Armed U. S. marshals delivered a congressional subpoena to the home of Clinton associate Sidney Blumenthal to summon him before a special panel investigating the terrorist attacks in Benghazi.
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who is the top Democrat on the Benghazi Committee, called the decision by the GOP to send marshals to Blumenthal’s home “heavy-handed, aggressive and unnecessary,” and a political tactic to undermine the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton.
Blumenthal, a longtime friend of the Clintons, sent emails to Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state that included intelligence reports on Libya.
The Benghazi panel is investigating the State Department’s role before, during and after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on Benghazi, which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The subpoena requests that Blumenthal appear before the committee on June 3 to provide a deposition.
But Cummings said Benghazi panel Chairman Trey Gowdy did not have to send armed marshals to Blumenthal’s home to deliver the subpoena. He accused Gowdy of failing to first ask Blumenthal whether he would voluntarily appear.
“These latest moves by the Benghazi Committee are straight out the partisan playbook of discredited Republican investigations,” Cummings said in a statement Wednesday morning. “The fact is that we have had these exact emails for three months, and the latest abuses by the Committee are just one more example of a partisan, taxpayer-funded attack against Secretary Clinton and her bid for president.”
