Exclusive interview: Gowdy on the Benghazi committee’s plans and Hillary Clinton’s upcoming testimony

Since its formation in 2014, the committee has served as something of a thorn in Clinton’s side. The committee first uncovered that Clinton had used personal email and at least one private server as secretary of state. Her public responses to questions about her unusual email arrangement have dogged her presidential campaign, as new revelations have forced her to alter earlier statements made about her exchange of classified information and the security of her communications.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Libya, talked to the Washington Examiner about his investigation, his plans for Clinton’s hearing, and the changes that he hopes result from his committee’s work.

The following is an edited transcript of Gowdy’s in-depth conversation with the Examiner.

Examiner: I wanted to ask you specifically about the potential existence of multiple servers being used by former Secretary Clinton. How do you intend to locate any other devices or servers where emails may have been transferred or stored? Would you subpoena the FBI?

Gowdy: No. The committee on Benghazi only has subpoena power for people and documents. We don’t have subpoena power for items. It would be inappropriate — to put it mildly — for a legislative branch entity to issue a subpoena to an executive branch investigatory entity. So I’m going to let the FBI do what it is that they are trained and experts at doing. My committee does not and never has had the power to subpoena a server. We do have the power to ask that she turn it over to a third party, which we have consistently done since March. There would necessarily be things on the server no matter how many servers may exist that would be beyond the scope of our committee. And my interest is in making sure the public record is complete as it relates to Libya and Benghazi, but there are lots of folks who have equities in her public record far beyond us. So it would need to be an entity that had more jurisdiction than our committee.

Examiner: Do you feel like you can get a complete record of what went on without talking to the FBI about what they uncover and Platte River Networks [the company that managed Clinton’s email after she left the State Department], necessarily, about what they were involved in, in terms of handling her server and private network?

Gowdy: Well I don’t know that you ever know that you have a complete public record, that’s true no matter what your investigation is, whether it’s this job or the job I had before this one. I wouldn’t know who would tell you that you had everything. I mean, who’s in a position to know that? We’re going to ask the secretary when she comes in October. But the bureau, and perhaps it’s just that I’m jaundiced because I used to work with them, they’re not supposed to confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation. And the last thing the bureau would want or should have is someone injecting himself or herself into an investigation that doesn’t have jurisdiction. I have jurisdiction in a number of arenas, but the national security would not be one of them, potential criminality is not one of them. And I’m not discussing just Secretary Clinton. The broad, I mean go back to Lois Lerner, we had certain abilities with respect to Lois Lerner, but the notion that we can pursue any criminal charge is just, I hate to take people back to civics, but the legislative branch doesn’t have the power to do that.

Examiner: Do you yet know why there was no military response even on that night of the attack in Benghazi?

Gowdy: No. And I wouldn’t be able to answer that question definitively until we talked to the last witness. You can talk to 99 and it may be the hundredth that provides the most compelling testimony or frankly the most credible, so there’s reasons that you don’t draw conclusions until you have talked to everyone that you can talk to and examine every document that you can examine. And again, harkening back to the job I’m most familiar with, there’s a reason judges tell the jury not only can you not make up your mind to the very end, you can’t even think about what you’re going to do until the very end. I won’t be able to answer that question until the last witness has been interviewed and the last document has been examined.

Despite Hillary Clinton’s front-runner status in the campaign for the Democratic nomination, the public views her as untrustworthy, partly due to the evasive answers she has given with respect to her private email server. (AP Photos)

Examiner: Do you believe Hillary Clinton appears to be hiding something from your committee in particular?

Gowdy: Well hiding something denotes a level of science or intent that I am ill-equipped to know what is in anyone else’s mind other than my own. I know that the State Department has been recalcitrant, and that is putting it mildly and politely, in responding to our committee’s request for information. And it may very well be that the unique email arrangement she had with herself contributes to their recalcitrance, but frankly the State Department either knew or should have known that she was housing public records on her own server, and that takes us through the pendency of her tenure. Then fast forward to the day she left the State Department. There is no argument that she should have kept the public record at that point. Even assuming arguendo, and I reject it, but assume arguendo that her explanation of convenience persuades some. The need for convenience ended the day she was no longer secretary of state. So all of this, and it is my primary interest, all of what has happened with respect to her email arrangement and its progeny, I’m interested because I’m a citizen, I’m interested because I’m a member of Congress, but for purposes of our committee my interest is, are we ever going to have a guarantee that we have everything that is relevant so we could answer the question that the House asked us to answer? And it is undeniable that this email arrangement complicates our ability to do that. And you combine that with an executive branch that is neither transparent nor forthcoming with documents you are entitled to and it’s been quite a slog for us in terms of being able to do the jobs we were asked to do.

