Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Chuck Todd went after the ranking Democratic member on the House Select Benghazi Committee Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) for “shielding” Hillary Clinton during her testimony last week instead of ask tough questions.
Todd said, “Let me start with you quickly with the one issue a lot of people had with how Democrats handled themselves. We tallied up 68 questions to Secretary Clinton. Sixteen at best could we call challenging. Why did you guys choose a strategy of shield rather than a strategy of what Tammy Duckworth did, probably the one Democrat that did it the most, of conducting a hearing, asking questions about the security situation?”
Cummings answered, “From the very beginning, I said we were looking for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in many instance we found ourselves having to um, not defend Secretary Clinton but make sure the the record was complete. And I’m glad the public had an opportunity to see all of that. When you look at what we were asking about, they were the things that went to Benghazi, the things that we were supposed to be dealing with very from the very beginning. And when the families came in, many of them with tears in their eyes, they asked us to do three things — one, they asked us to make sure that we made sure it did not happen again, they wanted us to look for the facts, more facts than we already had and they asked for one final thing, they asked us to make sure that we don’t turn this into a political football. So all we were trying to do is make sure that we defended the truth.”
When Todd asked if the revelation that privately Clinton was telling her daughter Chelsea Clinton Benghazi was a terrorist attack but publicly claiming it was an internet video protest, Cummings said, “No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I thought the secretary explained it very well.”
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