Washington, DC – Wednesday, July 8, Correct The Record released the following response to Republican Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy’s inaccurate and conflicting statement on Hillary Clinton’s interview with CNN on Tuesday.
“Trey Gowdy can’t keep the facts or his own rules straight. The House Select Committee on Benghazi did not discover Hillary Clinton’s private email address, as is intimated in Gowdy’s statement,” said Brad Woodhouse, President at Correct The Record. “That email address was publicly disclosed two years ago and Gowdy is misleading the media about how he obtained this email address to lend legitimacy to this discredited investigation. Gowdy’s continuous mischaracterizations and misinformation regarding the testimony of Sidney Blumenthal could be corrected, if only Gowdy would release the transcript of Blumenthal’s deposition, which he has thus far refused to do.
“If one thing is certain, it is Gowdy’s consistent inconsistencies with the rules of his attempted defamation of the Secretary of State. First he says a subpoena is heavy handed, then he subpoenas a cooperating witness, sending federal marshals to the home of the witness in an act of intimidation. After Gowdy promised that serious investigations do not leak information, numerous leaks have occurred, including leaks of inaccurate information.
“That Gowdy issued a response to a campaign interview by Secretary Clinton proves his intention to politicize what he claims is a non-partisan investigation. It’s shameful that Gowdy intends to continue to politicize the tragic deaths of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty in an effort to score partisan points before the 2016 election.”
THE FACTS:
Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email was reported in 2013. “Blumenthal’s memos and e-mails to Clinton were sent to her at a non-governmental e-mail address through the web domain ‘clintonemail.com.’ As TSG reported last week, after Blumenthal’s e-mail account was compromised, the hacker searched it for e-mails sent to Clinton, and further sorted the mail to segregate any attachment–like Word files–that were included in Blumenthal’s correspondence to Clinton. Many of these pilfered documents were memos to Clinton on foreign policy and intelligence matters.” [Smoking Gun, 3/18/13]
Clinton’s use of a personal email address “was widely known” by State Department and U.S. government colleagues she emailed. “Her usage was widely known to the over 100 Department and U.S. government colleagues she emailed, as her address was visible on every email she sent. To address requirements to keep records of her work emails, it was her practice to email government officials on their ‘.gov’ accounts. That way, they would be immediately captured and preserved in the Department’s system.” [Clinton Office Q&A document, 3/10/15]
Gowdy called serving a subpoena “a little heavy handed.” Gowdy said “it just seems a little heavy-handed, to slap a subpoena on a former cabinet-level official, regardless of which party. If they are willing to come, then work with them on the date.” [Gowdy interview, WYFF, 4/8/15]
Gowdy: “Serious investigations do not leak information.” “So while tremendous progress has been made, both in the quantity and quality of transcribed interviews, those interviews must remain private until such time as a final report has been written in fairness to both the conduct of a proper investigation and to all relevant parties. I have made this a fundamental principle for the Committee and its staff because serious investigations do not leak information or make selective releases of information without full and proper context.” [Gowdy’s “Interim Progress Update,” 5/8/15]
The Select Committee doctored emails between Clinton and Blumenthal. “Three weeks ago, Politico published a fairly long, front-page piece with a provocative headline: ‘Benghazi panel probes Sidney Blumenthal’s work for David Brock.’ At issue, of course, is the House Select Committee on Benghazi, already responsible for one of the longest congressional investigations in congressional history, and its meandering focus…. There was, however, a problem: thePolitico report wasn’t entirely accurate – or more to the point, thePolitico report was based in part on information leaked to the news outlet that turned out to be untrue. This morning, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the committee, sent a letter to the panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), making the case that it ‘it now appears that someone who was given access to the Select Committee’s documents leaked doctored information to the press in order to make unsubstantiated allegations against Secretary Clinton. ‘ By all appearances, Cummings has a very good point. … Politico’s online edition ultimately ran a correction and deleted the sentence about Clinton’s ‘I’m pushing to WH’ email altogether. But Politico obviously didn’t make this up; it relied on a source that provided misleading information, apparently with a specific partisan agenda in mind. To be sure, we’ve grown accustomed to some deceptive leaks from congressional Republicans, especially in the area of Benghazi conspiracy theories, but Gowdy has vowed to run a tight ship. In fact, the South Carolina Republican has specifically boasted, ‘[S]erious investigations do not leak information or make selective releases of information without full and proper context.’ So, what’s the explanation here? And if this leak was bogus, what else has Gowdy’s Republican-run panel leaked to the press that also wasn’t true?” [MSNBC, 7/6/15]