Benghazi Committee Chair wants John Kerry to testify
After recent revelations that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not turn over all her email records relating to Libya, the top Republican on the Benghazi committee says he intends to take the issue all way to the current State Department head.
"I have met with Secretary Kerry's chief of staff privately. We've talked on the phone last week. Our next interaction will be public," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If I don't get satisfaction from that public interaction with his chief of staff, the next person to come explain to Congress why he has been so recalcitrant in turning over documents will be the secretary himself."
The Republican congressman, who has spearheaded efforts to recover Clinton's private emails relating to Benghazi, says that while he understands Secretary Kerry's schedule can be demanding, "he is the only thing standing between me and a completed investigation."
Gowdy said that he will call on Clinton herself to testify "just as soon as the Department of State decides to give me the documents that I need."
The State Department said that only 15 emails were missing in their records handed over from Clinton's private server -- all of them predating the 2012 assault on the U.S. diplomatic facility.
On the heels of Gowdy's scathing statement Thursday on the latest email revelations, the Clinton camp responded with criticism that the Republicans on the Benghazi committee were "clinging to their invented scandal, one that's on life-support."
"Their latest witch-hunt is based on the testimony of a non-government employee and a set of documents he turned over," Clinton campaign John Podesta said in a statement to CBS News. "That leaves one question that prominently remains: What, if anything at all, does this have to do with Benghazi?"
Gowdy fired back at Podesta's biting remarks on Sunday, saying "the murder of four of my fellow Americans is not an invented scandal."
"We were asked by our colleagues in the House to look at all policies, all activities, all decisions that led up to the attacks in Benghazi, the patency of the attacks themselves, the administration's response and the aftermath," Gowdy said.
The email revelation, the Republican congressman asserted, "undercuts" the arguments Clinton had made when she said that she had turned over all word-related emails to the State Department.
