Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member on the House Select Committee on Benghazi, blasted the Republican chairman for leaking the existence of new Benghazi-related emails before consulting with Democrats Monday evening.
“Chairman [Trey] Gowdy did not contact me, other Democratic members, or anyone on our staff before issuing his press release, nor did he contact the State Department to clarify why its production of Benghazi-related emails might have differences from Mr. [Sidney] Blumenthal’s production of Libya-related documents,” the Maryland Democrat said Tuesday.
Cummings’ criticism came as the select committee grilled Blumenthal, a long-time Clinton aide, behind closed doors Tuesday morning about his relationship with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. He has called for the committee to release the transcript from the private interview.
“The select committee is now conducting its investigation by leaks and press releases, without bothering to mention that these documents don’t identify any smoking gun about the Benghazi attacks — in fact, they hardly relate to Benghazi at all,” Cummings said.
Gowdy told a group of reporters gathered at the Capitol Visitor’s Center Tuesday that he planned to release the previously undisclosed emails as soon as possible, pending the Democrats’ approval.
“I think it’s noteworthy that no committee of Congress that has previously looked into the Benghazi or Libya uncovered these memos, and I will leave it to you to figure out whether there was a failure to produce on the former secretary’s part or a failure to produce on the Department of State’s behalf,” the South Carolina Republican said shortly before the Blumenthal hearing.
Blumenthal submitted 60 emails sent to and from Clinton that did not appear in the batch of Clinton communications given to the committee by State Department officials earlier this year.
“We are prepared to release these emails, but where practicable our internal processes include consultation with the ranking member before release. If Ranking Member Cummings consents, we will add to the former secretary’s public email record and release these shortly. If not, we will do so after the required five days has passed,” Gowdy said Monday.
Cummings, in turn, called for the release of the transcript from Tuesday’s interview with Blumenthal, which had been closed to press and the public.
“Committee Democrats have always supported transparency, so we request that the chairman release the full transcript of today’s deposition with Mr. Blumenthal at the same time that he releases Mr. Blumenthal’s emails,” Cummings said Tuesday. “If Republicans truly believe in transparency, then they should have no objection to this course of action.”
Republican committee staff said “a witness deposition … is typically done in private” before Blumenthal was deposed.
Gowdy issued a subpoena for Blumenthal May 19 after reports emerged indicating the former Clinton aide had prepared a series of Libyan intelligence memos for Clinton before and after the 2012 terror attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Blumenthal has been close to the former first family since 1997, when Bill Clinton first hired him as an assistant in the White House. The Obama administration reportedly nixed the idea of hiring him at the State Department given his divisive history as a Clinton campaign staffer who had lampooned the president when he was a candidate in the 2008 primary.
Hillary Clinton has defended her reliance on Blumenthal as one of her main sources of intelligence in Libya by claiming she was simply receiving “unsolicited” information from an “old friend.”
But Republicans have questioned why the informal aide was allowed to send unvetted intelligence to the secretary of state, which she seemingly accepted as fact and passed along to other State Department staff.
The select committee will release the emails after five days have passed if Democratic members take no further action.
