Fight over Benghazi docs to hit House floor
House Republicans will spend an hour of floor time Thursday calling on the State Department to turn over all documents related to the deadly 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attack.
Specifically, Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi have demanded State hand over tens of thousands of pages of emails from a private server Hillary Clinton used when she served as secretary of State.
But Obama administration officials say the process is taking longer than expected, and they may not be able to produce the documents until January 2016.
{mosads}”We want to explain to the American people the delays, what’s going on with the emails and what we’re going through to try to get them,” said Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), a member of the Benghazi panel who is organizing the speeches, known as a “special order.”
The speeches were originally scheduled for 8 p.m. Wednesday, but have been delayed until Thursday afternoon.
They may not have much of an impact on the State Department, but “it’s better than doing nothing,” Westmoreland said.
Republicans failed to give Democrats on the investigative panel a heads-up they would be addressing Benghazi on the House floor, said a Democratic aide.
Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) has indicated they won’t call Clinton to testify before the panel until they have all of the emails and other documents they’ve requested.
And other Republicans are threatening to withhold funding for parts of the State Department until the agency coughs up the documents.
For her part, Clinton said the emails are now the property of the State Department, and she urged officials there to quickly release them.
“Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do,” Clinton told reporters this week.
— Updated at 8:24 p.m.
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