After former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton finally offered some answers to why she used private email during her stint at the Department of State, Congressman Trey Gowdy (R, SC), the chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, issued a statement of his own saying that “serious questions” still remain.
After finally hearing from Secretary Clinton on the email scandal, Gowdy said in his statement that “we are left with more questions than answers.”
Gowdy continued saying that there are serious problems with the security of the Clinton email system from a national security standpoint. Gowdy asked “who authorized this exclusive use of personal email despite guidance to the contrary from both her State Department and the White House, who had access to the server from the time Secretary Clinton left office until the time–almost two years later–the State Department asked for these public records back, and who culled through the records to determine which were personal and which were public.”
Gowdy went on to note that the American public needs to have access to these servers in order to answer these nagging and important question.
Without access to Secretary Clinton’s personal server, there is no way for the State Department to know it has acquired all documents that should be made public, and given State’s delay in disclosing the fact Secretary Clinton exclusively used personal email to conduct State business, there is no way to accept State’s or Secretary Clinton’s certification she has turned over all documents that rightfully belong to the American people. That is why I see no choice but for Secretary Clinton to turn her server over to a neutral, detached third-party arbiter who can determine which documents should be public and which should remain private. Secretary Clinton alone created this predicament, but she alone does not get to determine its outcome. These public records at issue are broader than Libya and broader than Benghazi. The Secretary of State has enormous responsibility and jurisdiction and the public, the media and Congress have a legal right to access these public records without impediment.
The Congressman also charged that Secretary Clinton created more questions than answers with Tuesday’s press conference.
“The Select Committee is left with no choice but to call her to appear at least twice,” Gowdy said. “The first appearance will be to clear up her role and resolve issues surrounding her exclusive use of personal email to conduct official business. This is necessary to establish our Committee has a complete record with respect to Secretary Clinton’s time in office. Our committee will then call her to appear before the Committee in a public hearing to answer questions specifically regarding Libya and the Benghazi terrorist attacks that took the lives of our four brave fellow citizens.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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