Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been called to
testify before the select committee investigating the Benghazi attacks in May and June, South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy said Thursday.
Gowdy, the panel's chairman, said that the panel would first seek to question Clinton "regarding the completeness of her public record" — regarding her use of private emails during her four years at the State Department — and then about the 2012 Libya attacks that killed four Americans.
The first hearing would be held the week of May 18 and the second no later than June 18, Gowdy said in a letter to Clinton's attorney, David Kendall. Specific dates would be coordinated later, the chairman said.
"With her cooperation and that of the state department and administration, Secretary Clinton could be done with the Benghazi Committee before the Fourth of July," Gowdy told Kendall. "It is necessary to call Secretary Clinton twice because the committee needs to ensure we have a complete and responsive record and all the facts before we then substantively question her on the Benghazi terrorist attacks."
Afterward, the committee's investigation "will go wherever the facts may lead," the chairman said. "I have made no presumption of right or wrongdoing on anyone's part with respects to the Benghazi terrorist attacks."
Gowdy's 13-page letter included 136 questions that the chairman described as "a sample of the questions I believe remain to be answered in detail with respect to the secretary's email use."
He added that "other members of the committee of course will have their own additional questions."
Gowdy wrote Kendall a day after the attorney demanded that the Benghazi panel question Clinton immediately. Kendall also debunked the chairman's earlier call for his client to
testify twice before the panel — privately and then publicly.
"There is no reason to delay her appearance or to have her testify in a private interview,"
Kendall said in his letter.
Kendall wrote Gowdy after the chairman
told Bloomberg News that the special committee's report would not be released until next year, just months before the 2016 presidential election.
The September 2012 Benghazi attacks killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two former Navy SEALs. House Speaker John Boehner created the committee last May.
"This is evidence of the thoroughness and relentlessness of the committee to build a complete, comprehensive and responsive record of the before, during and after of the Benghazi terrorist attacks," Gowdy told Kendall.
"We appreciate Secretary Clinton's willingness to cooperate so the committee can move as expeditiously as possible to conclude the investigation," he added.
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Benghazi panel's ranking Democrat, accused the Republicans of "operating at a glacial pace." He said the inquiry was on track to last longer than those of Iran-Contra, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, and 9/11 — "and it will squander more than $6 million in taxpayer funds in the process.
"The Republicans' multi-year search for evidence to back up their Benghazi conspiracy theories has turned up nothing," Cummings said. "The select committee has identified no evidence — documentary, testimonial, or otherwise — to support claims that Secretary Clinton ordered a stand-down, approved an illicit weapons program, or any other wild allegation Republicans have made for years.
"Instead, this appears to be a coordinated attempt by Republicans to drag out this taxpayer-funded search for anything they can use against Hillary Clinton, while their political arm raises campaign funds off the deaths of four Americans," he said.
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