Press Releases

Chairman Gowdy explained in his letter that he intends to “remain focused on discharging the mission given to us by the House of Representatives.” Yet, the Select Committee waited more than six months to send a request for new documents to the State Department and nearly a year to send new document requests to the Pentagon and the CIA. The Committee has spent more than $3.7 million in taxpayer funds in the more than a year that it has operated, and in that time it has yet to interview a single witness from the Department of Defense. The Committee has also not held a single hearing in 22 weeks, despite the Chairman’s assertion that there would be public hearings on a monthly basis.

“Despite taking the unprecedented step of releasing Mr. Blumenthal’s emails—and only his emails—Chairman Gowdy continues to block the release of Mr. Blumenthal’s deposition transcript, even though one of his own Republican colleagues disagrees with him and wants to release it too. House rules require a vote, Democrats insisted on that vote, and the Chairman has now confirmed that he will follow the rules and schedule a vote. The American people deserve to see what this transcript shows—how Republicans have been spending millions of tax dollars investigating Secretary Clinton and her personal relationships rather than the attacks on Benghazi.”

“Before today, Chairman Gowdy had not officially released a single email from a single witness in this entire investigation, which has lasted more than a year. Now, he has apparently decided that this one witness is so critical that his emails—and his alone—must be released. Yet the Chairman refuses to release Mr. Blumenthal’s deposition transcript, which includes his responses to hundreds of questions posed by Republicans about these very same emails and puts them in proper context. By the Chairman’s own admission, these emails have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi, and their selective release demonstrates the Select Committee’s singular focus on attacking Hillary Clinton and her bid for president.”

Obviously, the full transcript of Mr. Blumenthal’s deposition will provide important background and context to his emails. Otherwise, there would have been no reason to hold the deposition in the first place. We would be happy to have our staffs work together to review both the emails and the deposition transcript to identify any content that we all agree should be redacted before public release.