More Than 10,000 Days of Delays: Obama Admin’s Delays of Benghazi Documents Equivalent to Over 27 Years

Washington, D.C. — Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy (SC-04) released the following statement regarding the Obama administration’s serial delays in producing documents, which total more than 10,000 days, the equivalent of over 27 years:

“This committee’s thorough, fact-centered investigation has been repeatedly stonewalled by the Obama administration, Ranking Member Elijah Cummings, and Committee Democrats. Not only have they failed to identify a single administration witness worth talking to or a single document worth accessing in the past two years, they have affirmatively delayed the identification of witnesses and the production of unquestionably relevant documents. Committee Democrats have not lifted a finger to help the Select Committee speed up its investigation and release a report.” 

Earlier this month, the Obama administration confirmed the committee went the extra mile to complete its investigation as soon as possible by helping the State Department get extra funding. In total, $6.5 million was reprogrammed so the State Department could speed up document production to Congress and the committee could complete its investigation faster.

“I wanted to have this completed by the end of December 2015,” Chairman Gowdy told Politico. “But you have to have access to documents and witnesses — that is the lifeblood of an investigation… And when one side controls documents and the witnesses and the other group is trying to conduct the investigation, that creates something of a quandary.” 

Chairman Gowdy also noted the duplicity in Democrats’ talking points. Ahmed Abu Khattala, the lone person known to be arrested and indicted for the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, was captured in June 2014, one month after the Select Committee on Benghazi was formed. He has yet to be taken to trial, and the Department of Justice just recently announced it would not seek the death penalty. Committee Democrats have no explanation for why it is taking the Department of Justice two years to bring one person to trial – without administration obstruction and delay – or why it took two years to decide not to put Khattala on trial for his life, but they cannot stop complaining about a congressional investigation that has lasted merely one month longer and will be completed much sooner. When current U.S. attorneys take two years to conduct an investigation, Committee Democrats do not utter a word. When former U.S. attorneys take two years to conduct an investigation, Committee Democrats are apoplectic.

A review of just some of the document productions the committee has received shows it has been delayed the equivalent of at least 5,940 days – over 16 years – in the last nine months alone. And that’s before any delays of the committee’s requests to interview witnesses are taken into account.

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