It was an eloquent criticism. A partisan congressional committee featuring “sweeping, catchall investigations, with no specific allegations of wrongdoing or clear rationale, searching through private documents for out-of-context bits and pieces to leak to the press, hoping to gain short-term political advantage” is to be condemned.
Hillary Clinton
(Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images)
Only it wasn’t a supporter of former President Trump making it, but an outraged big-box media reporter expressing his disdain for the House Select Benghazi Committee and its grilling of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2015.
The article was published at Vox, a decidedly left-leaning publication. And, needless to say, its author, David Roberts, does not feel remotely the same about the Democrats’ Jan. 6 inquisition and attempts to hold former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in criminal contempt for not wishing to play the role of lead seal in their political circus.
Leave Her Alone; Send Him to Jail
Here’s what Roberts wrote of the Benghazi committee in Oct. 2015:
“Last Thursday, the nation watched with a mix of amusement and horror as the House Benghazi committee spent 11 hours grilling Hillary Clinton on a bizarre farrago of issues, many of which bore only tangential connection to the Benghazi attack.”
He went on to deplore what he called a “thoroughly partisan political endeavor” that only served as a “congressional witch hunt seek[ing] to take down [Hillary] Clinton.”
But another party is in control of Congress now, and Roberts is singing a different tune this October. “I’m torn between wanting to see Bannon dragged to jail in handcuffs & the knowledge that a little time in a minimum-security prison is probably the best possible thing that could happen to a wannabe martyr,” he tweeted out on Oct. 15.
Steve Bannon
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed in large part due to Hillary Clinton’s woeful negligence. Even the most elementary of precautions taken by her State Department in response to the unraveling situation in the North African nation at the time could likely have prevented the tragedy.
In contrast, Bannon is being coerced to appear before a Democrat-controlled panel that is blatantly attempting to use the overhyped unrest on Jan. 6 for pure political gain. The only American killed as a result of the actions of that day was an unarmed Trump supporter who was senselessly shot by a U.S. Capitol police officer while posing no direct threat to anyone. Lt. Michael Byrd admitted on national television that he did not know if Ashli Babbitt had a weapon on her when he stepped into a hallway, deliberately pointed his gun at her and opened fire.
But Democrats have a “domestic terrorist” label that they are eager to pin on Donald Trump backers, and that takes precedence over working on behalf of the greater good of the people they are ostensibly meant to serve.
‘Outrageous,’ ‘Blatant’ Waste of Money
Where are the voices denouncing the flagrant misuse of taxpayer money in this sideshow? Leading Democrats were quick to use that very talking point in defense of Hillary Clinton six years ago.
“This is an outrageous abuse of taxpayer dollars for partisan political purposes, particularly when Republicans are ignoring so many pressing issues facing the American people,” the late Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2015, said of the Benghazi probe.
“House Republicans are engaged in a blatant and partisan campaign to discredit Secretary Clinton at the expense of American taxpayers and Congressional resources,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) added. Hoyer serves today as House Majority Leader as the lower chamber targets Bannon.
To point out just how ridiculous the Jan. 6 House fishing expedition is, consider this paragraph from an August article at the establishment news site Politico:
“The committee asked the National Archives for ‘all documents and communications within the White House’ involving a host of Trump World denizens, including Hope Hicks, former national security adviser Robert O’Brien, Trump adviser Peter Navarro, Kayleigh McEnany, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Melania Trump, all Trump’s adult children except Tiffany Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Rudy Giuliani and Roger Stone.”
Whoa, how lucky for Tiffany that they left her out. “One segment of the request notably seeks ‘documents and communications related to the mental stability of Donald Trump or his fitness for office,’” Politico added. It’s a broken record at this point, isn’t it?
A U.S. ambassador died on a State Department secretary’s watch in 2012, and House Republicans wanted to know why. That’s a crazy political witch hunt, Americans are told. But a ruling Swamp nexus that twice impeached Donald Trump in four years and has ceaselessly attempted to craft a narrative that he is a dangerously unstable character backed by violent supporters who despise democracy is throwing another mudball at the wall and hoping it will stick, and receiving nothing but applause for the effort.
Is there anyone left in America today not explicitly part of the red camp who is willing to stand up and say this is wrong?
Good luck finding a single significant member of the progressive big-box media or one Democrat politician of stature to speak out against a frivolous circus that serves zero value to the American people.
~ Read more from Joe Schaeffer.
