House Benghazi Committee Clinton, In a 10-page letter, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, posed more than 130 new questions that he would like former secretary of state Hillary Clinton to answer. Of that number, eight relate directly to or mention Benghazi.
These eight:
42. Did you communicate with Ambassador Chris Stevens by email?
74. Were you aware of congressional requests for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks during your tenure as Secretary of State? If so, when did you become aware of the requests for these documents and materials?
75. Prior to your departure from the Department of State, were you ever asked to identify records or did you offer to provide records potentially responsive to congressional requests for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks? If so, what steps did you take to identify and produce such records?
76. Were you aware of Freedom of Information Act requests for documents and materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks? If so, when did you become aware of the requests for these documents and materials?
77. Prior to your departure from the Department of State, were you ever asked to identify records or did you offer to provide records potentially responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks? If so, what steps did you take to identify and produce such records?
78. Were you ever asked to provide or did you ever offer to provide records to the Benghazi Accountability Review Board?
90. Were you aware of requests from the House Select Committee on Benghazi for documents and materials relating to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi? If so, when did you become aware of the requests for documents and materials?
91. Were you ever contacted specifically with respect to identifying records potentially responsive to requests from the House Select Committee on Benghazi for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks, or did you offer to provide such records? If so, what steps did you take to identify and produce such records?
There's a reason for this. The vast majority of the questions are specifically about the creation and eradication of Clinton's personal e-mail server and account. In that regard, it is quite thorough, asking what could constitute every possible question about the system's security, compliance with public records laws and awareness of its existence within the Obama administration. They are good questions, and ones that the government should be asking.
But they are not specifically about Benghazi. Gowdy explains this in a press release that accompanied the letter. "[T]he House Resolution that established the Select Benghazi Committee gave the committee purview to examine all aspects of State Department’s compliance with previous Benghazi investigations," it reads, "which now includes State’s failure for two years to notify any of the previous investigative committees it did not have possession or control of Clinton’s email public records." You'll notice that the final seven questions above deal with the record-keeping questions as they pertain to the Benghazi committee, not the attacks themselves.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for Gowdy indicated that the investigation might continue into 2016, which surprised only the least cynical of political observers. The committee has been trying to get Clinton to testify again for some time; the letter was part of that process. But the delay can also be explained by the shift in attention to the meta-investigation of Benghazi, which clearly has put enough gas in the committee's engine to power for a few more miles.
42. Did you communicate with Ambassador Chris Stevens by email?
74. Were you aware of congressional requests for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks during your tenure as Secretary of State? If so, when did you become aware of the requests for these documents and materials?
75. Prior to your departure from the Department of State, were you ever asked to identify records or did you offer to provide records potentially responsive to congressional requests for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks? If so, what steps did you take to identify and produce such records?
76. Were you aware of Freedom of Information Act requests for documents and materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks? If so, when did you become aware of the requests for these documents and materials?
77. Prior to your departure from the Department of State, were you ever asked to identify records or did you offer to provide records potentially responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks? If so, what steps did you take to identify and produce such records?
78. Were you ever asked to provide or did you ever offer to provide records to the Benghazi Accountability Review Board?
90. Were you aware of requests from the House Select Committee on Benghazi for documents and materials relating to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi? If so, when did you become aware of the requests for documents and materials?
91. Were you ever contacted specifically with respect to identifying records potentially responsive to requests from the House Select Committee on Benghazi for documents or materials related to the 2012 Benghazi attacks, or did you offer to provide such records? If so, what steps did you take to identify and produce such records?
There's a reason for this. The vast majority of the questions are specifically about the creation and eradication of Clinton's personal e-mail server and account. In that regard, it is quite thorough, asking what could constitute every possible question about the system's security, compliance with public records laws and awareness of its existence within the Obama administration. They are good questions, and ones that the government should be asking.
But they are not specifically about Benghazi. Gowdy explains this in a press release that accompanied the letter. "[T]he House Resolution that established the Select Benghazi Committee gave the committee purview to examine all aspects of State Department’s compliance with previous Benghazi investigations," it reads, "which now includes State’s failure for two years to notify any of the previous investigative committees it did not have possession or control of Clinton’s email public records." You'll notice that the final seven questions above deal with the record-keeping questions as they pertain to the Benghazi committee, not the attacks themselves.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for Gowdy indicated that the investigation might continue into 2016, which surprised only the least cynical of political observers. The committee has been trying to get Clinton to testify again for some time; the letter was part of that process. But the delay can also be explained by the shift in attention to the meta-investigation of Benghazi, which clearly has put enough gas in the committee's engine to power for a few more miles.
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