Hillary Clinton Campaign’s Latest Benghazi Claim Gets Fact-Checked

The fact-check site PolitiFact ranked as "false" a claim by the Hillary Clinton campaign that the select House committee investigating the Benghazi terrorist attack was “the longest-running congressional investigation ever.”

“The clearest way to measure this is to look at when a special congressional committee dedicated to a specific investigation officially began and ended. By this measure, this claim is wrong,” the Pulitzer-winning PolitiFact said. “While the Benghazi investigation has lasted about 17 months, we found other investigations that lasted 30, 40 and even 90 months. And the number of longer investigations only goes up once probes by permanent committees are included. We rate the claim False.”

Image source: AP/Morry Gash 

Clinton’s press secretary Brian Fallon recently made the claim in a video on the twitter account of “The Briefing,” an account associated with Clinton’s campaign.

It's the longest running congressional investigation ever. It's cost taxpayers $4 million. And what's it about? https://t.co/NDhi0fMioW

— The Briefing (@TheBriefing2016)

September 30, 2015

Noting that it has lasted longer than the select Senate committee’s investigation into Watergate, PolitiFact still cited that at least four special congressional investigations that were longer, while several other regular committee investigations lasted longer than the Benghazi investigation.

From PolitiFact:

• House Select Committee on Assassinations, 30 months: In September 1976, the House established this committee to investigate the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., as well as the government's response. The committee issued its report January 1979.

• Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor-Management Relations, 38 months: This committee looked into racketeering in the labor industry from January 1957 to March 1960.

• Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 40 months: This committee had a broad charge to investigate the conduct of the Civil War, starting December 1861 and producing a final report May 1865.

• Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, 90 months: This committee examined questions about the awarding of defense contracts during World War II, running from 1941 to 1948. This panel brought national attention to a previously obscure Democratic senator, Harry Truman.

These four investigations were — like the one on Benghazi — conducted by a special committee dedicated solely to that investigation.

Among the investigations by regular committees that PolitiFact noted were longer than the Benghazi investigation were a nearly 30-month Senate examination of the 2007-08 financial crisis, a two-year House ethics probe into alleged misconduct by New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel and the well-known 1922-24 investigation of the Teapot Dome scandal.