CNN's Jeffrey Toobin Calls Out Benghazi Committee's “Bizarre Obsession” With Sidney Blumenthal

Toobin: Committee's Focus Is More Appropriate For A “Political Campaign” Than An Investigation Into What Happened In Benghazi

From the October 22 edition of CNN's The Lead:

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JAKE TAPPER (HOST): Let's talk about some of the cogent points being made. [Rep.] Peter Roskam [(R-IL)], in his first round of questioning, Jeff, started talking about the Libya policy and in his view and what a disaster it is. That does seem to be something that merits some exploration.

JEFFREY TOOBIN: Right, I thought what was interesting is that -- the shift in sort of what Republicans have been talking about. You know, for the summer we've been hearing essentially nothing but the e-mails. You know, did she abuse classified information? Should the FBI investigate? That has come up almost not at all. So, the accusation has not been “Hillary Clinton is a criminal.” The accusation has been “Hillary Clinton was a bad secretary of state.” And that has really been the focus of the inquiry. That seems to me a very legitimate question for the political campaign coming ahead. It's somewhat less clear why that's relevant to what happened in Benghazi, on 9/11/2012. This is supposed to be an investigation of those events in particular, and the inquiry has gone very far afield particularly with this, I have to say, bizarre obsession with the former journalist Sidney Blumenthal whose name has been mentioned far more often than Al Qaeda or the actual attackers.