Former Staffer Accuses House Benghazi Committee Of “Partisan Investigation” Targeting Hillary Clinton

Committee That Fox News Pushed For And Constantly Defended Now Accused Of Illegal Activity

Written by Oliver Willis

Published

Bradley F. Podliska, a major in the Air Force Reserve who worked as an investigator for the House Select Committee on Benghazi is accusing the committee of focusing their investigation solely on Hillary Clinton, rather than the entirety of the Benghazi incident, and unlawfully firing him for taking leave to go on active duty. 

From an October 10 New York Times report:

A former investigator for the Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi plans to file a complaint in federal court next month alleging that he was fired unlawfully in part because his superiors opposed his efforts to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the 2012 attack on the American diplomatic mission in the Libyan city. Instead, they focused primarily on the role of the State Department and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, he said.

The former investigator, Bradley F. Podliska, a major in the Air Force Reserve who is on active duty in Germany, also claims that the committee's majority staff retaliated against him for taking leave for several weeks to go on active duty. If true, the retaliation would violate the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, which Major Podliska plans to invoke in his complaint, according to a draft that was made available to The New York Times.

Podliska was also interviewed by CNN's Jake Tapper. In the October 11 interview on State of the Union, Podliska claimed the “partisan investigation” shifted focus to almost exclusively focus on Clinton after it was reported that she utilized a private email server. Podliska told Tapper, “The victims' families are not going to get the truth and that's the most unfortunate thing about this.”

Media Matters has extensively documented that Fox News and the conservative media have been one of the driving forces behind the creation of the House Benghazi Committee, particularly its focus on Clinton.