Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, announced Thursday his intention to release undisclosed emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server.
The emails shed new light on the extent of her relationship with Sidney Blumenthal, a divisive informal adviser who frequently discussed Libya and Benghazi with the former secretary of state.
A Republican spokesman for the committee said the emails show Blumenthal “was pursuing business interests in Libya and that Secretary Clinton, at least in one instance, was promoting them.”
“These messages should have been made public when the State Department released Secretary Clinton’s other self-selected records on Libya and Benghazi, but there was a clear decision at the time to withhold this information from the American people and the Committee,” Gowdy said. “The State Department has now made these messages available, and the Committee intends to question Secretary Clinton about them during her appearance.”
In a scathing letter to Rep. Elijah Cummings, the committee’s top Democrat, Gowdy said he was “disheartened” by Cummings’ decision to publish a transcript of the committee’s closed-door interview with Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff.
The chairman expressed his hope that the Blumenthal emails would demonstrate the reasons why the committee has thus far opted not to publish transcripts from interviews with key figures like Mills and Blumenthal, given “the possibility of new investigatory information being discovered.”
According to a memorandum of understanding between the State Department and the committee, Gowdy must give at least five days notice before publicly releasing documents. He noted the new Blumenthal emails would be available for use in questioning Clinton when she appears before the committee Oct. 22.
