title:  WATCH: Rep. Elijah Cummings Rips Republicans A New One For Witch Hunt Against Hillary
text: House Republicans are spending much of their time and the taxpayers  money persecuting Hillary Clinton in order to sabotage her presidential campaign, and Rep. Elijah Cummings is sick of it.Over the last four days, Republicans have called three  emergency  hearings of the House Oversight Committee to investigate Hillary Clinton s emails despite the fact that FBI Director James Comey has already completely debunked GOP claims that she intentionally destroyed emails to hide something.During the third hearing on Tuesday, ranking committee member Rep. Elijah Cummings took Republicans and committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz to the woodshed  or engaging in these political witch hunts. Today is the third  emergency  hearing in four business days, third emergency hearing about Secretary Clinton s e-mails in four business days,  Cummings began.  Third in four days, emergency. I believe this committee is abusing taxpayer dollars and authority of Congress in an astonishing onslaught of political attacks to damage Secretary Clinton s campaign for president of the United States of America.  Cummings continued: This is the first time in my 30 years in Congress that I have personally witnessed the Oversight power of this committee abused in such a transparently political manner to directly influence a presidential campaign.The point of today s hearing is to investigate baseless Republican accusations that Secretary Clinton, or her aides, ordered destruction of emails to conceal them from investigators. The most important fact for the day s hearing is that the FBI already investigated these accusations and thoroughly debunked them. They interviewed witnesses, examined forensic evidence and concluded that these accusations have no merit. FBI Director (James) Comey stated, and I quote,  We found no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them,  end of quote. He went on to say, and I quote,  We did not find any evidence of evil intent, intent to obstruct justice. Cummings then described the strategy Republicans are using in order to continue to attack Hillary even though their charges have been proved to be untrue. Of course, Republicans did not like the answers that the FBI director gave, so they simply manufactured today s hearing out of thin air. This entire hearing is a contrived campaign photo-op.Step one: Publicly accuse the witnesses of criminal activity, no matter how ludicrous, then refer them to attorney s office for investigation.Step two: The next day invite the same witnesses to an emergency hearing on those criminal accusations and rush to issue a flurry of unilateral subpoenas demanding they testify. No debate, no vote.Step three: Express false outrage when these witnesses   this is a playbook   express false outrage when these witnesses, who you just accused of criminal activity take advice from their counsel to assert their Fifth Amendment right to not testify. There you have it   presto, instant photo op. Here s the video via YouTube.Republicans should pay a heavy price for relentlessly attacking Hillary Clinton in Congress like they have been doing over the years with their never-ending investigations into Benghazi and her emails. It s a total waste of money and time. But they would rather spend it on political persecution and character assassination instead of on dealing with real problems facing our nation.Featured image via screen capture