Examiner: Do you think that her actual email arrangement itself had any impact on the events that transpired on the ground in Benghazi?

Gowdy: You used the word ‘think’ and I can’t deal in those terms. I mean what I think is no more important than what the greeter at Walmart thinks. It’s a fact-centric investigation and I won’t be able to, the only way to answer that question is to have the full universe of documents that are responsive to our jurisdiction, which is not just Benghazi, it would also be documents related to Libya. And frankly it wasn’t just Secretary Clinton that had and made use of private email. It was also some of her top aides, all of which has combined to make oversight difficult if not impossible. But you would have to ask them what their goal was. She said it’s convenient; it was convenience. You’re welcome to believe that if you would like, but there’s another explanation that also starts with ‘C’ and that would be control.

Examiner: Are you expecting her to be a hostile witness? If she reacts in a way that she’s not willing to comply with inquiries made by your committee at that time, how are you planning on responding?

Gowdy: Well, I’ve never ever considered any witness to be hostile and that was in 100-plus trials. It’s my job to ask questions that the jury believes are relevant and fair and firm. And it’s the witness’s job to answer the questions. I’m not going to be asking her questions that are outside of our jurisdiction. Necessarily, the questions she’s going to be asked are going to be relevant to our inquiry. And among my many limitations in life is the inability to make somebody answer a question. You can’t do that in any facet of life, but you do have to give enough confidence and enough credit to the jury that they’re going to be examining and observing my questions to make sure they’re fair. And they’re going to be observing her responses to make sure that they are full. And at a certain point, you just have to trust the jury to reach the right conclusion. But I can’t make anyone talk. If I could make someone talk, then Lois Lerner would have stayed and answered my questions months ago.

Examiner: Bob Woodward characterized this as Nixonian, this whole situation with Clinton’s private email arrangement. When you look at the different scandals that have happened in the federal government recently, whether it’s the IRS scandal, Fast and Furious, Veterans Affairs, what have you, how would you characterize the Obama administration’s actions surrounding Benghazi and Mrs. Clinton’s email arrangement?

Gowdy: Well, I’d, I’d, I would probably do a really poor job at that. I’m not a huge fan of comparisons. Woodward obviously has standing to make comparisons. I was what, 8, when Watergate unfolded, so I don’t have great recollection of it. Secretary Clinton might have better recollection since she participated in it. I view each, whether it’s Fast and Furious, whether it’s the IRS targeting scandal, whether it’s fill-in-the-blank, each one has its own set of facts. Each one has its own set of witnesses. I just would be really poor at comparing. There are certain similarities that you note, which chief among them is the legislative branch is just not well-equipped to conduct investigations and we would be better off admitting that up front as opposed to building expectations. We do have the power of the purse, where that’s appropriate. The Senate has advice and consent where that’s appropriate. We have the power to subpoena people and documents and the House as a whole may have the power to subpoena things, although that’s an open legal question; but the real investigations in life are done by the executive branch. They’re not done by the legislative branch. If you want, as lots of the folks I bump into on a daily basis, if you want to see really effective investigations done, you have to have control over the executive branch. And my side has won one out of the last six popular votes for president. So if you’re not winning the popular vote for president and you’re not winning the Electoral College, you’re not going to control the executive branch.

Examiner: I’ve heard others speculate that the ‘drip, drip, drip’ of info that keeps coming out about Hillary Clinton’s email arrangement has to do, must have come from some involvement with the Obama administration, the executive branch. So when you hear people say that perhaps someone in the executive branch hopes that someone else enters the Democratic race for the White House, what are your thoughts on that matter?

Gowdy: I know who it’s not, I can’t tell you who it is. I continue to be amazed at how much better sources reporters have than members of Congress do. So I can’t tell you whether, I can’t tell you how Michael Schmidt broke the original email story, I can’t tell you how the AP broke the server story, or Reuters. I can just tell you this: serious investigations don’t leak. But go back to my last answer, serious investigations for the most part are done by the executive branch. So when you have an investigation in what it seemed like everyone wants it to be a politicized environment, except maybe the participants. My committee members, when they accepted the task, I think they understood that they weren’t going to be talking to the media a whole lot and they were OK with that. It’s just, it’s a struggle to do serious investigations, talk to witnesses, and not have it come out. We’ve done a pretty good job, we’ve done a better job than most, but I don’t know who the sources of information are, I just know who the sources are not.

