http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/237465-benghazi-panel-summons-clinton-over-emailsMarch 31, 2015, 11:03 am
Benghazi panel summons Clinton over emails
By Martin Matishak
The House Select Committee on Benghazi has formally asked Hillary Clinton to answer questions about her use of private email and a personal server while serving as secretary of State.
In a letter to Clinton’s attorney, panel Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said his committee is “committed to reviewing and considering every document related to the work the House of Representatives charged us with doing.”
“Toward that end and because of the Secretary's unique arrangement with herself as it relates to public records during and after her tenure as Secretary of State, this Committee is left with no alternative but to request Secretary Clinton appear before this Committee for a transcribed interview to better understand decisions the Secretary made relevant to the creation, maintenance, retention, and ultimately deletion of public records,” he said.
The panel is “willing to schedule the interview at a time convenient for Secretary Clinton, but no later than May 1, 2015,” according to Gowdy.
He added that the committee “believes a transcribed interview would best protect Secretary Clinton's privacy, the security of the information queried, and the public's interest in ensuring this Committee has all information needed to accomplish the task set before it.”
The request comes days after Gowdy announced that the panel had learned Clinton erased all information from her personal email server.
"Once there is a reasonable assurance all documents in the Secretary's care, custody and control related to what happened before, during, and after the attacks in Benghazi have been shared with the Committee, we will be in a position to schedule her appearance in a public hearing to constructively discuss these topics," Gowdy said.
He added that the panel shares Clinton's desire that "these two conversations take place as quickly and efficiently as possible."
Gowdy said that the select committee continues to believe Clinton's email arrangement was "highly unusual, if not unprecedented."
Clinton has argued that the messages contained on the server were personal, but Gowdy and other Republicans have raised questions over whether she might have deleted messages that could damage her anticipated White House bid.
“I have absolute confidence that everything that could be in any way connected to work is now in the possession of the State Department," Clinton said during a press conference in New York earlier this month.
She said she had gone through more than 60,000 emails from her time at State and determined that roughly 30,000 of them were public records that should have been kept.
In his letter, Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, said the "decision to delete these records during the pendency of a congressional investigation only exacerbates our need to better understand what the Secretary did, when she did it, and why she did it."
