December 10, 2015 11:22 AM UTC

Benghazi(!!!) Jumps the Shark

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• by: Colorado Pols

Here’s a fun sentence that actually appeared in The Hill this morning:

On Wednesday, Democrats on the House Select Committee on Benghazi released an unredacted email showing that the Defense Department had identified military forces to send to Benghazi to assist American officials under attack.

Republicans quickly fired back, however, accusing the minority party of trying to undermine their investigation for political reasons. [Pols emphasis]

The Democrats released their email a day after conservative legal group Judicial Watch released a slightly redacted version, which it had won access to under the Freedom of Information Act. At the time, conservative outlets such as Fox News said that the email was a “smoking gun” that undermined testimony from former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

But the unredacted version of the email makes clear that the forces under discussion to move to Benghazi were the same ones that previous investigations had claimed were on the move: a Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams (FAST) and a special operations force out of Croatia.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy infamously neutered Republicans on the Benghazi “investigation” when he said in October that this was basically all a political stunt. Of course, Republicans have long since gone off the deep end on their Benghazi “investigations,” especially when you have folks such as Rep. Ken Buck (R-Greeley) blaming anything and everything on Benghazi. 

Somehow, we’ve reached the point where Republicans are blaming Democrats for turning the “Benghazi hearings” into a political stunt — which, inexplicably, is because Democrats released unredacted information to the Benghazi committee. This is kind of like a magician turning an apple into an apple.

It’s safe to say that we’re done here, whether the GOP admits it or not.