State Department officials gave the House Select Committee on Benghazi roughly 3,900 pages of new documents last week, some of which lawmakers had asked for last year through requests that the agency then ignored for months.
The new emails came from Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the 2012 terror attack, and Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s undersecretary for management and its highest records official.
Although the select committee began asking for copies of Kennedy’s emails in Nov. 2014, lawmakers did not start receiving them until last month. Kennedy remains in his position at the State Department.
Investigators had reviewed a small number of Kennedy’s emails that were included among unrelated batches of records, but November marked the first time the State Department began delivering the emails of its top records official.
Few other congressional committees have ever asked for Kennedy’s emails despite the pivotal role he has played at the State Department for years.
The select committee plans to interview Kennedy behind closed doors, but has not yet done so, an aide said.
Under Hillary Clinton, Kennedy was accused of covering up internal security investigations that could have reflected poorly on the agency. For example, an inspector general last year questioned his decision to spare an ambassador scrutiny after the diplomat allegedly solicited prostitutes on the job.
While Kennedy made key security decisions in the run-up to the Benghazi attack, he did not face punishment from the Accountability Review Board, the internal agency body convened to investigate the raid shortly after it occurred.
Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee argued Kennedy may have evaded responsibility for decisions he made in Libya because he had a hand in selecting members of the Accountability Review Board.
Kennedy’s ability to skirt blame in the aftermath of the attack has puzzled many observers who note, among other things, that he was the agency official who signed off on the temporary consulate in Benghazi.
The select committee was also the first to request copies of Stevens’ emails in June of this year, undermining criticism that the probe is simply duplicating the efforts of previous congressional investigations.
More than one month after a high-profile hearing with Clinton, the select committee is quietly continuing its work with a series of private interviews involving unidentified officials.
Lawmakers conducted at least four such closed-door, transcribed interviews in November.
While Democrats on and off the panel have called for the Benghazi committee to disband amid controversy over what they perceive as a partisan agenda, the State Department still has not given investigators all requested documents.
The agency’s sluggish response could force the probe to stretch into 2016.
