A State Department spokesman said Friday the agency gave the House Select Committee on Benghazi only the emails officials “felt best met [the committee’s] request” for Benghazi-related records instead of providing all relevant communications.
“After receiving the emails from Secretary Clinton, we went through them all and gave to the select committee those that we felt best met their request, which was for Benghazi-related emails,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said during the agency’s briefing Friday. “And out of that process came 296 emails that this department felt best met that requirement.”
Kirby declined to say whether 60 new emails provided to the committee by Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton aide, were withheld from the committee by the State Department or by Hillary Clinton herself.
“I can’t speak to whether or not there were emails that Mr. Blumenthal provided that we have and just decided not to or were not provided to us,” Kirby said. “We tried to meet in good faith the select committee requirement for Benghazi-related emails, and this department believes strongly that we met that requirement.”
The previously undisclosed emails that Blumenthal gave the select committee late last week ahead of his deposition have raised questions about the completeness of the records Clinton provided to the State Department.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the Benghazi committee, has raised concerns about the “gaps of months and months and months” in the emails that were initially given to congressional investigators.
The South Carolina Republican expressed his frustration with the delay in receiving the emails ahead of Blumenthal’s closed-door deposition Tuesday.
“Clearly the committee should have gotten this information sooner,” Gowdy said.
