After months of negotiations, the House Select Committee on Benghazi has asked Hillary Clinton to appear in public before the committee twice in coming months.
In a letter sent Thursday to Clinton’s lawyer, committee Chair Trey Gowdy asked Clinton to appear before the committee to discuss her controversial use of a private email account during the week of May 18, and then to appear again during the week of June 18 to discuss the Benghazi terror attacks themselves.
Clinton was secretary of state during the September 2012 Benghazi terror attack, which left four Americans dead, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, and became a major political issue in the 2012 presidential campaign and in the years since.
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Earlier this year, Clinton acknowledged that she exclusively used a private email account to conduct all her business as secretary of state, raising questions about whether she complied with federal record-keeping regulations. The email controversy has become a centerpiece of Republican attacks on the 2016 presidential candidate.
Clinton has previously agreed to testify before the Benghazi committee, and said she wanted to get appearance out of the way as soon as possible. But Gowdy has refused to bring Clinton to his committee until he was assured she had turned over all emails from her personal server relevant to the 2012 terror attack in Libya.
On Wednesday, his office confirmed that the committee would likely not complete its investigation and publish a final report until sometime in 2016.
Democrats, who have charged that Gowdy intentionally delayed the hearing to keep the Benghazi controversy alive deep into the presidential election campaign, saw the delay as proof. “The Gowdy Committee’s admission today that it will not finish its investigation until 2016 is the most telling evidence yet that their investigation is solely about playing politics in the 2016 presidential campaign,” Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said Wednesday.