Examiner: What motivation might they have — the participants themselves — to release information that your committee chose not to, and would not, do?

Gowdy: Well motivations are as individualized as the people. Some folks just enjoy sharing information. Some folks, they may have an interest in the outcome of something. There are 1,000 ways to cross-examine someone’s motives. But there are also 1,000 different motives. So I don’t know who the source is and frankly, folks in your line of work, it’s your job to seek out sources and tidbits of information. My job is to write a report at the very end. So while it’s interesting to watch the drip, drip, drip of a different story seemingly everyday, my job is to get ready for the next interview because no offense to the media, but I can’t cite a media report as evidence. It’s hearsay. Oftentimes it’s double hearsay. My interest is in talking to the eyewitnesses and people who have firsthand knowledge. I could never in a million years get away with an unnamed source in the courtroom for the very reason that you cannot cross-examine an unnamed source. So the motivations would be as varied as the number of people providing information.

Examiner: When you’re conducting the business of this committee, are you mindful of the potential impact it could have on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign?

Gowdy: No. Because I didn’t mention her name for the first three public hearings we had. I mean the only reason, while I’m thrilled and delighted to talk to you this afternoon, the only reason people are talking to me now is because she chose to have a unique if not unprecedented email arrangement with herself. We’ve interviewed 40 people, many of whom are witnesses that no other committee bothered to interview. But because we don’t leak the names of those folks or what they’ve said, there’s a disproportionate focus on her. And I can’t help what my fellow citizens focus on. I can just tell you the committee is not focused on her future. We’re focused on her past. She was secretary of state at all relevant times. And what you’ll see when she does come before the committee are some really good, relevant, material questions about her tenure as secretary of state. You won’t hear a single question about what her future plans are. It is not my job to impact 2016 presidential politics, either on the right or the left. It’s not my job.

Examiner: But I’m sure you also understand that depending on how she responds to the questions that you ask there could be some resulting impact on that.

Gowdy: But that’s on her. That’s again, had she had the same email that the president had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. He’s a pretty busy fella, too, but he managed to not have his own server, and I don’t believe he’s planning on keeping all of his public records when he leaves the White House and then only turning them over 20 months later when Patrick Kennedy writes him and reminds him that he still has them. So all of that, my fellow citizens are welcome to factor that in any way shape or form they want to. My interest is solely in whether or not she has thwarted our ability to get the information we need. And I, just like everybody else, I’ve followed the news. I realize there’s an election coming up in 2016. My goal is to be complete with our work well before any of that begins to heat up.

Examiner: I hear people claiming that this is a ‘witch hunt,’ and other things that I’m sure you hear, too. So when you hear those things, at this point, what difference is any of this going to make?

Gowdy: Well, I don’t like the term ‘witch hunt,’ but that is the one that is used. I would just remind folks that we’ve had several public hearings to date. Her name has not been mentioned a single time; hasn’t crossed my lips. And we’ve interviewed scores and scores of people not named Clinton. We have probably close to 50 interviews left to do of people not named Clinton. So I get, I mean Congress is not popular, I get that it’s a lot easier to blame us than it is to engage in some self-reflection and determine whether or not possibly you’re the master and creator of your own destiny. Maybe she’s wherever she is because of her own decisions and not because of a congressional committee that frankly up until March of 2015 very few people were paying attention to. So what I will take credit for is we did something none of these other exhaustive congressional investigations were able to do, which is uncover this unique email arrangement. But think for a second how sad that is. Seven congressional investigations into Benghazi and not a one of them bothered to ask for her emails? I mean how pathetic is that? So I do plead guilty for conducting a serious investigation where we wanted to talk to people who actually could answer the questions. But the consequences of her decision-making from the time she became secretary of state and set up this unique email arrangement, and keeping her own public record, and then hiring a lawyer to decide what you can see, and what I can see and what others cannot see. And then scrubbing a server so you can’t see yoga emails. That’s all going to be for the jury to determine. It really only impacts my work to the extent that it impacts whether or not I have every document I’m entitled to.

A man looks at documents at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a day after an attack that killed four Americans on Sept. 12, 2012.

Examiner: Why have you and your committee succeeded at getting some of this information that other committees have not been able to do? And along with that, why should people have faith in the FBI and [Department of Justice] in their separate investigations to do a fair and full investigation when all of this required prompting from revelations elsewhere to pique their interest in this matter?

