WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House committee on Benghazi struck back Sunday morning at a fired staffer who is accusing the panel of engaging in a partisan probe to tarnish Hillary Rodham Clinton, with the lawmaker saying that the claims appear newly manufactured and that the staffer himself appeared obsessed with the presidential candidate.
Chairman Trey Gowdy, in his first public statement on the controversy, said committee investigator Bradley Podliska never mentioned any concern about Clinton or politics while fighting his dismissal from the committee staff this fall. In his formal complaints, Gowdy said, the investigator had repeatedly asserted only that the committee discriminated against him because he was an Air Force reservist who periodically had to leave his job for reserve duty.
“The record makes it clear he himself was focused on Clinton improperly and was instructed to stop, and that issues with his conduct were noted on the record as far back as April,” Gowdy said.
