Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's attorney said Wednesday his client is ready to answer questions before a special House panel as soon as possible on the 2012 Benghazi attacks and the use of her private email account.
"There is no reason to delay her appearance or to have her testify in a private interview," attorney
David Kendall stated in a letter to South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, the committee's GOP chairman.
The attacks killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two former Navy SEALs.
Kendall noted that Clinton has testified before other House and Senate panels on "the tragic events in Benghazi."
"She has made clear that she will voluntarily testify publicly again before the select committee, and at that time, is happy to continue to answer questions the select committee may have about her email use," Kendall said.
In response, Gowdy said late Wednesday that he would on Thursday disclose "a reasonable path forward with respect to Secretary Clinton's appearances to discuss both Benghazi as well as congressional efforts to ensure the public record is complete with respect to her tenure as Secretary of State."
The chairman said that he "respectfully" disagreed with Kendall's "assertion" that Clinton had "answered all questions surrounding the unusual email arrangement she had with herself."
Gowdy said that Clinton's news conference last month regarding the emails and "subsequent efforts at clarifying her remarks served to create more questions than answers.
"I also would note that if the committee had called former Secretary Clinton when Democrats and her attorney first encouraged us to, the committee would not have had possession of the 300 emails we now have or known about her exclusive use of a personal server and email account to conduct official business," he said.
More emails from Clinton's four years as the nation's top diplomat were coming "in the days ahead," Gowdy said.
He told Bloomberg News earlier Wednesday that the special committee's report would not be released until next year, just months before the 2016 presidential election. He has also said he had wanted to query Clinton in a private session and a public hearing.
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Benghazi committee's ranking Democrat, said there is no need to question Clinton privately.
"Rather than drag out this political charade into 2016 and selectively leak portions of a closed-door interview, the committee should schedule the public hearing, make her records public, and refocus its efforts on the attacks in Benghazi," Cummings said.
Another top Democrat on the panel, California Rep. Adam Schiff, said that Gowdy's request for two interviews "validates the concern many of us expressed at the outset, that the committee's true purpose was to affect the presidential race.
"The obsessive focus on Secretary Clinton by the GOP members makes it clear that they have either lost sight of the stated purpose of the committee — to investigate the tragedy in Benghazi — or that was never the object to begin with.
"Either way, it is a misuse of taxpayer resources and sets a dangerous precedent of utilizing a select committee for solely partisan purposes," Schiff said.