Posted on 10/01/2015 9:11:18 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
The House Benghazi Committee's investigation will soon take center stage in American politics. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will appear at a hearing held by the committee next month — little more than one year before the presidential election.
Since its formation in 2014, the committee has served as something of a thorn in Clinton's side. The committee first uncovered that Clinton had used personal email and at least one private server as secretary of state. Her public responses to questions about her unusual email arrangement have dogged her presidential campaign, as new revelations have forced her to alter earlier statements made about her exchange of classified information and the security of her communications.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the committee investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Libya, talked to the Washington Examiner about his investigation, his plans for Clinton's hearing, and the changes that he hopes result from his committee's work.
The following is an edited transcript of Gowdy's in-depth conversation with the Examiner:
Examiner: I wanted to ask you specifically about the potential existence of multiple servers being used by former Secretary Clinton. How do you intend to locate any other devices or servers where emails may have been transferred or stored? Would you subpoena the FBI?
Gowdy: No. The committee on Benghazi only has subpoena power for people and documents. We don't have subpoena power for items. It would be inappropriate — to put it mildly — for a legislative branch entity to issue a subpoena to an executive branch investigatory entity. So I'm going to let the FBI do what it is that they are trained and experts at doing. My committee does not and never has had the power to subpoena a server. We do have the power to ask that she turn it over to a third party, which we have consistently done since March. There would necessarily be things on the server no matter how many servers may exist that would be beyond the scope of our committee. And my interest is in making sure the public record is complete as it relates to Libya and Benghazi, but there are lots of folks who have equities in her public record far beyond us. So it would need to be an entity that had more jurisdiction than our committee.
Examiner: Do you feel like you can get a complete record of what went on without talking to the FBI about what they uncover and Platte River Networks [the company that managed Clinton's email after she left the State Department], necessarily, about what they were involved in, in terms of handling her server and private network?
Gowdy: Well I don't know that you ever know that you have a complete public record, that's true no matter what your investigation is, whether it's this job or the job I had before this one. I wouldn't know who would tell you that you had everything. I mean, who's in a position to know that? We're going to ask the secretary when she comes in October. But the bureau, and perhaps it's just that I'm jaundiced because I used to work with them, they're not supposed to confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation. And the last thing the bureau would want or should have is someone injecting himself or herself into an investigation that doesn't have jurisdiction. I have jurisdiction in a number of arenas, but the national security would not be one of them, potential criminality is not one of them. And I'm not discussing just Secretary Clinton. The broad, I mean go back to Lois Lerner, we had certain abilities with respect to Lois Lerner, but the notion that we can pursue any criminal charge is just, I hate to take people back to civics, but the legislative branch doesn't have the power to do that.
Examiner: Do you yet know why there was no military response even on that night of the attack in Benghazi?
Gowdy: No. And I wouldn't be able to answer that question definitively until we talked to the last witness. You can talk to 99 and it may be the hundredth that provides the most compelling testimony or frankly the most credible, so there's reasons that you don't draw conclusions until you have talked to everyone that you can talk to and examine every document that you can examine. And again, harkening back to the job I'm most familiar with, there's a reason judges tell the jury not only can you not make up your mind to the very end, you can't even think about what you're going to do until the very end. I won't be able to answer that question until the last witness has been interviewed and the last document has been examined.
Examiner: Do you believe Hillary Clinton appears to be hiding something from your committee in particular?
Gowdy: Well hiding something denotes a level of science or intent that I am ill-equipped to know what is in anyone else's mind other than my own. I know that the State Department has been recalcitrant, and that is putting it mildly and politely, in responding to our committee's request for information. And it may very well be that the unique email arrangement she had with herself contributes to their recalcitrance, but frankly the State Department either knew or should have known that she was housing public records on her own server, and that takes us through the pendency of her tenure. Then fast forward to the day she left the State Department. There is no argument that she should have kept the public record at that point. Even assuming arguendo, and I reject it, but assume arguendo that her explanation of convenience persuades some. The need for convenience ended the day she was no longer secretary of state. So all of this, and it is my primary interest, all of what has happened with respect to her email arrangement and its progeny, I'm interested because I'm a citizen, I'm interested because I'm a member of Congress, but for purposes of our committee my interest is, are we ever going to have a guarantee that we have everything that is relevant so we could answer the question that the House asked us to answer? And it is undeniable that this email arrangement complicates our ability to do that. And you combine that with an executive branch that is neither transparent nor forthcoming with documents you are entitled to and it's been quite a slog for us in terms of being able to do the jobs we were asked to do.
