Hillary Rodham Clinton wiped her email server “clean,” permanently deleting all emails from it, the Republican chairman of a House of Representatives committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, said on Friday.
Rep. Trey Gowdy said the former secretary of state has failed to produce a single new document in recent weeks and has refused to relinquish her server to a third party for an independent review, as Mr. Gowdy has requested.
Ms. Clinton, the presumptive frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, faced a Friday deadline to respond to a subpoena for emails and documents related to Libya, including the 2012 attacks in a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya. The attention to Ms. Clinton’s use of a private email account and server has threatened to become a distraction as she prepares to launch her campaign.
Ms. Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, said Mr. Gowdy was looking in the wrong place. In a six-page letter released late on Friday, Mr. Kendall said Ms. Clinton had turned over to the State Department all work-related emails sent or received during her tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.
“The Department of State is therefore in possession of all Secretary Clinton’s work-related emails from the (personal email) account,” Mr. Kendall wrote.
Mr. Kendall also said it would be pointless for Ms. Clinton to turn over her server, even if legally authorised, since “no emails ... reside on the server or on any backup systems associated with the server.”
The Benghazi committee demanded further documents and access to the server after it was revealed that Ms. Clinton used a private email account and server during her tenure at State. Mr. Gowdy said he will work with House leaders to consider options. Speaker John Boehner has not ruled out a vote in the full House to force Ms. Clinton to turn over the server if she declines to make it available by an April 3 deadline set by Mr. Gowdy.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the Benghazi panel, said Mr. Kendall’s letter confirmed “what we all knew — that Secretary Clinton already produced her official records to the State Department, that she did not keep her personal emails and that the Select Committee has already obtained her emails relating to the attacks in Benghazi.”
In a statement released later on Friday, Ms. Clinton’s spokesman Nick Merrill said she “would like her emails made public as soon as possible and... she’s ready and willing to come and appear herself for a hearing open to the American public.”
Mr. Kendall said in his letter that Ms. Clinton’s personal attorneys reviewed every email sent and received from her private email address 62,320 emails in total and identified all work-related emails. Those totalled 30,490 emails or approximately 55,000 pages. The material was provided to the State Department on December 5, 2014, and it is the agency’s discretion to release those emails after a review.
Mr. Kendall said Ms. Clinton has asked for the release of all of those emails. He said the State Department is reviewing the material to decide whether any sensitive information needs to be protected.
“Secretary Clinton is not in a position to produce any of those emails to the committee in response to the subpoena without approval from the State Department, which could come only following a review process,” Mr. Kendall wrote. Mr. Gowdy said he was disappointed at Ms. Clinton’s lack of cooperation.
“Not only was the secretary the sole arbiter of what was a public record, she also summarily decided to delete all emails from her server, ensuring no one could check behind her analysis in the public interest,” he said.
