Clinton Talks To Congress On Benghazi Oct. 22

It was announced this morning via press release that Hillary Clinton will publicly testify before the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Oct. 22.

The former Secretary of State Clinton was invited to appear before the committee investigating the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack earlier this week, Nick Merrill told CNN, and the former secretary of state and 2016 presidential candidate accepted that invitation on Friday.

Merrill said Clinton was “pleased” to receive the invitation to a public hearing from committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy.

The agreement between the Clinton representatives and members of the  Republican-controlled committee comes after weeks of intense conversations. Republicans contend that the committee is solely interested in looking into the terrorist attack that killed four Americans — including Ambassador Christopher J. Stevens — while Clinton was secretary of state. Clinton’s supporters argue that Gowdy’s committee has become nothing more than a political arm of the Republican Party, looking to score points against Clinton ahead of the 2016 presidential campaign.

CNN is reporting that Clinton agreed to testify before the committee in May. Gowdy, however, rejected that offer and asked the secretary to appear twice — once on her exclusive use of a private email server while at State and another in regard to the Benghazi attack.

That was a non starter as David Kendall, who has spearheaded Clinton’s communication with the committee, said the former first lady would only testify once on both topics and offered to do it during the week of May 18 or later.

The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, accused Gowdy last week of overstepping the bounds of his committee. In speaking to a gathering of the press the Congressman from Maryland was very direct in his point.

“It appears that much of the Select Committee’s work has been shelved while Republicans pursue every possible avenue of political attack against Secretary Clinton,” Cummings said in a letter to Gowdy. “These actions by the Select Committee — which lack any legitimate basis — serve only to delay its work further into the election season and subject it to increasingly widespread criticism for its highly partisan actions.”

Gowdy continues to maintain that he is only interested in getting to the bottom of the Benghazi attack and Republicans have complimented him for leaving politics out of it.

Clinton’s email gained renewed focus on Friday after the inspector general for the intelligence community has informed members of Congress that some material Hillary Clinton emailed from her private server contained classified information, but it was not identified that way when they were sent. Because it was not identified, it is unclear whether Clinton realized she was potentially compromising classified information.

 

Meanwhile, Republicans on Friday continued their call for Clinton to turn over the private email server she used as secretary of state.

“The number of questions surrounding Secretary Clinton’s unusual email arrangement continues to grow,” Gowdy said in a statement on Friday. “The best — the only way — to resolve these important factual questions is for her to turn over her server to the proper authorities for independent forensic evaluation.”

Clinton turned over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department earlier this year and the Benghazi committee is in the process of going through those messages.

*Information gathered from CNN and the Associated Press was used in putting this story together.

Jim Williams is the Washington Bureau Chief, Digital Director as well as the Director of Special Projects for Genesis Communications. He is starting his third year as part of the team. This is Williams 40th year in the media business, and in that time he has served in a number of capacities. He is a seven time Emmy Award winning television producer, director, writer and executive. He has developed four regional sports networks, directed over 2,000 live sporting events including basketball, football, baseball hockey, soccer and even polo to name a few sports. Major events include three Olympic Games, two World Cups, two World Series, six NBA Playoffs, four Stanley Cup Playoffs, four NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship Tournaments (March Madness), two Super Bowl and over a dozen college bowl games. On the entertainment side Williams was involved s and directed over 500 concerts for Showtime, Pay Per View and MTV Networks.