Cooper: Don't expect any Benghazi bombshells

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not likely to reveal anything new about either her role in the 2012 Benghazi massacre or her private email server in Tuesday's CNN presidential debate.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not likely to reveal anything new about either her role in the 2012 Benghazi massacre or her private email server in Tuesday's CNN presidential debate.

Don't look for the candidate in the crosshairs of the House Select Committee on Benghazi to be forthcoming about her role in the massacre that saw four U.S. diplomats killed in the 2012 terrorist attack if asked about it during tonight's Democratic presidential debate on CNN.

Debate moderator Anderson Cooper already announced he won't encourage confrontations among the candidates, as the network intentionally did in its Republican presidential debate last month. That means former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is likely to be asked only softball questions about the incident from the left-friendly host.

Since she has acknowledged her decision to use a private email server while she served the State Department was a mistake, which is also how President Obama described it in a taped interview that aired over the weekend, the questions about that decision may be a little more probing. But she is not likely to admit her choice endangered national security, a charge that has been made by Republicans on the committee since the revelation of the server was made last winter.

However, Clinton no doubt will be given an opportunity to say she is the victim of a partisan witch hunt since a fired former investigator for the Benghazi committee has alleged the committee made a decision to only focus on her during committee proceedings.

Since he made his allegations last week, though, former investigator Maj. Bradley F. Podliska was revealed to have been fired in part because he himself "manifested improper partiality and animus in his investigative work."

Indeed, committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina said he doesn't even remember speaking to the former investigator. Gowdy said he never told the investigator to focus on Clinton. The investigator, he said, ran to the media only after failing to get money from the committee.

Both Benghazi, about which Clinton in Senate testimony infamously uttered "what difference does it make?" about why the diplomats died, and her decision to use a private server - in violation of an Obama administration policy - are important in determining the credibility of the Democratic front-runner.

The former secretary of state, after all, wouldn't be in anyone's crosshairs over the incident if she hadn't - following the administration's request - put out the story that the terrorist attack occurred because of a video and then repeated it until it was no longer defensible.

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