The House Select Committee on Benghazi will reportedly seek private emails from some of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s lieutenants at the State Department.
“We are going to seek any private email that relates to official business, and I don’t care about wedding cakes, but any work that could have been done on private-to-private accounts for those State Department employees we know had private accounts,” Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican and the committee’s chairman, told CNN.
Mr. Gowdy said those people include Cheryl Mills, Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff at State; aide Huma Abedin; and then-deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan.
Attempting to quell the controversy over her use of private e-mail as the country’s top diplomat, Mrs. Clinton said Tuesday that she deleted all of her personal emails and turned over anything related to her government business, but she said she wasn’t going to turn over a private server she used.
Mr. Gowdy told CNN it’s premature to say whether the committee is planning to subpoena the aides and that his select committee tasked with investigating the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi only has jurisdiction over emails involving Libya.
He also said on Fox News’ “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” Tuesday evening that the committee plans to talk to Mrs. Clinton “at least twice.”
“If it’s a public record, you should have access to it — I should have access to it,” he said. “She doesn’t get to make that call. We don’t grade our own papers in life. We don’t call fouls on ourself in the NBA. We don’t call holding on ourself in football. She doesn’t get to make that call.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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