House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa offered a surprisingly rosy assessment of former-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a new book about Clinton, saying the Benghazi scandal left her basically unscathed as she reportedly prepares to run for president in 2016.
But the California Republican struck a different tune in a brief interview with Breitbart News, slamming the State Department she helmed for a “systematic” “cover-up” and suggesting he may “depose” her to get answers about her conduct.
In the book, Issa told authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, reporters for Bloomberg News and The Hill, respectively, that Clinton’s “legacy is mostly intact for 2016, if she chooses.”
“When the call came at three o’clock in the morning, the failure wasn’t viewed, at least as of today, as Secretary Clinton’s,” Issa is quoted as saying, according to The Hill.
But Issa now says that was only a “snapshot in time.”
“That’s a wonderful snapshot in time in which the Secretary promised cooperation that has not occurred. That was prior to the cover up that I believe was systematic in the Accountability Review Board, in which two senior individuals blamed only junior people, in which Hillary Clinton was not interviewed, in which Leon Panetta was not interviewed and in which Patrick Kennedy, a senior individual responsible bore no responsibility for his failures.
“So the snapshot in time was an accurate snapshot. At that time I had a pledge from the secretary to cooperate,” Issa said.
Asked whether his investigation had found any wrongdoing by Clinton herself, Issa said “we have an ongoing investigation and we have unanswered questions. I’ve never deposed the Secretary and we still have additional witnesses that we’re trying to get to.”
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