Rep. Darrell Issa Booted Out of Benghazi Deposition

Rep. Darrell Issa, the former chair of the House Government and Oversight Committee, tried to crash a hearing on Benghazi on Tuesday, but was escorted from the closed-door meeting by its chairman, NBC News reported.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, personally saw Issa to the door, saying he was not authorized to be there.

"I'm a prosecutor; we always follow the rules," Gowdy told NBC News. "[Issa] is not a [Benghazi] committee member and non-committee members are not allowed in the room during the deposition. Those are the rules and we have to follow them, no exceptions made."



Issa previously lead an investigation into the Benghazi terrorist attacks in his role as House Oversight chairman.

During Tuesday's deposition, Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal was being questioned about the nearly 60 emails he sent to Clinton about the attack during Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state.

Last month, the State Department released more than 800 pages of emails that had been turned over by Clinton from her personal server.

"I think it's noteworthy that no committee of Congress that has previously looked into Benghazi or Libya has uncovered these memos, and I will leave it to you to figure out there was a failure to produce on the former secretary's part, or a failure to produce on the Department of State's behalf," Gowdy told reporters on Tuesday, according to NBC News.

But the ranking Democrat on the committee, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, cast doubt on the legitimacy of Gowdy's focus.

"The Select Committee is now conducting its investigation by leaks and press releases, without bothering to mention that these documents don't identify any smoking gun about the Benghazi attacks — in fact, they hardly relate to Benghazi at all," Cummings said in a statement, according to NBC News.

A State Department official said the department had not been contacted by Gowdy's committee but that it is "working diligently" to publish all of Clinton's emails online, NBC News reported.

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