NY Times: Emails Became Focus of Benghazi Panel

The Select Committee on Benghazi shifted its focus earlier this year from its original goal of finding out what led to the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens on September 11, 2012, to Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, The New York Times reports.

Chairman Trey Gowdy said when the committee began its work, I have no friends to reward and no foes to punish. We’re going to go wherever the facts take us."

Democrats on the committee have complained all along that Republicans running the committee only want to hurt Clinton's presidential ambitions. They say the new focus on her use of a private email server for State Department business proves that.

But Republicans say the focus on the server is legitimate because Clinton discusses Benghazi on the server.

According to the Times, only one of the dozen interviews Gowdy said he planned in February has been conducted. None of the nine proposed public hearings have been held.

But 18 or more current and former State Department officials have been added to the witness list, including the IT specialist who maintained the private server.

Air Force Reserve Major Bradley F. Podliska, who says he was fired as an investigator, also has questioned the changed direction of he probe.

"I honestly do not believe this investigation was set up to go after Hillary," Podliska told CNN on Sunday, but added, "I believe it shifted that way."

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