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The leader of the House Select Committee on Benghazi says the State Department has failed to produce any copies it might possess of recently disclosed emails between Hillary Clinton and adviser Sidney Blumenthal.
“This is a straightforward question — State Department either has them or they do not,” chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said in a statement Tuesday.
“State should immediately produce to the committee emails that should have been produced months ago or explain why it is not in possession of these emails from Secretary Clinton,” he added. “Either response has ramifications toward a full public record. This should be neither complicated nor time consuming.”
{mosads}Gowdy criticized the department the day after his panel released nearly 60 emails Blumenthal turned over to the select committee earlier this month.
He challenged the State Department to determine whether or not the agency already possessed them, giving the agency until close of business Monday to respond.
The department has asked for an extension, according to Gowdy.
The memos between Blumenthal and Clinton are separate from a batch of nearly 300 messages from Clinton’s private email server that the State Department made public last month.
That initial cache showed Clinton had received about 25 memos from Blumenthal regarding Libya while she was secretary of State.
On Monday, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the agency was “working through” its inventory of messages to “determine if there are emails in that batch that we either didn’t have or may have not provided.”
“Now I will say at least that the more that is asked for in terms of scope, the more resources it will consume here at the State Department, and the more time it will take. There’s no doubt about that,” he added. “But … it’s up to them to determine what they want to look at.”
Gowdy dismissed that argument.
“Every request to State is met with delay, a request for extension and pleading to narrow the scope,” he said. “The reality is the State Department under both Secretaries [John] Kerry and Clinton has failed in its obligation to provide transparency for the American people and congressional investigators.”
Gowdy added that panel Democrats “could help speed the process if they would stop providing cover and join the majority in demanding State step-up production.”
“In the end, if President Obama and Secretary Kerry want to fulfill the President’s pledge of the most transparent administration in history, they will ensure the Executive Branch complies with the Select Committee’s outstanding requests,” he added.