House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi slammed Congressional Republicans on Thursday for their continuing obsession with the Benghazi attacks of 2012, describing their laser-like focus on the year-plus old event as an attempt to distract voters from the GOP's failure to support policies to increase employment and raise wages.
"What I will say is, again, diversion, subterfuge," Pelosi said in response to a question about Republicans' latest Benghazi claims. "Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi," she continued. "Why aren't we talking about something else?"
The former Speaker of the House went further, tying the Benghazi investigations to other longstanding but little-changing Republican concerns, like the supposed politicization of the Internal Revenue Service.
"Everything you see here ... it's all subterfuge," Pelosi said. "The American people want to know who is going to create jobs, who is going to create growth in our country. And everything [else] is a diversion."
In the case of Benghazi, the newly released emails provide some fresh details about how the White House tried to shape its talking points soon after the attack, although the points themselves were all expressed in public at the time.
The emails were only made public as part of a Freedom of Information Act request by a conservative watchdog group, however, and were not released in response to a subpoena issued by Congress, which had revealed other details about the talking points. Republicans argued that proved the White House was trying to obstruct Congress.
But Pelosi contended that nothing new had been revealed and that there was no obstruction because House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) hadn't asked for those communications.
"The scope of the subpoena that whatever his name is, Issa, was putting forth did not include that email," Pelosi said.
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