Gowdy: Well, that’s a two-part question. I think the reason that we succeeded where others did not is frankly because we gave a damn. I mean the folks on my committee, both from a member and a staff standpoint, signed up for this challenge for all the right reasons. You take my chief counsel who’s a former Army general. To this day, I can’t tell you what his political ideations are. I have no idea. I’ve never had a political conversation with him. I have no idea who he voted for or if he voted. And he leads our investigation. Because I was really clear with every one of them, many of whom are former federal prosecutors, they’re career public service folks. We’re going to find the facts and go wherever the facts take us. We’re not going to come up with a preset list of conclusions and then go try to find facts to support that. So it begins with hiring serious people who understand what the challenge is and what the job is. And the job is to find all the facts and then follow wherever they go. And that may disappoint people on the right and that may disappoint people on the left. And it may be at the end of your investigation everybody’s mad at you. But if you can look in the mirror and know that all you did was pursue facts and follow them, then you will have done what we were asked to do. Why Mike Rogers’ committee never sought to interview Hillary Clinton, I have no idea. Why the ARB [Accountability Review Board], for that matter, never interviewed Hillary Clinton, I have no idea. I can just tell you this: We’ve interviewed eyewitnesses that were never interviewed before, to say nothing of the secretary of state. Literally people on the ground in Benghazi the night of the attacks had not been interviewed by the previous committees that allegedly looked into this. So it is not high math. It is not complicated. You get a list of witnesses. You talk to them. You ask for all the documents. And you have a certain determination about yourself that you’re not going to go away. I saw a press release the other day from the Democrats that our committee has lasted longer than any other investigatory committee. And we’re going to keep lasting until the executive branch gives us the documents that we’re entitled to. And then as soon as they give us the documents and access to [witnesses], we’re going to write our report and we’ll go away.

Now with respect to the FBI, I worked with them for 16 years. I am sure like every other part of our citizenry, there are Republicans, there are Democrats, there are Libertarians, or Bull Moose, there are you name it. There may be a few Bernie Sanders supporters among the FBI. But I never once saw politics influence an investigation. Not once. And career prosecutors, I’m not talking about political appointees, but career prosecutors who stay no matter who the president is. I mean I was hired by Bill Clinton’s administration and I didn’t turn out to be a Democrat. And I worked with folks when I was at the U.S. attorney’s office of all political stripes and we never had a political conversation. It’s hard for me to explain to folks who have never been in that situation, particularly folks who live and breathe politics, but that is not what federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents do. They do not live and breathe politics. They live and breathe facts and law. And you find the facts and apply it to the law and you treat everybody the same whether you’re a member of Congress or a United States general or a former Cabinet level official or the greeter at Walmart, everybody is treated the same. So yeah, maybe I’m in the minority, but I actually do have confidence the FBI is going to do this thing the right way for the right reasons.

Examiner: What might you expect to accomplish and what segments of the federal government might change as a result of your investigation afterward?

Gowdy: Well there are probably a couple of things. Number one, I hope people have a renewed appreciation for the willingness that some folks have to put themselves in harm’s way for our country. And that’s true from a military and from a foreign-service standpoint. I don’t keep a picture of [Republican National Committee Chairman] Reince Priebus or Hillary Clinton on my desk to motivate me for Benghazi. I put pictures of the four people who were killed. I mean that’s why I’m doing it. I hope as the report is written, and if we have more public hearings, I hope people will grow, I think they already appreciate the military. I think they’re probably the most appreciated. But you still can’t appreciate them enough. And the fact that there are people who love our country enough to go represent it in hostile environments and they ought to be safe. And if they can’t be safe, then we need to reconsider the need to have a physical presence in that environment. And that’s one of the things we’re going to be asking witnesses coming forward. You have to. Remember the Ben Rhodes [deputy national security adviser for strategic communication] memo where he said this is not a failure of the broader policy whatever the hell that policy may have been? Well, you have to balance the policy with the risk. I mean you could have a really great policy objective in what used to be Somalia, but the risks are too great to have a physical presence. So there’s a weighing and a balancing that takes place. Who does that weighing and balancing? And then how do you super-weight or grade on a curve in environments that are as dangerous as Libya. So that, I hope, will be in addition to finding out, particularly for family members — the four who were killed — finding out to the extent you can definitively know what happened, when it happened, why it happened. Debunk myths no matter what side they may exist on and just have a really fact-centric investigation where you actually cite the testimony of what people said. So answers there, a better environment moving forward. You know we’ve had [accountability review boards] in the past, in fact this ARB for whatever reason, the opening quote is from a Spanish-American philosopher and I’m going to butcher it with a quote, but it’s something like: Those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. Well, we’ve had ARBs in the past, we’ve had attacks in the past. What did we learn from them? One of the ARB recommendations with respect to Benghazi was about fire training. Well, fire has been around for a while. So why are you just in 2013 or 2014 figuring out that fire might be a weapon? It’s been around for a while. So that’s part of what you know, number one, if you’ve ever met with family members of folks who have lost their lives that becomes your immediate priority. That is the only motivation you need, is the family members of those that died. And you factor into that the fact that there are people who are going to be going into similar circumstances. I get that people are interested in 2016, but I would hope that that would be way far down the list of reasons that people were interested in what we were able to find.

