Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., was removed this week from a closed-door deposition of Sidney Blumenthal for the simple reason that the California lawmaker is not a member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Wednesday.
Gowdy, who was tapped to chair the committee in May 2014, explained the incident during an interview with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer.
“What was going on there yesterday and is everything OK between the two of you?” the Fox anchor asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” Gowdy responded Wednesday. “There is a rule, if you are not a member of a committee, you cannot attend a deposition.”
The House committee has been established to investigate the events leading up to the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, which left four Americans dead.
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“You can attend a hearing, you can attend other meetings, but you can’t attend a deposition. And it’s my responsibility to enforce the rules even against friends,” Gowdy said.
Issa, who serves as the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, attended the deposition for only a few minutes before being escorted from the meeting by Gowdy.
NBC News producer Frank Thorp caught what appeared to be an unpleasant confrontation between the two Republican lawmakers. The video shows a seemingly agitated Issa storming off from Gowdy.
The Blumenthal deposition came after it was revealed in March that he was paid $10,000 a month by the Clinton Foundation as her offered former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “unsolicited intelligence” on developments in Libya.
The Obama administration had explicitly barred Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton ally, from a job at the State Department.
