GOP may subpoena Clinton aide Blumenthal on Benghazi

Republicans on the House select committee investigating the Benghazi, Libya terrorist attack are planning to subpoena Sidney Blumenthal, who served in Clinton’s inner circle while she led the State Department.

The New York Times reported that panel chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) is planning to issue the subpoena.

{mosads}The top Democrat on the House select committee criticized the plan.

“These latest moves by the Benghazi Committee-issuing a subpoena without first contacting the witness, leaking news of the subpoena before it was served, and not holding any Committee debate or vote-are straight out the partisan playbook of discredited Republican investigations,” Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the select committee’s ranking member, said in a statement.

“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,” he added.

Gowdy said during an April 15 interview with radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he wanted to interview Blumenthal about the deadly assault.

“He is on the list … We are taking the witnesses from the Department of State and CIA whose identities need to be preserved, we’re doing them first, and those are transcribed interviews,” he said. “Then we are moving into the people who are more well known, the Susan Rice’s, the Ben Rhodes, and yes, you can include Sidney Blumenthal.”

Also on Monday, the conservative activist group Judicial Watch obtained new documents related to the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, most notably a preliminary intelligence report that showed the assault was planned ten days in advance “to kill as many Americans as possible.”

“The attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was planned and executed by The Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman,” the report by the Defense Intelligence Agency said. The group said it had received the documents through a lawsuit following a Freedom of Information Act request.

The new documents could prolong the now year-long investigation into the attacks that left four Americans dead and further complicate Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid.

Gowdy recently said that the panel’s final report might not offer a cut and dried conclusion about what happened during the incident.