the House panel said in a statement.
The spokesman also rejected all of the accusations as false, suggesting blackmail might even be at work. “The Committee vigorously denies all of his allegations. Moreover, once legally permitted to do so, the committee stands ready to prove his termination was legal, justified and warranted — on multiple levels,” said a statement from the committee quoted in later media reports. The committee also said that while serving as an investigator, Podliska had received “repeated counseling for performance and lack of judgment,” and that he “has continued to imagine a variety of new, outlandish, never previously mentioned, allegations since his departure.” The spokesman also ridiculed Podliska’s allegations of “anti-military” bias allegedly shown to him by his superiors, some of whom had extensive military careers.
“We are confident that the facts and evidence give no support to the wild imagination fueling these and any future allegations, and the Committee will vigorously defend itself against such allegations,” an unnamed spokesman was quoted as telling CNN in an early statement about the claims. “The Committee will not be blackmailed into a monetary settlement for a false allegation made by a properly terminated former employee.” The statements also noted that Podliska had never previously accused the committee of conducting a biased probe, and that he supposedly had his own problems with bias.
By contrast, the Clinton campaign, which has been plagued by the still-unresolved Benghazi scandal and Clinton’s own infamous “what difference does it make” statement, was quick to seize on Podliska’s claims as potential “proof” that the Benghazi probe was, in fact, a partisan witch-hunt from the start. “These are explosive allegations,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon argued in a widely quoted statement about the allegations. “This Republican whistleblower’s account from inside the Benghazi Committee may provide the most definitive proof to date that this taxpayer-funded investigation has been a partisan sham from the start.”
Multiple Democrats in Congress, who have been opposing serious investigations into the myriad Benghazi scandals from the start, also seized on the allegations. Representative Elijah Cummings, for example, who serves as the ranking Democrat on the Benghazi committee, praised the “whistleblower” for making “extremely serious” charges. “Republicans have been abusing millions of taxpayer dollars for the illegitimate purpose of damaging Hillary Clinton’s bid for president,” Cummings claimed in a statement. Democrat Representative Adam Schiff of California, echoing a recent editorial by the New York Times, even said it was time to shut down the Benghazi Select Committee because it was allegedly targeting Clinton.
A third Democrat, Representative Alan Grayson, even filed an ethics complaint against House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Benghazi committee chairman Gowdy, accusing them of using federal funds for political purposes. Multiple liberal-leaning media outlets — CNN, Reuters, the New York Times, and more — also sought to link the recent “whistleblower” allegations to a statement made recently in a TV interview by McCarthy, who recently declined to run for Speaker of the House as John Boehner retires. “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy said. “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 had we not fought.” Some media outlets and lawmakers claimed McCarthy’s statement showed that Republicans were just using the committee to target Clinton.
Gowdy, though, is fighting back. “Simply because you have chosen to play politics with this committee and the State Department has chosen to play politics by shielding its former secretary at the expense of the truth does not mean that this committee was founded on politics, is based on politics or will veer off course due to the political actions and allegations of others,” he wrote in a letter blasting Democrats for stonewalling and refusing to follow the evidence. The lawmaker from South Carolina also said he would be releasing some 1,500 pages of administration e-mails relating to Libya.
Podliska tried to make clear that he did not think Clinton should have avoided scrutiny — to the contrary. But he insisted that the committee’s alleged laser-like focus on Clinton and the State Department she led, which apparently began after the Clinton e-mail scandal blew up in March, was letting others off the hook too easily. “Hillary Clinton has a lot of explaining to do,” Podliska said. “We, however, did not need to shift resources to hyper focus on Hillary Clinton. We didn’t need to de-emphasize and in some cases drop the investigation on different agencies, different organizations and different individuals. There’s wrongdoing here and I think it needs to stop.”
Whether Podliska is being sincere, or is simply retaliating against his former employers for being fired, or is covering for Clinton, as some have suggested, will likely become more clear as the case makes its way through the courts, assuming it goes that far. In the meantime, though, the major questions and scandals surrounding Benghazi remain, officially at least, as shrouded in mystery today as they were two years ago. Among those questions: What terror groups was the Obama administration supporting, why was it supporting them, and how? Who all was lying, and why? How did Obama’s UN-approved, lawless “regime change” scheme in Libya contribute to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and the other dead Americans? What laws were violated?
The committee’s official findings are expected next year. Americans must ensure that the result is not a whitewash or political posturing. Instead, it must be the product of a serious investigation answering the real questions and addressing the real issues surrounding the Benghazi attack and Obama’s lawless scheming that led up to it.
Photo: Major Bradley Podliska
Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is currently based in Europe. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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