Examiner: Does presidential politics make it more difficult? How can parties interested in it for the reasons you’ve mentioned go about getting accountability from people within the executive branch?

Gowdy: We’re all, each one of us in the House is held accountable every two years. And everyone in the Senate is held accountable every six years. And everyone who is in the White House or aspires to be there has a chance for the jury to weigh in every four years. So in terms of accountability, there are fiscal consequences through the appropriations process. There’s shining the hot white light of scrutiny. But in terms of meting out punishment or meting out consequences, the legislative branch is not well-equipped at all to do that.

Gowdy said Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., would be his top pick to be the next attorney general.

Examiner: Even discussion of what consequences could be, or maybe should be, is something that you would delegate to your fellow citizens and people within the executive branch who have the ability to do something?

Gowdy: Well, it’s not me that delegated it. It’s those fellows sitting around the room in Philadelphia. I mean I, if I were driving the ship, I may have driven it into a different harbor, but the legislative branch is just — and trust me, I get the question every Saturday morning at the grocery store. When are you going to — take the guy from [General Services Administration] who’s drinking wine in the hot tub, I don’t know if you remember that picture or not, but folks [ask] when are you going to put that guy in jail? That was my old job. I can’t do that. I can control money. I can change the law. Speaking of which, there was litigation, there may still be litigation surrounding survivor benefits or death benefits for the folks killed in Benghazi. That would be an area where a legislative remedy might be appropriate. So you’ve got funding. The ARB is a legislative creation. But the ARB look at what Congress has the power to do just contrasted with what one federal judge can do. You see federal judges ordering that emails be turned over by a certain date? Do you see federal judges ordering that certain witnesses have to swear under oath that they have done X, Y and Z? The judicial branch has the power to do that; the legislative branch does not. I’ve been asking John Finer, who’s the chief of staff for [Secretary of State] John Kerry, for months to give me documents and one federal judge in Washington, D.C., has more power to effectuate document production than the entire House of Representatives. So I feel the frustration, but I would have to go back in a time machine and talk to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Madison and some of them to voice that frustration.

Examiner: If the next president of the United States is a Republican and does approach you about some sort of job in the executive branch, say as attorney general, how would you respond?

Gowdy: I would advise my close friends to move to New Zealand. Or another [country]. I would love it for somebody. First of all, I would love it for folks on my side to be picking the next AG. I would hope they would come to me and say, ‘Won’t you give me a list of five names of folks that you really respect that will treat this job in the apolitical way in which it should be treated?’ I’d love to provide those names, but my name would not be the one I provided. They can do better than me. And they should do better than me.

Examiner: Do you care to share who some of those names might be that you would consider providing?

Gowdy: Oh gosh. I mean I have worked with, I frankly, I do not know Loretta Lynch. I do know Sally Yates a little bit and she’s a former U.S. attorney. She’s actually, took Jim Cole’s place. I want someone who has little political background as possible and will even have the courage to say no to his or her own boss. So you know I’m a big fan of [Sen.] Kelly Ayotte who used to be the attorney general in New Hampshire. I’ve got some colleagues that were former U.S. attorneys, [Reps.] Pat Meehan, Susan Brooks, Tom Marino. That’s the quality I’m looking for is a ball-and-strike caller. You know my frustration with [former Attorney General Eric] Holder was that he was driven more by policy than by facts, although I never had a heated exchange with him. He was never anything other than a gentleman to me when we talked. We just fundamentally disagree on the role of that job. It’s an honest disagreement, but it’s a fundamental disagreement. I’m, you know if I were king for a day and you said you get to pick the next AG, I’d probably go talk to Kelly Ayotte, frankly.

This article appears in the Sept. 8 edition of the Washington Examiner magazine.