Rep. Cummings says he’s not close to announcing on possible Senate bid
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Version 0 of 1. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) will not announce whether or not he is running for Senate until after Hillary Clinton testifies before a House panel about the Benghazi attacks. In an interview Monday, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi said he wanted to “get this behind me” before making a public decision. Cummings said he wanted to avoid any accusations that he was using the controversial committee to further his own political ambitions. “That’s one of the main reasons I have not put out a decision,” he said. “I’m going to get this behind me and then I’m going to go from there.” Clinton is scheduled to testify before the panel on Oct. 22. Republicans have claimed that as secretary of state, Clinton denied protections that might have prevented the September 2012 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others. Democrats have countered that the panel is a fishing expedition to damage Clinton’s presidential campaign. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) last week said that the committee was responsible for Clinton’s sinking poll numbers. He later retracted the comment and said he regrets it. Cummings called it “shameful” that Republicans have “used the tragedy... for political gain.” On Monday, Democrats released excerpts from a closed-session interview the Benghazi committee conducted last month with Clinton aide Cheryl Mills, saying that Republicans had been selectively leaking negative information to the press. They plan to release the full transcript if Republicans will not. Cummings has expressed interest in running for Senate ever since Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) announced that she would retire in 2016. Should he run, he would face two fellow House members, Reps. Donna F. Edwards and Chris Van Hollen, in the Democratic primary. He would be the only Democratic candidate from Baltimore, and he would bring to the race both powerful political connections and high personal popularity. But Edwards and Van Hollen have both been raising money and gathering support for several months. Baltimore Pastor Jamal Bryant, who briefly launched a campaign for Cummings’s House seat last month, dropped out of the race and said he no longer believed the incumbent would run for Senate. Cummings has previously said that he would announce a decision very soon. He also told Al Sharpton last month that he was leaning towards remaining in the House. “It’s likely I’ll stay in the House, because there’s so much I have to do,” he said. “I want to continue to represent my district, which I love so much.” |