Examiner: Do you think that her actual email arrangement itself had any impact on the events that transpired on the ground in Benghazi?
Gowdy: You used the word 'think' and I can't deal in those terms. I mean what I think is no more important than what the greeter at Walmart thinks. It's a fact-centric investigation and I won't be able to, the only way to answer that question is to have the full universe of documents that are responsive to our jurisdiction, which is not just Benghazi, it would also be documents related to Libya. And frankly it wasn't just Secretary Clinton that had and made use of private email. It was also some of her top aides, all of which has combined to make oversight difficult if not impossible. But you would have to ask them what their goal was. She said it's convenient; it was convenience. You're welcome to believe that if you would like, but there's another explanation that also starts with 'C' and that would be control.
This article is a little old, but it doesn't show up in a search of our archives
For the list!
Going home to live in SC.
True or not, ???.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Trey Gowdy fake conservative
http://www.mofopolitics.com/2015/09/30/see-i-told-you-so-trey-gowdy-is-a-rino-wimp/
“I’m going to let the FBI do what it is that they are trained and experts at doing.”
Unfortunately, the FBI seems to have no interest in sharing those findings with anyone.
Falso
He and his aides are denying his retirement.
“Just read that on CSPAN Trey just announced he will NOT run for re-election. Going home to live in SC.”
Bought off, or family threatened with harm from the Clinton Crime Family?
Why we keep beating our heads against this wall confuses me. Nothing, I mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is EVER going to happen to the Clintons. Nothing.
Not in OUR lifetime, anyways. *Snicker*
“Trey Gowdy fake conservative”
http://www.mofopolitics.com/2015/09/30/see-i-told-you-so-trey-gowdy-is-a-rino-wimp/
Anyone willing to do a bit of research, knew this years ago, but thanks for the link.
Research? Thats why I like you. You have SUCH a sense of humor.
Hillary Clinton ran her own personal communications system.
Hillary Clinton ran her own personal spy ring in Libya.
Our State Department was kicked in the teeth in Benghazi. Four Americans, including a USAmbassador who represented ALL Americans, were murdered there. We still don’t know the loss of intelligence material.
The proximate cause of this debacle was Hillary Clinton’s negligence.
And I don’t think anyone can rule out that she was committing espionage against us, the United States of America.
Mr. Cummings will own him
Kevin Mc Carthy has already blown the hearing
Apparently, not.
“Research? Thats why I like you. You have SUCH a sense of humor.”
Yeah...I laugh myself to sleep every night : )
Well it’s “Laugh clown laugh” or Hanging ourselves. I mean there aren’t a lot of realistic options here...
Arguendo is a Latin legal term meaning for the sake of argument. The phrase "assuming, arguendo, that ..." is used in courtroom settings and academic legal settings to designate provisional and unendorsed assumptions that will be made at the beginning of an argument in order to explore their implications.
“Examiner: Do you yet know why there was no military response even on that night of the attack in Benghazi?
Gowdy: No. “
We have a pretty good idea. . .http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/191373/betrayal-benghazi-colonel-phil-handley
Why should we hang OURSELVES?
We didn’t cause this hell.
Let the promoters of same get the hotfoot.
Only fair, right ?
Chico Marx “ It maka no difference a to me. I got lotsa matches! “
Well thats why we laugh. Besides everyday that we don’t hang ourselves our statues grow considerably and a liberal gets his wings in hell.
Might topple Guam eventually but that’s the risk we gotta take being right so often...
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