Ex-Benghazi Probe Staffer Drops Claim of Being Fired for Not Going After Hillary

A former investigator for the House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks has dropped the part of his wrongful termination claim that he was fired partly because he refused to focus on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her department, Politico reports. 

Air Force Reserve Maj. Bradley Podliska said in his original lawsuit that he was told to focus on Clinton rather than do a more comprehensive investigation and was fired when he resisted. He also said time he took off for overseas deployment played a role in his termination.

Podliska is a Republican and the fact that his accusations in October came days before Clinton was set to testify before the committee drew criticism from some in the GOP that his actions were intended to undermine the committee's work. Democrats did, in fact, seize on the news, along with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's quote at about the same time that Republicans had succeeded in damaging Clinton by creating the committee in the first place.

Podliska later sued committee chairman Trey Gowdy, saying he made false accusations against him by claiming he was fired for mishandling classified information.

The current version of Podliska's lawsuit has dropped the references to his claim he was fired partly over not focusing heavily enough on Clinton.

But the damage to the committee's reputation won't be wiped away so easily.

Both the committee and Podliska's lawyer declined to comment to Politico.

Former congressional lawyer Stan Brand told Politico that Podliska's legal team likely is "trying to avoid the entanglement in the speech and debate issue."

Podliska "couldn't possibly prove that allegation without breaching speech and debate because decisions on what to investigate and what not to investigate are core legislative decisions," Brand said.

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